Well, he did it...and survived!!

Yes, yes, my sweet and wonderful husband collected all the nerves he had and WILLINGLY jumped out of a perfectly good plane this past Saturday. The plane carried him 13,500 feet into the air and, strapped to another, more experienced person, plummeted to the earth at 120 miles an hour. I know, that sounds a little extreme, but those are the facts. The experience from the ground, however, was a little different.

First, we were super excited to have a day to ourselves to just go somewhere and be together. We don't get many of those and took full advantage. Cade was with my mother and we left early so we could go to this mall in Cypress (which is waaaayyyy on the other side of Houston) but it's really nice. We didn't do too much shopping because of the heat and it's an outdoor mall, but it was nice to be together. We left from there to head over to Skydive Houston in Waller, TX. We didn't actually know how long it would take to get there so we left about an hour early to make sure if we got lost we could find our way. It actually wasn't hard to find, so we ended up being an hour early for his check-in. It was an ok place, I suppose. There was a pool, some cabins, a shaded place to hang out if you were just a spectator, and an air-conditioned "lobby" area for re-stuffing of parachutes, getting food, or whatever. We sat and waited for them to call his name because you have to watch this really lame video that teaches you NOTHING...lol...except who the inventor of the tandem skydive harnesses. It was a waste of time, really. Ryan had to fill out a lot of paperwork to state that he wouldn't sue the place if the parachute didn't open. Which, honestly, if you are WILLINGLY taking a risk to jump out of a plane at 13,000 feet, don't you already know that there is a CHANCE that anything COULD happen? I mean, come on....

Anyway, we got there early....

I was pretty surprised at some of the people I saw. Very few of them were first-time skydivers who came for the "thrill of a lifetime". Most of the people we encountered were people who do this as a hobby. It honestly surprised me. They all had their own gear and stuffed and re-stuffed their parachutes 3 or 4 times before Ryan ever got into the air. They were all pretty rough looking and their language matched their appearance. I was glad Cade didn't go with us. As much as I wanted to get away from the foul language I couldn't because of the heat outside. It was almost the lesser of two evils.

Finally, after about 4 hours of waiting around they called Ryan's name. He met his tandem dive instructor who, as he was hooking him into the harness, was talking so fast I'm surprised Ryan even remembered what to do. But, as quickly as the harness was put on they were out the door and into the plane. I sat quietly outside under a tree and waited for him to float to the earth. I met a really nice man as I sat there. It was a giant relief to just sit and talk to someone who wasn't spewing foul language from his mouth. He had been there for 8 hours with his son who was taking a class so he could skydive alone. At least I met someone who had been there longer than us...I didn't feel so bad about waiting so long. After about 10 minutes or so I began to see the parachutes silhouetted against the clouds. The tandem divers always come last so I waited some more and finally saw what I thought to be Ryan and his instructor. What I saw was someone who looked as if they were flying out of control...doing flips and spins. Later, Ryan told me everything the guy did and the experience of it all. The guy was in control the whole time....lol...or so I was told, anyway.

All in all it was a really fun time. Ryan had a blast. I know it's something that has been on his list of things to do that he never thought he would do. He says he will do it again....we'll see...lol.

these are some divers we saw as we were waiting.

this was Ryan's tandem instructor. he really was a nice guy.

Ryan said, "It makes me feel really bold to wear something that says DANGER across my back."

This is Ryan...he was waving to me, but I don't think you can see that.

he landed safely.