Cross Another One Off the Bucket List

We had a whirlwind way-too-short long-weekend at Lake Tahoe. The main purpose of the trip was to go to my great-aunt's 100th birthday family reunion. Had I known how lovely the trip would be, I would have planned for a few more days.

We have not been on a "road trip" with our kids in a number of years, possibly because of those lingering distasteful memories of the back seat bickering. But guess what? At 14 and 19, they don't bicker any more (except for one small incident which shall appear later in this post). They talked about music and guitars and games, and seemed more like friends than brothers. It's what every mother desires and I am oh-so-grateful for this.

Sigh.

I did elect to ride in the back seat for much of the trip, behind the handy husband driver. This was a leg room issue, not an Idon'twanttositnexttomybrother issue. It was such a great trip, we are almost considering going to the Grand Canyon next year, but we might need a bigger car for that. We could rent a van! We've never had a van....ooh, I'm distracted here...back to the point.

I have lots of pictures and family things to talk about which will wait for another post, because I am so excited about what we did Monday morning. "We" meaning Frank, Ernest and Me. The Handy Husband is averse to heights and chose to stay earth bound to watch us, but the rest of us crossed off another item on the bucket list... PARAGLIDING!

It was totally AWESOME. 5 STARS to North Tahoe Watersports. 1400 feet, 15 minutes, the Magnum experience. We had some debate about the time and height...Frank was always my more cautious child and didn't want to go so high, but you could only get the longer time with the higher height so Ernest and I won out.

On the boat, they asked who wanted to go first. Ernest said, "we do!" The little girl in the other party said "no." So they loaded us up first. Way to go, no time to get scared.

We took off so fast!

Kinda high? The view was incredible.

That little moment of brotherly bickering? Ernest was swinging his legs and Frank didn't like the shaking. I can't blame him. Looking up, it looks a lot higher! Looking down, it was like the best google map ever!

For me, this was my greatest moment since when? Kissing the Blarney Stone? I confess, I was a little nervous. I'd had a horrible headache the night before (I blame the hike back from Vikingsholm, which will be in another post.) But when I woke up headache free the next morning, I said, "Self, you have to do this. You will regret it if you don't." Sometimes my Self needs a little talking too. And I was right.

Oh, it was amazing...

Frank thought we were landing just in time.

Ernest and I would have gone up again if we'd had the chance.

And Self? She felt so great! So Self, how are you? Self had the best time. Self could not stop talking about how awesome it was! Self wants to go again!



Here's to new adventures!