Thank you!

For all you do and all that you leave behind

Thanksgiving

I know exactly how it's going to go down.

My niece is wanting to have Thanksgiving dinner at her house in Butte. ~sigh~

My dad will insist that I ride with him and mom since "...we live in the same town and going to the same destination. What, ya don't like us?"
~don't do it Rachel, don't do it~

There is absolutely nothing for the kids to do outside at my niece's house so they'll be inside running up and down the stairs playing

fighting

making noise

getting into trouble ~sigh~

Since it isn't his house there will be no where for my dad to escape to watch football.

He'll get antsy from the noise and the kids and the fighting and the no football and start to get tense. Then he'll start making snide little comments that he wants everyone to think he means in jest when he really is serious.

This will eventually piss my sister off. ~sigh~

We'll have dinner. But we won't all sit together because there isn't any place for a table big enough for the whole clan. At my niece's house.

We'll clean up. What seems like endless plates and forks and knives and pots and pans.

By this time my dad will be tired and grouchy(ier) and we'll make the nice, quiet hour long ride home. Right!

He'll bitch about the whole thing and how noisy the kids were with the noise and the kids and the fighting. ~sigh~

But not this year!

Ahhhh....~sigh~

;)

Those of you who know me know that I love my dog. Moose can testify to that. Although I do think she was a little more worried than I was.

I also know that my dog loves me. How can I tell? I just can.

It's that pure, unashamed, unconditional kind of love.

I'm thinking it is about the closest thing to God we have here.

That's just cool!

God, Dog, Dog, God. Coincidence? I don't think so!

;)

I watch this video over and over again...

I will be doing my day to day thing and all of a sudden get a flashback of the skydive or get that jump in my heart from the rush. I find myself daydreaming about skydiving and wanting to know how they do all the flips and spins and acrobatics. This is so going to break my savings. I absolutely can't wait to go again!

I hate blind dates!


I know the guy, or know who he is so maybe its not really a blind date but a fix up?

We've spoken a couple of times at the gym.

I'm putting off calling him back.


I hate blind dates and fix ups!

Okay, that was weird....

I use my phone as my alarm clock when I have to get up. It's usually set for 5:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays for boot camp and 3:45 on Fridays for work.

This morning I woke up around 2:30 to what sounded like someone calling my name. I actually got up to look out the window (yes, I have some friends who will stand outside and shout, don't ask me why, I don't get it).

Not seeing anyone I climbed back into bed and thought to check the time.

My phone had turned off during the night. If I hadn't been awakened at 2:30 by the sound of someone calling me I never would have gotten up on time this morning.

It had to have been a dream....

Happy Halloween

I am so excited for tonight. No big plans but I'm looking forward to having trick or treaters for the first time in a really long time. I've decorated with pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns and spider webs and I have candy galore...


Let's hope the little goblins show up or I'm going to be stuck with a LOT of sugary goodness.

Have good days kids, play hard!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

That was me, squealing like a school girl (with pig tails and knee socks and that short little plaid skirt...hehe, anyway).

I've got a new toy!!


No, not that kind of toy, this kind of toy!


Canon PowerShot Pro Series S5 IS 8.0MP Digital Camera with 12x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom:
8.0-megapixel CCD
Ultra-powerful 12x optical zoom
High-resolution 2.5-inch vari-angle LCD
DIGIC III Image Processor with improved Face Detection Technology and red-eye correction

I am absolutely loving it but there is so much to learn about this camera. I'm still reading the manual but Os stopped by last night and gave it his official seal of approval. Plan on seeing a lot more photos for a while kids.

YES!

I have to admit that I feel bad for the Rockies. They had a good season and not only did they get swept but they felt the double sting of having it happen at home. You have to feel a little sad for them about that. Just making it to the Series is an accomplishment in and of itself! Well done guys!

It's just a little bit sweeter because they did it at Coors Field.


Uh oh, did I just screw up my Karma?

"A good friend of mine used to say, 'This is a very simple game. You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains.' Think about that for a while."

Isn't life grand?

Dancin' with myself

Did you see that game?

Ok, who forgot to tell Cleveland they had a game last night?

"...And once you have tasted flight, you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been, and there you long to return..."

What a RUSH!

The day was absolutely perfect, blue skies, warm sunshine, incredible scenery and some of the greatest people I've had the chance to meet. Everyone immediately made me feel welcome and were so encouraging. We had to wait a bit for other jumpers but then it was time to go through the jump and then board the plane. My tandem master gave me instructions; scoot to the door, hang feet out, ready, set, go and then arch, arms out, eyes open etc. He taught me how to fly the canopy and then we were loaded into the plane. When the plane started to taxi down the run way I remember thinking "no turning back now."

Then we were in the air, climbing to 9000 feet. It was a calm ride and I wasn't nervous at all. Then my tandem master said it was time to move to the door. That's when the nerves kicked in. We moved to the door and he told me to swing my feet out. It was at this point that I realized I was no longer sitting on the edge of the plane but actually hanging out of it. That was a little unnerving. Then it was "ready, set, go!" and we were out.

The initial fall was a little scary but the feeling didn't last long. Soon we were free falling and the view was incredible (I managed to open my eyes). The free fall lasted for 30 seconds and then I felt the tug from the canopy opening and suddenly we were just floating 5000 feet above the ground. I got to steer the canopy and fly around for about 5 minutes.
The view was incredible and it was such a blast being up there. The landing was a little rough with a slight injury and a huge cloud of dust but I made it through. Everyone told me that I would never look at the sky the same way again and they were right. I now find myself checking the clouds and the clear sky thinking about jumping days. I think I'm hooked!

My first jump! I can't wait to do it again!

I watched him strap on his harness and helmet, climb into the cockpit and, minutes later, a black dot falls off the wing two thousand feet above our field. At almost the same instant, a while streak behind him flowered out into the delicate wavering muslin of a parachute — a few gossamer yards grasping onto air and suspending below them, with invisible threads, a human life, and man who by stitches, cloth, and cord, had made himself a god of the sky for those immortal moments.

A day or two later, when I decided that I too must pass through the experience of a parachute jump, life rose to a higher level, to a sort of exhilarated calmness. The thought of crawling out onto the struts and wires hundreds of feet above the earth, and then giving up even that tenuous hold of safety and of substance, left me a feeling of anticipation mixed with dread, of confidence restrained by caution, of courage salted through with fear. How tightly should one hold onto life? How loosely give it rein? What gain was there for such a risk? I would have to pay in money for hurling my body into space. There would be no crowd to watch and applaud my landing. Nor was there any scientific objective to be gained. No, there was deeper reason for wanting to jump, a desire I could not explain.

It was that quality that led me into aviation in the first place — it was a love of the air and sky and flying, the lure of adventure, the appreciation of beauty. It lay beyond the descriptive words of man — where immortality is touched through danger, where life meets death on equal plane; where man is more than man, and existence both supreme and valueless at the same instant.

— Charles A. Lindbergh, contemplating his first parachute jump, 'The Spirit of St Louis,' 1953

Ever get one of those comments that makes your skin crawl?


~shudder~

Waiting...

I've been waiting. Along with other friends near and far. Waiting for what we all prepared for. Waiting for what she prepared for. Can you ever really prepare? I've never been in the situation of waiting for a loved one to pass away. I know we've all been trying to be supportive and helpful but there is only so much we can do. She knows we love her, she knows we care.

I found myself praying that it doesn't happen today. If it couldn't have been yesterday at least make it tomorrow or Tuesday, not today, not on her birthday. I know what that feels like. I know it hasn't been the birthday celebration she was looking forward to and that makes me sad as well.

We'll continue to wait, friends from afar. Waiting and praying and hoping to provide some comfort when we can. Waiting for news that we know is coming. We just don't know when.

Oh my God that was an amazing walk off homer!!!


2 down!

Traveling for work

"So Rachie, where are you today?"

"Well let's see, flat, no mountains. LOL, I'd say I'm about ten minutes from if I lived here I'd blow my brains out."

;)