Third Anniversary

9/10/08 our third anniversary.  Hard to believe she has been willing to put up with me for that long.  J  I have to say I am extremely blessed to have my wife in my life.  I couldn’t ask for anything better.  It seems like only yesterday we were saying “I do” and now it’s already been three years.  Amazing.  It was an incredible day.

First off, just being able to spend time with my wife is awesome.  I enjoy being with her and hanging out.  All the time.   She is the one I want to be with and experience life with.  We take turns each year planning our anniversary.  This year was Sarah’s turn again and, as always, she did a great job.  It was especially difficult for her this year due to a huge project they have going on at work.  She’s been working weekends and most nights ‘til 11ish, just to try and keep her head above water.  So, with that all going on she was only able to take off our anniversary and even that was difficult.  That forced her to cancel a bunch of the plans she had made, but we had a great time anyways.  I was kept in the dark as long as possible, so it was all a surprise for me.  Here’s what happened.

I had to get up at 5:50am and get ready to go.  I was told we had to leave by 6:30am.  What a

Thrilled

taskmaster.  I get into her car and am informed that I have to wear a blind fold.  WHAT??  Seriously?  Apparently so.  Fine, I graciously (that’s me, Mr. Gracious) agree to let her blind fold me.  You can see from the picture how thrilled I was by her “choice” of blindfolds. 

J  Thank God it was dark outside!

 

 

 

 

We depart.  As an fyi, I was keeping track of where we were in my head.  Visualizing the route she was driving.  After several turns and about 5 miles from the house, she starts to slow down and I turn and say, “Take it easy over the tracks.”  A second later, thump, thump as the tires cross the railroad tracks.  Needless to say she was exasperated and said, “You know where we are going, don’t you?  Why don’t you just take off the blindfold.”  So, I did.  Frankly, I think she needed help finding where she was wanting to take me.  J   I had a suspicion of where we were going and was hoping it was true, but was trying not to get my hopes up too high.  After she asked if I knew where a coffee place was, I directed her to the closest one I kind of knew of and it became obvious something was up, when she ordered two hot chocolates and one coffee.  OK, for those of you not keeping track, there were only two of us in the car.  For those that are mathematically challenged, one coffee plus two hot chocolates equals three.  Ha!  My mother despaired of me ever being able to count to five.  In your face mom, I’m over half way there.  Just kidding.  Love ya mom, plus I used the calculator on my cell phone to come up with the correct answer.  Gotta love technology.

So, we leave Moxie and my lovely wife is still trying to pretend nothing is going on.  As a side note, she is pretty horrible at acting innocent, oh well.  J  Her answer to my question of an extra drink was, “She wanted hot chocolate too.”  Yeah right.  Anyone who knows my wife knows, that I had hot chocolate, so therefore she had hot chocolate.  I have been around her for over seven years you know. J

So, she is trying to drive like we weren’t going to where I thought we were.  If that is confusing, sorry, just stay with it.  I see the turn approaching that she needs to take and know she is going to pretend to ignore it until the last moment then turn sharply.  I grab the handle overhead in preparation.  Remember, I know her?  She does as predicted and makes an aggressive ninety degree turn to the right, rear end sliding out, tires squealing, we safely make it around the corner, the only casualty a mailbox that the USPS put in an unfortunate spot, not correctly anticipating my wife trying to deceive me. 

We arrive at our destination.  The Nampa airport.  Score.  Only thing I didn’t know was who we were flying with this day.  I would soon find out.  John Forsythe was to be the Certified Flight Instructor of the day.

Blake and John

Thank you John for your time and for an amazing flight. The plane, a Cessna 182.  Oh, what a great plane.  Plenty of power for a stroll around the valley and a little back country flying.  And that was what was on the agenda for the morning.  I love flying.  Those who know me, may or may not know that I am a licensed airplane pilot.  I passed my flying exam twelve years ago this October.  Time and circumstances have prevented me from doing a lot of flying the last ten years, so I love when I am able to go.  Since it has been a while since the last time I flew, hiring a CFI to accompany us is a smart, responsible and safe decision. 

It’s a brisk morning and we are ready to go.  We depart on runway 29 head south and fly towards the

Smoke from forrest fires fill the valley

Snake River.  Once to the river we turn to an easterly-ish heading and skirt Boise’s airspace and head northeasterly between Mountain Home and Boise towards the mountains.  If you’ve never gone back country flying, you are missing out and I highly recommend it.  Charter a plane and go and see some of the most rugged and beautiful country around.  The air is silky smooth on the flight and the plane is easy to fly.  Cruising along at 135-140 knots (that’s 155.5mph-161.3mph for you landlubbers) you cover a lot of ground quickly.  We traverse the air above Smith’s Prairie to Featherville, fly up a canyon and head back towards the west and fly over Idaho City and cross behind Bogus Basin.  Departing the mountains we see civilization in sight and locate the airport and land back on runway 29, 1.3 hours later.  What a blast.  I miss flying regularly so much.  Thank you Sarah for a great start to our anniversary.

 

 

I’ve written a small novel and only covered the beginning of our day.  We ate breakfast and hung out, opening gifts.  We met Ben, Sarah’s brother, and he gave us another incredible gift.  A DVD of our wedding.  A lot of the pictures organized and set to music.  It was so awesome to see and he did an absolutely incredible job, in a very short amount of time.  Thank you so much Ben, you are extremely talented. 

 

 

Our wedding DVD from Ben

I’ll end with saying I love being married to my wife and I am looking forward to many more years with her.

 

 

 

 

Sarah and Blake