the old man takes a dive

My dad called me last week and informed me that he was going to go skydiving on Sunday and wondered if I wanted to go along and watch. The "airport" (aka little shack in a field) is located in Vinton, about 5 minutes from our house. So I of course said yes, pick us up. So this past Sunday dad picked Matt and I up and we headed out to have dad pushed out of a plane. We sat around and watched a video and dad signed some papers that in summary said: if you die because of us, or our equipment, it's not our fault. right!

Dad getting his harness on (watch the boys, right dad? =):

After the video dad got all strapped up, and I mean TIGHTLY strapped up, Matt and I were actually laughing watching it happen. A man named Don Briggs, you may know him for several reasons. He used to be a famous wrestler, he is currently a teacher at UNI in the physical education department, and this past winter he was the guy that attached a hose to the top of our silo and made it into an ice climbing wall. Anyway, he is a trained sky diver and offered to take dad up on a tandem jump...which is how we got to the point of Briggs tightly strapping dad's harness on.

The sweet football helmet from 1950:

After they were all hooked up and ready to go they loaded the plane and took off. About 10 minutes later we finally saw a few of the people start dropping through the clouds. At this point they all looked like little birds so we had no idea which one they were. We soon figured it out since they were the only tandem team, and therefore the only ones with 4 feet dangling down.

Dad & Briggs coming in:

Dad & Briggs walking in ( i think this picture is way sweet with the plane

just leaving behind them):

And so another wild and crazy event crossed off of dad's "Bucket List". Below you can click on the blue link to watch the video that Matt made of dad's jump. (the song in the video is Dad's FAVORITE song, it's from Forrest Gump and we've seriously listened to it a hundred times in the car, #18 on disc one, incase you were interested!)

Click the link below to see the video Matt made of the skydive:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh16BgHnaLo