30th Birthday Arizona Trip

I headed to Phoenix a couple of days early to spend a little time with Stacy & my parents (who came down from St. George). Stacy took me shopping & to lunch the first day & that night my parents arrived. We got to see Sydney (Stacy's oldest daughter) perform in her choir concert (she did awesome!) and the next day I got to go shopping and to lunch with my Mom & Stacy. Thanks Dad for watching the 3 crazies!

 We started referring to these 3 as the triplets since Jack is just 2 months older than the twins. Although to look at them you'd think Jack was the younger one. Especially next to Max who is much taller and larger. :)

 Getting ready for bed with their flashlights.

 I snuck in after they all fell asleep. So cute! These 3 played hard the whole time we were there. They had so much fun together. Once Jeff arrived Stacy & my parents tended Jack for me so Jeff and I could have a little get away just the two of us (and sometimes Addie).

 On Sunday Stacy had my brother Ryan and his family over for a February Birthday celebration.

 The four of us all have February birthdays. 

(My mom, Emily, Jake & me)

 Addie at the party. She's looking back to normal here. On Thursday night she caught Jack's eye & ear infection. Luckily my brother is a doctor and was able to check her out and call in some meds for her. She was as good as new in a couple of days. Poor thing.

 For my Mom's birthday I made her this photo book of her with my kids.

Some of you may remember the post about Jeff always busting out the shirt of Stacy with her MG on it at family functions? Well, after 3 years she finally got him back and busted this out on this trip. Hilarious! For those who don't know that is a pic of Jeff dressed up as "Pita Man" in Jerusalem on the tee shirt.  

 Once Jeff arrived we got to do all sorts of fun things to FINALLY REALLY celebrate turning 30! (are you sick of hearing about how I turned 30 yet? Too bad.) We went to dinner with Liz & Mike (I forgot to take a pic), to Tia Rosa's (my all time favorite Mexican restaurant), watched movies, did a little shopping, but the most EXCITING thing we did to celebrate was...

 ...GO SKYDIVING!!!

 That's a combination of pure excitement and terror rolled up in one on my face.

 There's our plane.

 The plane's engines were on as we loaded in so it was REALLY windy.

 Me with my tandem partner Sam.

Jeff with his tandem partner Tom. (Take good care of him Tom!)

 After the other 15 single jumpers went the only two left on the plane were Jeff & me. Jeff went first.

 He loved it!

 Jeff landing.

 He's glad to be on the ground in this one. :)

I was REALLY nervous when Jeff jumped, but then the plane had to do a loop because there were too many jumpers in the sky so I had about 4 minutes as the only one on the plane to think about it all and I hit a zen spot. Sounds weird, I know. But honestly by the time it was my turn to jump I was calm and ready. It was way scarier watching Jeff jump than when I jumped. All that was going through my mind in this picture was the instructions Sam had given me. Arms in, jump, arch back, legs together and back, wait to be tapped, then arms out. That's it. Over and over and over again, until we jumped. Jeff said that he was the opposite. He forgot ALL the instruction and could only think about the fact that he was about to jump out of a freaking airplane (insert panic)! :)

 Here I go...

 I had a full 55 seconds of free fall before the parachute came out. INCREDIBLE!

 See how my cheek looks deformed? That's some serious wind speed up against my body! We are falling around 140 miles per hour from 13,000 feet. That's 2 1/2 miles straight up in the sky!

 Hang loose baby.

 There goes the chute.

 Up we go.

 After the parachute gets pulled you go from screaming at the top of your lungs and not being able to hear it to complete silence. It's so unreal. The whole world gets quiet and peaceful. Then you just glide around the sky. He let me hold onto the parachute and help us pull in one direction or the other as we did some cork screws. Those get your tummy going. So fun!

 My landing was super smooth. We glided in and then just stood up. No big deal.

 The final high five with the man who got me to the ground safely. Nothing quite bonds you with a person like putting your life in their hands! Love you Sam!!!

 All I can say is this was the most amazing experience EVER! I would totally recommend it to anyone. The adrenaline rush is like nothing else. I wanted to do it again immediately after we hit the ground. (if it weren't so expensive we would have)

Click here to see the video of my jump.

Click here to see Jeff's video.

Okay, now I promise to STOP talking about my 30th birthday. Consider it CELEBRATED!!!