Birthday weekend part 1

The weekend after my birthday was pretty much the icing on the cake of a fabulous week.

On Friday night my friend Rachel (who I met at Duck Beach) came down from Boston and brought her roommate Gina and her puppy Pepper.

Pepper is ADORABLE.  We had such much fun with him all weekend.  I took him for a little walk Friday night and it's crazy how much attention he gets.  People walking by will ask about him, or just point and say how cute he is.  There were even some random teenagers that came up and didn't even say anything to me, but just pet him and play with him for like 5 minutes.

Pepper wasn't potty trained yet so he rocked the doggy diapers.  There's even a whole for the tail.  So cute.

He's such a little cuddle bug.  So fun.

Nastiest picture of me, but he's just too cute.

So Saturday morning Rachel, Chelsie, Jaclyn, and I headed out to Long Island to go skydiving!

The Rachels....filling out our paperwork.

Kinda far away....we utilized the self timer and put the camera on the hood of the car.

So skydiving was AMAZING, to say the least.  The only lame part of the whole ordeal is that they didn't take pictures of us during the dive.  We paid for the dvds which are awesome, and I'm still trying to figure out if I can pull still photos from the movie.

I hadn't been nervous at all during the days leading up to the jump.  We got there and filled out our paperwork, and then waited for our turn to jump!  Chelsie and Jaclyn went first.  The plane was SO tiny it could only fit two jumpers (and their jumper coach and pilot) at a time.  So Rachel and I got to hang out on the ground and watch when Chels and Jac jumped.  Rachel saw them in free fall but I couldn't see them until their parachute opened, and then of course the landing.  It was really fun to watch them before we went.

Then it was my and Rachel's turn.  Rachel was jumping with Victor, and I was jumping with Nick.  We headed over to the plane and had about a 20 minute ride up before we reached the jumping altitude.  I couldn't get over how small the plane was!  The pilot was the only one with a chair.  The rest of us were just sitting on the floor (with seatbelts) but were pretty much on top of each other.

The view from the plane was gorgeous.  We could see the Hamptons, Fire Island, and other beaches.  I thought the 20 minutes would drag on and I'd be super antsy to just jump, but it flew by.  The more time that passed, the more nervous I became.

We were jumping first so we were right by the door.  Before I knew it Nick was telling me to get up on my knees so he could hook us together.  At this point I was extremely nervous!  Then the pilot leaned over and started unhooking the door.  I was really freaking out.  Then Nick opened the door, put his leg out on the ledge, and told me to put mine out.  (We'd gone over the instructions about a million times, seriously, probably 5 or 6 times, and there were only a few instructions.  However, before he opened the door I told him I'd pretty much forgotten everything.)  It's actually not that difficult, all you really have to remember is to let go of your grip on your harness during free fall and lean back...it's pretty instinctual.

So once the door is open and my leg's outside I remember being mid sentence saying, "I don't think I can get out!" (Because the positioning of my body was super awkward.)  But before I could even finish the sentence we were out the door in free fall!  The second we got out I wasn't scared anymore and it was just fun.  Getting out of the door is the hardest part.  If I hadn't been pulled out I'm sure it would have been really tough.  

I never got the "falling" feeling where you lose your stomach.  It just felt like I was floating.  The free fall lasts about 45-50 seconds.  I can hardly even remember it.  I just remember my mouth being SO dry, and that it was SO fun.  Then Nick pulled the parachute and I actually got a little whiplash.  My shoulders were really sore for a few days after (but that didn't happen to the other girls.)  After he pulled the parachute it just got silent and we floated down for about 5 minutes.  The scenery was GORGEOUS and I remember I just kept feeling like it was so surreal.  One of the really cool parts was there were straps that would steer us, so Nick gave me control and I could pull down on one or the other, which would make us do flips.  It was really fun, but made me super dizzy.

Then we finally came in for our landing.  I did get a landing photo which I should try to scan and upload.  We had a great landing, right on our feet!  It was SO fun.  I totally want to do it again and highly recommend it to anyone!

On our way home Chels spotted an ice cream parlor so we stopped and it was the best idea all day.  The ice cream was SO GOOD.  I could drive back the hour and a half just to get it.  Seriously, amazing.

I always love the view driving into the city.