{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.