What a day that was! My wife sure knows how to celebrate!
Yesterday was my 40th birthday. My wife and daughter, for 2 years, had been planning something for my birthday and they surprised me with it. But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit, so let me back up.
I woke up early and went for a run first. What a blessing to be able to say that, as a formerly-300lb person! It certainly underscores the fact that, while I've regained SOME of the weight I lost, I'm not who I once was. It was a beautiful morning and I had a great run.
I came home and showered while Christine and Faith were waking up. Then I came downstairs and they gave me my gifts - (2) leather jackets (brown and black - long story; great shopping deal) and a "money tree" filled with 40 "Happy Birthday" instant lottery tickets. Then they sprang their surprise on me...
With video running, they told me that I would be jumping out of an airplane at 11:00AM! I could not believe it! I mean, I had always expressed a desire to do it, but my wife being somewhat of a worrying person, I had written that one off. And here, SHE signed me up for a tandem sky dive!
So, we went out for breakfast (sorry, Weight Watchers...this was not a good day for eating) and then headed for the airfield. Sky Dive Long Island is where we went. I was not scared in the least bit, even after the video explaining all the risks and such. I was most definitely excited.
I met my instructor, Ben, and got suited up. I waved goodbye and boarded the small plane. The ride up was about 20 minutes and was absolutely beautiful with a shore-to-shore view of eastern Long Island. Then we reached 13,700 feet (that's a bit more than 2.5 miles!) and the door opened. I was the first out from the plane, so I didn't have time to be scared at all. We just started falling! About 1 minute of free fall that was absolutely exhilarating! We did some flat spins and just kept falling. I believe that we fell about 9000 feet before Ben pulled the chute open.
After that, it was an amazing 4+ minute gentle ride home, with some controlled turns and dives mixed in. Roller coasters simply may not cut it for me any more! The views again were just amazing. And with Ben's skill, we landed about 30 feet from where we took off - literally! Wow! What a rush!
We came home and relaxed a bit, with Christine preparing dinner. My parents were stopping by for dinner and dessert. I surprised them by showing them the video of what I did that day and my Mom said, "Thank God I did not know about this before you went!" They were shocked.
Dinner was incredible - BBQ ribs, baked potato, corn on the cob, biscuits. Unfortunately, I ate a bit too much, but hey...it's my birthday! I had made my own cake, something I love to do. It was a 4-layer chocolate cake with crunchy peanut butter, raspberry jelly and creamy peanut butter filling and chocolate icing. Oh, my gosh, was that good!
Then, while recovering from my overindulgence, I decided to start scratching my instant tickets. They were NY State "Lucky Birthday" $1 games. The 2nd one I scratched, I won the maximum prize of $500! Would you believe it!?!? (BTW...for those who know me, they know that this is the 2nd largest prize I've won from a scratch-off...the $100,000 from Christmas of 2003 was the biggest, but that's a whole other story!). All tolled, I won $534 from the 40 tickets! Amazing way to cap off the day!
As I said, what a day that was!
