Monday, November 29, 2010

{Happy Anniversary, Mr. Link}



Today is our seventh wedding anniversary!

On this day, seven years ago, I walked down the aisle in a flurry of tears -- overwhelmed
with the emotion of all the people that were there to support us and the fact that I was about
to marry my best friend. It was an amazing day, and I love that that every detail from it is
part of our story.

I surprised David with a hot air balloon ride on Saturday to celebrate. This year, I focused
on buying an experience over things, and it paid off. We had so much fun. We got to do
something new together that was completely exhilarating.

We loved that part of the ride was helping get the balloon ready for flight. There were
about five other balloons at Tumbleweed Park that morning. We were with Mike and
Theresa on the blue and white Morningstar.








Before I knew it, we were in the basket, and it was no longer touching the ground. It was
amazing how fast we went up -- pretty surreal -- all the way to 2,200 feet above ground
level. There was nothing but the wooden floor of a little basket under our toes.
Hello, heart beat.








To steer the balloon, our pilot raised and lowered us to different levels in the sky. He tested
each one to see which way the wind sheer would move us. He could also get information on
directions by watching other balloons in the sky. Cool stuff.

We started looking for a good place to land just as I began to feel comfortable way up in the
sky. :) The ride itself was about an hour long.





As if all that wasn't enough, Theresa put together a beautiful breakfast tail gate for us.
Mike told us an embellished and entertaining version of the history of hot air ballooning
while we enjoyed it. It was an all around fabulous way to spend a morning!



Admittedly, the idea to do a hot air balloon ride, in part, came from running low on
ideas after 11 and a half years together. That's a lot of meaningful anniversary, Christmas,
birthday, and Valentine's gifts to come up with. I really enjoyed thinking out of the box a
little, and it was such a fun gift to give. If you're in the area and want to book a flight, I'd
totally recommend the company we booked our ride through. They provided a fabulous experience from beginning to end. Click on Aerogelic Ballooning or call 1.866.Fly.Tday.

4 comments:

Kristi said...

Happy Anniversary Samara and David!!! What a fun time ya'll must've had up there! So brave! I'd love to do it sometime (without freaking out!)

Anonymous said...

Happy Anniversary and congratulations on seven years that is awesome!

Ale said...

Hola Sam,

Happy Anniversary to you two. GREAT idea for the celebration. I always wanted to do that air balloon thing and never got around to do it so now I guess I will have to go all the way to AZ to do it haha!

Congratulations again, marriage takes a lot of work but it pays off.

hugs,

Ale

Anonymous said...

You're photos are amazing! I especially love the shadow shot! Framer!
Sam, I think you always have great gift ideas but you really out-did yourself this year. I love the idea. Not just the balloon ride, but the experience idea.
Happy Anniversary my dear!