Skydiving for MorMor's 60th

Back from the blog break-- sorry for the long hiatus-- too much going on to blog! Seriously! Anyway, moving on...
First on the agenda for back-to-blogging is this: The weekend before last we went away for a skydiving weekend in celebration of my mom's 60th birthday. It was crazy fun. Here's my mom jumping out of an airplane from 2 miles up!
Turns out my mom has always wanted to go skydiving. Who knew? Turns out my dad knew. So, for her 60th birthday he planned an amazing weekend away for her and a bunch of their friends. We had such a good time. My dad rented a house in the Poconos near the skydiving center. People (especially my sister and her two people!) drove for hours and hours and hours to get there, but it was worth it. We had a terrific weekend. The house turned out to be perfect for our group. We had a celebration dinner at the house Saturday night for my mom. There was hiking and swimming and many adventures had by all. There were some stolen snugly moments too (mostly revolving around K & O getting various grown-ups, including MorMor and MorFar, to read them books). The highlight, of course, was the skydiving. What a thrill. I went solely for my mom with no inclination to go on my own. But I'd go again in a heartbeat. It was awesome. My sister and I flew in a plane together and jumped within seconds of each other. In the pictures below it is our two parachutes that you see. My mom and her friend Theresa jumped from another plane. And family friends Laurie and Rich jumped from another. The rest of our group watched from the earth below... word has it that Kyle, Owen, Sadie, and Meera could not have been more mesmerized by it. It is really quite a sight to see-- these colorful billowy parachutes falling from a crystal-clear-blue sky. If you haven't done it or seen it, I highly recommend at least one or the other. It is incredible. A week after it is all over, though, the biggest thought I'm left with actually has nothing to do with skydiving... I'm just left, yet again, with the thought, "What an amazing set of parents I have." Skydiving for your 60th? Your husband planning and implementing it all to make it happen? Your kids and grandkids and some of your closest friends --all in a gorgeous vacation home somewhere in the middle of nowhere-- singing "Happy Birthay" with candles atop your favorite kind of cake? It seems like something from a movie or something-- is this our real life? But the truth is, my parents are amazing and they deserve every second of happiness they get coming their way. Their lives have been centered on giving and, for me, one of the greatest sights to see is watching it come back to them. Life is a gift. Every precious second of it. Happy birthday MorMor! (and thank you MorFar!!!)