"It's Raining Men"

Gay disco hit or not, that song gets stuck in my head whenever I see a jump, and Robyn, I blame you! ;)

We all went to Tim's jump today, and though a long afternoon, it was well worth it. Tim has to jump every month to keep his Airborne pay, and since the weather was so nice, he got on today's manifest, and we made it, hmmm, a family affair (another disco era classic...am I on a roll or what?!)

There were a lot of civilians jumping today, and the boys loved watching those SLOW falling, brightly colored parachutes sway down and land right in front of them. Tim took J. over on his shoulders to watch them. They were so close J. could have touched them.
Blue parachutes...









White parachutes...

The military parachutes are designed to fall much more quickly which is why much of airborne school is instruction on how to land without breaking your legs. Afterall, they aren't doing this for the view, and the intent is stayin' alive, not getting shot down mid-jump. (Yep-I did it again. Go ahead. Try not to think about John Travolta right....NOW!) The Army jumps a little higher up than the civilians, further out, and land in a drop zone in a cow pasture a ways away. Since they only have the wind to direct them, they need a larger landing target.

The boys had fun jumping and shouting "jump!" whenever a pass went by. Since 5 soldiers jumped in each pass, J. got to practice counting to 5 a lot! Then he'd say, "Ohhhh...Fall Down!" when they landed. Very cute. Here's Tim about to be inspected by the jump master getting onto the plane. J. waved, "Bye Bye, Daddy!" when Tim flew off.

Here is Tim jumping:

Thankfully, no one needed the "ouchey truck" (as J. called it-above). It was a fun day, and the boys will be talking about, and reinacting, its events for days to come, I'm sure!
And here's one last one without even an attempt at context, just to give you a little dance to do on a spring day: "Do the Hustle! Do do do do do do do do do, do do do do do do do do do..."