Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Up, Up, And Away


My beloved and I recently celebrated a big anniversary. We are not usually big gift givers on our anniversary because the best gift he could ever ask for, he got when he married me we could ever ask for is each other. (Sorry. Were you trying to keep that breakfast down?) Or perhaps we are lazy and shopping for a gift is too much effort. Or possibly it's both.

Anyway! This being a rather major landmark in our married lives, we couldn't let it pass with out giving each other something. So, I thunk and I thunk and I had a brilliant idea. (Shut up. It happens sometimes--like maybe with the frequency of Halley's comet, but it happens.) We often see hot air balloons passing over our home and we comment every time about how fun that would be. So that was it! I was going to take us on a hot air balloon ride. Well, not me personally, I know nothing about piloting balloons, but I knew I could figure out how to find someone who does know about piloting balloons.

A few phone calls later and everything was set. I'm pretty sure I was more excited than my beloved, but then again, he tends to keep his emotions in better check than I.

We met the flight crew a few days after our anniversary and got our instructions. Then we drove to the launch site. And then we "helped" the crew get the balloon ready. This consisted of my beloved being wrangled into pulling on the balloon and holding down the basket and me running around with my camera taking pictures and instagramming every two seconds.

Really, it was tremendous. Patrick was a bit nervous at the beginning of the flight, preferring to sit on the propane tank for some of the ride, but I was like an 8 year old--all grins and excited applause and pithy phrases like "We're flying! We're flying!" and "Sweet son of a nutcracker it's quiet!!" Brilliant wordsmith, that's me.

Truly, this post is best told with pictures, so here-- I'll stop blabbering now.


Number 35 on my Life List? Done!














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