I. WENT. SKYDIVING.  

i was waiting to post this until i had put up my video to youtube so i could show you, but i'm too dumb for that.  i do have a pretty cool video though...just saying.

but lets start from the beginning. we signed our lives away...literally. if something happened we couldn't even sue for 21 years after our death! then we picked the music for our videos, met our dive instructors, geared up (my instructor (JC) was tightening something in back of me, and says to the other "Hey, did they fix this?" The other says, "Oh yeah, looks like they used duct tape to tape it up. That'll be fine."  then walks away....), and got on the plane.  the plane.  there were no seats but the pilot's, we sat on the floor in the laps of our instructors, (only the four of us, my aunt, me, and the instructors fit) and we took off with the door open.  and we probably went at least 1000 ft with it open. and then when it was closed there might as well have not been a door, since it was a plastic sheet thingy..all it did was shield us from the wind.  i was closest to the door. i literally had a birds eye view of everything going on around me--it was amazing!  as we gained altitude it got colder and colder, and by the height of 11,000 feet i was shivering-which was mistaken for nerves-but it was soo cold.  and then he says to put on my goggles and sit up in his lap, he hooks me in, then slides open the door, and says to swing my legs over the side.  sure, easy enough. until he slides me out off the edge, but we don't fall,  because you see---HE is still sitting on the edge, while i'm hooked to him and not moving but just dangling off the plane with nothing to hold onto. then he asks if i'm ready--what if i'm not?--but i am, and we fall.  i think my dad did the math, and if i remember correctly, i believe he said we were traveling at 160 mph during the free fall.  which was 40 seconds.  i guess i was screaming (not in fear, as my dad likes to insinuate) but i was having so much fun.  my poor instructor. my father says he could hear me from the ground.  also, i'm pretty sure i was senseless as to most of what was going on around me, since he said he would tap me on the arm when i was supposed to open my arms, but after tapping me twice he just ripped them off the harness himself. then the parachute opens, and well that kinda hurts around the crotch area when you are stopped midair by the harness that is around both your thighs. the chest strap also was choking me on the way down, but no biggie. it didn't really matter--it was just incredible.  he let me drive the parachute too, and that was awesome. i drove it through a cloud. then landing was fun--i just kinda slid while my instructor kind of tripped over me..not sure what i was really supposed to do but that was good enough. i was on the ground anyway.

long story short..IT WAS AWESOME!

i guess life is funny sometimes.

last summer i started digitizing my parent's home videos, since they're on VHS and, well, of course thats out of style.  right now i'm watching my sister singing in a high school choir concert...i have to say, it sounds rather awful.  she looks very pretty though. (hopefully that will appease her for saying that it sounds bad.)  even though her t-shirt is tucked into her jeans. but its the end of the year 2000--i might give her a break for that one.  soon this tape will turn into our cancun trip, and thats what i want to see at the moment.  oh now she has a solo--which of course doesn't sound bad, since we have such a similar voice they wouldn't let us audition together for music man. whats funny is that the last tape (or was it two tapes ago?) i watched her duck dance when she was probably 5 or 6 and she wiggled her butt at the camera quite a bit.  always performing. :)

whats surreal is watching people who are dead now. my aunt leson died of breast cancer not too long ago.  technically she's not my aunt, she's my cousin once removed. (my dad's cousin.) but when i was little we spent a lot of time with her and uncle ken and their kids, alyse, james, austin, and emma.  but then we didn't.  being young i didn't really understand.  i still don't really understand.  they got divorced, moved away, she left the church, and we didn't see them for a long time.  then aunt leson was diagnosed with cancer.  i saw her once when she stayed with my grandparents. then she died, and the funeral was held in colorado.  i had school; in my family, that means i didn't go.  my dad went. they were close.  already tonight he's mentioned twice how strange it is to see her so full of life as she was back when the videos were taken. he says its hard to reconcile with the image of her at her funeral.

i guess life is funny sometimes.  

the best way to see the time change is in the dogs.  when jenna was little (25 [or so] years ago) we got barkley.  the only way i remember him is in his old age when he could hardly stand up on his own, but today i saw him as a young dog running around while jenna rode her bicycle with training wheels (and crashed) and little eric had flaming red hair and a new scar next to his eye.  i'm looking at my old old black lab ephraim right now--he's got gray hairs under his chin and between the pads of his feet and his breath smells like old man, but today i saw him as 10-11 week old puppy on my 8th birthday in 1999. 

it seems to me getting old, grown up, & responsible is too much of a hassle. where did i sign up for this again?

ps. why do choirs always sing pieces that are too high for the sopranos in them?

something hit me in the head while i was

walking home from my last class of the winter 2011 semester.


some fly thing must have been the culprit.

but the point i wanted to get across was that the semester is OVER!
almost.

spring beauty

i don't think i noticed this last time around, but spring is beautiful!  i'm not sure i can say that its worth the snow, but it is definitely a nice treat after being so harshly dealt with during the winter.
yesterday i stepped out of the wibby after handling my froggies, and there had just been a nice little rainfall, so it smelled wonderfully of wet asphalt--the clouds were only a bit in front of the sun and you could see the silver lining in all of them. there was a slight breeze, the kind that tugs at you playfully, and the temperature was probably 65 degrees, perfect.  as i was walking home i noticed the green sprouting everywhere, little buds on all the trees that have been barren for so long, the mountain is turning greener, and the daffodils along the path home are annoyingly beautiful.  i wanted to skip and sing-in fact i did do just that.


so how does it seem fair that finals is next week?

throwback

can we just for a sec mention how cute i was as a child? and how much my niece looks like me?

(i'm in the middle, holding the cat...Jenna just saw the camera and had to come running.)

This is my Lilster....do we not look alike??

oh we totally do. 

Eric loved me enough to hug me when we were little! 

Jenna, posing...me, falling...eric.........

In Aunt Cami's tea party clothes i wouldn't put on for her..

wrestling with helsa...usually it was my hair or hair tie in her mouth i was wrestling away from her

itsy bitsy spider in rain boots!

Morgen!  basically my whole childhood.