from the sky or Merry Christmas...

Not too far from the farm, there is a sky diving school. (amazing what's in my own back yard). Anyways, for Christmas last year, I gave Nate a gift certificate for a jump, he said it was "on the list" of things to try... so, thought he would like to try it. Though I must admit, that jumping out of a perfectly good airplane... well, you know the line....

And I have to wonder just how many people are interested in doing something like that... apparently.. many!!!! because when we arrived to watch Nate do his jump, they had already taken up four loads of jumpers, and Nate was in jump number nine.. and I don't know how many more were after that.

The airport is really fun. They have a nice food stand there, lots of picnic tables, dogs are welcomed and if you like airplanes or parachutes, you could just go and spend the whole afternoon   watching. Nate and Mike (his good friend) had to first take a class on how the jump was done. Then they were assigned to an instructor who would do the jump with them. Can't imagine jumping from a plane over and over and over --- all in one day, .. day after day.. but it must be an interesting job to say the least....

Here are the buddies.... waiting to head out to the plane. Surprisingly, neither were that nervous (I think the families were more worried)

If you want, you can hire a photographer to go up as well, they will film your jump and take photos for you. Nate thought that was a good idea, and as the photographer was asking him "who's idea was it do a jump" he pointed to me and said "my Mother in law".... yup, all the usual jokes followed.....

As I said, it's a place for families and so I brought Bogey along thinking it might be good for him to watch the parachutes fall from the sky. As you can see the landing field is right in front of you, and when they come in, they swoop right over your head. It's cool... Bogey didn't mind it at all and just watched the whole morning.

And here comes Nate!!! They drop from 14,000 feet (about two miles).. do some free fall and then open the shoots..... they also give you a fairly long ride down to earth....

And back safe and sound on earth once again. Mike said it might do it again sometime, but Nate seems pretty happy at having done one. Sadie said she would like to try a jump next year... me.... I'll keep my feet on the ground, thank you very much...









Sadie and Abbie found this peace sculpture neat.....

and here is one of Nate' professional photos. Life is never boring if you just take a moment and look around...





Merry Christmas!!!!