When Finlays Fly

This blog is exactly a month late, mostly because we've been waiting for our jump photos to come in (and partly because I haven't had much time to). But our photos/videos finally came in today... and I just had to share!

Rewind to September 1: We did out first jump (yes, I said first) to celebrate our 2-year wedding anniversary. There's nothing more romantic than checking insurance benefits and custody sections on our wills before renouncing our love to a camera strapped on someone's helmet. Mike decided to surprise me, so I didn't actually know we were skydiving until we got to the drop zone (maybe he thought I was going to chicken out?)

I watched the video, got a couple of lessons from my jumpmaster Phil and got strapped into a harness. I thought about calling my mom, but decided to hold off until after I landed so I could at least say "Don't worry, I'm alive".

I started to get a little anxious watching my altimeter on the long way up--

4,000 feet....

6,000 feet...

9,000 feet... civilization only kept getting smaller.

Then at 11,000 feet, my videographer Jay swung that door open and for a split second, a tiny hint of "oh shit" hit me like a bag of rocks and stepping out off that perfectly good plane seemed crazier than it did from ground level. I took a nice, cold breath of air, staggered to the door attached to Phil, and took the plunge... freefalling for 60 seconds at 120 miles per hour. The wind noise was deafening and I was on complete sensory overload, but I remember making sure I don't forget give the camera a thumbs up. Hell yeah, I was flying and there's no other feeling like it. It’s exciting, exhilarating, daring, nervy, demanding – better than any other kind of rush I've ever had.

Freefalling from 11,000 feet above the ground...

This ROCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just after our chute deployed....

LOVE the shot of the plane in the back...

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Mike's freefall...

Spectacular views...

At around 6,000 feet, Phil led my hand to the knob and I pulled the chute (saving both our lives). The deceleration slammed us on our straps and we soard for another 5 minutes or so before landing. Phil tried to let me stir, but with over 300 lbs and a canopy big enough to carry a duo, I pretty much just sat back, enjoyed the ride and lifted my feet when it was time to touch down.

We're blaming the adrenaline rush for the cheesy thumbs ups...

Fast forward to this past Saturday: Mike and I made our first static line jumps --where as soon as we jumped off the plane, our chutes automatically opened. We spent the first half of the day being force fed information about skydiving: how to open my chute, how to tell if I have a good canopy, how to identify a bad one, what to do if one of the 13 different things that can go wrong goes wrong, how to fly it, how to find the landing spot, how to land it, and how to anticipate and prepare for a bad landing. After a couple hours of ground class, not really sure if I got it all or not, we were on a plane again.... but this time, going solo.

Jump #2 wasn't as friendly to me as the first though. While I managed to stir the canopy back to the airport and landed without broken bones, I did hit a small snag spinning out of the plane and came home with a nasty ropeburn (from the strap of the chute) as a souveneir. They did say there were risks, right? ;)

My little boo boo...

But as you'd probably guessed, it wouldn't be my last. We're hoping to be licensed skydivers by the time we move back to California. How's that for a couple's activity? :)

My mom thinks we should've taken up ballroom dancing instead...... on one of our last conversations, she said "You're the craziest mom I know", which I'll gladly take as a huge compliment.