The BEST Day of My Life

I know people toss around phrases like "that was the BEST day of my life" all the time but I think it's often an exaggeration . Well, in my case this time, it's NOT.

This past Saturday, I went skydiving for the first time and the entire day was simply incredible. I woke up that morning to a gorgeous day without a cloud in the sky. I've been ecstatic about going for a couple of months now and, being that you can't jump if the weather is bad,  I was SO excited that the day was that perfect. I met our crew at Scott's apartment and we all hopped in the car to be on our merry way. We played loud music, sang along, pumped each other up...I think we just did what we could to push away any nerves. Speaking solely for myself, how I felt was just so weird. I wasn't nervous or scared at all. Not one single bit. I kept waiting for nerves to set in but I simply felt excited! I dunno, maybe I'm that at peace with life that I just didn't feel afraid...? :P

We got to Skydive Long Island around 11:30am and I just died at how beautiful it was out there. Everything was so green and lush! Anyway, we did all our paperwork and then it was time to get harnessed up. I loved it because all the guys there are just so cool (and 99% of them were HOT which didn't hurt!) and it makes you feel like YOU'RE so cool for being there. Once you're in your harness, you just wait around for whatever instructor you're assigned to and then you're taken to the plane asap after. Look at those cool kids:

As I'm waiting, I watched everyone else get their dude and have the rundown of what happens, etc, yet nobody comes for me. Next thing I know, the plane pulls up and our group is called. Um, I still didn't have an instructor. Out of nowhere, this dude runs up and yells, "Yo, you Valerie?" and I'm like, "Yeah!" and he goes, "Awesome, I'm Wayne. Let's do this!" and proceeds to grab me and head to the plane. I could only laugh because I  literally had no instruction as to what to do. He told me he'd "brief me on the plane". Yep, no time to waste:

Let's just pause and talk about the plane for a second. Two words: duct tape. Yep, that plane was about as solid and secure as a paper airplane and it felt damn close to being one when we got up in air. I still can't believe we were packed in that thing. I was almost certain the plane would go down before we did, hee hee:

Back to the jump. I'm sitting there still not scared and wondering why the heck I wasn't. I finally just embraced it and realized that maybe I just have bigger balls than I thought, ha! I mean, I didn't even have goggles until I asked Wayne about it after take-off. We all agreed that this haphazard nonsense couldn't have happened to anyone else in the group because they might have literally freaked out. I trusted good ol' Wayne though and, next thing you know, it was our turn. Scott jumped first and it was INSANE watching that. I got so incredibly psyched up by it, though! The only really scary part to me is that I did sort of a seated jump where I was sitting on the edge with my legs dangling out. It was seriously intense but then BAM, out of the plane we went:

SO FREAKING AMAZING:

I swear, I could post a million photos. Absolutely unreal!

Unless you decide to ever go skydiving yourself, there's no way to really describe how incredible it is. You just feel so empowered and happy. It's the kind of happiness where you really could die right then and there and know you were on top of the world. I've been so blessed to have several moments in my life that rank up close to those feelings but nothing can compare to this. You realize that you just did something that tons of people out there really never could do. It's almost spiritual. So, this is why I CAN say without exaggeration that Saturday was the best day of my life. Wayne, you better believe I'll be back to see you soon:

The rest of the afternoon was absolutely perfect, too. We were way too pumped up to sit in the car so we decided to check out a wine tasting that we'd seen signs for on the way. I LOVE doing stuff like that, especially with some of my very favorite people (did you notice we made t-shirts? :P):

You couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day either:

The couple who owned the vineyard were just wonderful. We also fell in love with their sweet dog, Teddy, and contemplated stealing him:

We couldn't stop talking about how were feeling and how happy we all were. We drank our homemade wine in the sun and reflected on how lucky we are to be able to do something like that. It really is kind of a bonding thing, as well. We stayed at the vineyard for quite a while and then went back to Ed's apartment to sit on the roof, drink more wine, and soak up the awesomeness of our day. :) We all now have a reason to think back on September 11th with joy and not sadness, too. That's awesome in and of itself.