The fact that he walked away either means someone is already looking out for us, or it means that our luck was just cashed in. LOL.

Someone's looking out for you.

Hope you have a great jump! I'll be thinking of you Saturday afternoon and look forward to reading of your experience!

I agree someone is looking out for you and your family Jenn. So happy your hubby is safe and my prayers for you for tomorrow. Now go make that dream real girlie! Luv ya!!

Ewwww, stay away from Kevin aka Freddy W aka Freedy aka Mr A Man aka the hill owner's toes!!

Awesome, awesome!! I'm so excited for you!!!

aka aka aka aka aka? Reminds me of Fozzy Bear!! JAJA! Glad you got your feet cleaned... PHEW!

DizzyT, meant to ask... are you going to have pics taken from the ground and by you while you're soaring??

The countdown is getting shorter and shorter!! I can't wait to see the pics you post! That really stinks, though, that you have to buy the video AND the pics!

Breathe in.... breathe out.... breathe in.... breathe out.... 18 and a half hours to go! Thank you to everyone for their encouraging comments on this board as well as the PM's and blog comments. You are all so wonderful for supporting me with this...

Comfortable pants suitable for going in and out of a classroom: $20
Comfortable shirt suitable for varying temperatures: $15
Comfortable shoes appropriate for landing: $30
Digital camera for taking pictures in class: $500
Mostly full tank of gas to get me to and from the DropZone: $30
6 hour jumpcourse and first jump: $159
Video and in flight photos: $64

My heart has been beating quite a bit faster the last few days. I've found myself running through every possible scenario that I can think of so I can be prepared for the worst. And it's all going to come down to one moment when I stand at the door to exit the plane and decide if I can actually do it.

Deep Breath: Priceless

You can do it. We got faith in you!!! Try to get some sleep

Not only that - you'll be GLAD in the end to have that video. Once in a lifetime girl! Can't wait to hear the update!

On my way out the door and I'll post when I get home! Don't forget... jump is at 3pm central!!! Thanks for the prayers!

WooHoo!!!!!

come on......we are all waiting with baited breath. I`m not sure what it is baited with but prefer not to explore that option. Hope you are enjoying your moment right now.....

Rach

I'm home, I'm safe, and I walked away from my jump... it was a good jump.

The instructor kept trying to get me to change from IAD (Instructor Assisted Deployment at 4000 feet) to AFF (Advanced FreeFall at 10,000 feet) and finally at about 9 or 10 am, I had changed my mind and paid the difference to do AFF. AFF is typically a 45 second freefall and then you deploy at 5500 feet and steer your chute to the landing area. At noon, we found out there were so many jumpers they'd brought in a bigger plane so we were informed our jump would be more likely at 12,000 or 13,000 feet. I was the last to exit the plane, so I actually jumped from about 14,000 feet and I was in freefall for a full minute!

OK, anybody that has asthma knows it is more difficult to breathe at higher altitudes. Well, my asthma hasn't bothered me since I was a child, so I didn't even think of it. Let me tell you, at 14,000 feet, I could barely breathe. That was probably the scariest part. Actually, there were quite a few scary parts... walking to the door realizing that I'm actually doing it... that was pretty scary. I had a good exit but then the fact that I couldn't breathe had me quite distracted. I did everything I was supposed to... Circle of awareness (horizon, altimeter, jumpmaster 1, jumpmaster 2), 3 practice touches, circle of awareness again, then horizon, altimeter, horizon, altimeter, horizon, altimeter until 6500 feet, then lock on to altimeter, wave at 5500 feet, pull, check for Square and stable canopy... nope I had a line twist so I had to fix that (very common). Got my line twist fixed, checked for steerability... could steer ok, so that means it's a good canopy. Then find the airport... find the airport... FIND THE AIRPORT... WHERE IS THE FREAKING AIRPORT?!?!?! Once I FINALLY found the airport, I got into my flight pattern... the instructor on the radio was talking me through this at this point. Had me do a couple of turns to make sure I could hear him, yea I could hear. Had me get into my flight pattern, but the problem was, NOW I forgot something very important and that was what to do with my hands at landing. OMG! I pulled them down cuz I knew that slows the chute, but he didn't want me to do that so he started saying, "Hands up! Hands up! Hands up!" Then I hear, "Flare, flare, flare, flare!!!!" and at this point he's yelling (not mean, just making sure I was listening I guess) and at that point I was right by the ground and my feet hit and I went face down into the ground at about 25 mph.

Ground check... can you move your legs? Yes. Roll over and relax. Man, it was hard to roll over. I'd had the wind knocked out of me (after having difficulty breathing in the first place) and then I'd twisted my legs at 25 mph and though nothing was broken, I'm VERY SORE. I walked away from a HARD landing, so I count myself lucky.

I didn't stick around to pick up the video (I'll pick that up next week) because I'd planned to jump at 3pm and I didn't actually jump until about 5pm and I hadn't had lunch... was not good for my Hypoglycemia. I was getting really shaky from not eating, so I told the jumpmaster I would be back for my video later and my family and I went to dinner.

Having a hard time walking, but OMG I'm so glad I did it. I don't know at this point if I'll ever do it again simply because of the breathing problems I experienced. A jump at 4000 feet like I'd originally planned would probably have been fine. Perhaps I'll do that next time (if there is a next time). But let me tell you, if you are afraid of heights, the view as you are about to push off from an airplane is not something you should ever have to experience, because I've never been afraid of heights in my life and always wanted to go higher and higher and higher... which is why I chose AFF after all. And it was even a little scary for me.

Thanks to all for your prayers! Since my rear will be plastered to this seat for the next couple of days, I plan to play a lot of TT... when I whisper a "Belly Flop" to you, you'll know that it was for REAL.

OMG Jenn! That is way exciting! I just can't even begin to wrap my mind around it, but so happy your dreams came true. So happy you are safe and nothing broken. So happy that I think your smiling! Woohooty!!! Luv ya!