Nothing but Nine

I keep running my thought engine for blogging ideas because I know it's beyond time for me to post, but I just can't think about anything except for vacation!! And the fact that it is in NINE days! And four of those days aren't even work days!! And we are going to pick up SEVEN new states! And see amazing things and eat amazing places, and oh yeah, GO TO VEGAS!!!!!!!!!!!

*Deep Breath*

Can you tell I am just not really all that excited? ;)

On another note though, I am also completely pumped for this weekend!

Leah and I are headed to her grandparent's lake house at Lake Cumberland, Kentucky for the whole memorial day weekend. So far our forecast is looking like hot temps and blue skies so crossing our fingers that it stays that way! I am extremely ready to soak up sun and lay around in a boat and top off our evenings with wine and cards.

So last night we watched the Biggest Loser finale over at my parents house, and what a finale! It was incredible the amount of weight people lost this season. There are people I am always definitely impressed with, but last night I was floored with some of the transformations. Completely shocked. For the first time a woman won the at-home prize and a woman won the show! Talk about girl power! Olivia Ward, the one who took it all, went through the entire show with her sister Hannah. They were the first ever sister duo to make it into the top three so they were competing with each other for the prize! They both looked absolutely fantastic, but Olivia beat her sister in a race separated only by pounds.

Olivia and Hannah starting out

Hannah and Olivia at the finale with the other top three contestant Irene on the far left

Olivia ended up at just 133 lbs...and she is like 5' 8"!!!

What an inspiration these beautiful women are! It is so great to see people taking charge of their lives and changing them for the better. All the people who came back to the finale were positively radiating happiness and good health. It is just a testament to how important and vital taking care of your body is in every aspect of life. God gave us these bodies and we need to treat them the right way! Don't look at exercise as something you HAVE to do, but rather something you GET to do! Whenever I am doing an intense workout I try to remember to be thankful that my body has the strength and stamina to accomplish something like that. I think of how much more I will be able to do and enjoy with a body that is fit and healthy! All we have to do is get moving :)

JORDAN

European Style

Yesterday the current senior class from my alma mater (high school, not college) left for Europe. I went to a small Christian high school (I graduated with only 18!!) and the absolute highlight of the entire highschool career is by far the Europe trip. Any senior who elects to raise money throughout the year gets to go and it is an unforgettable time of great food, amazing destinations and bonding with your class. It has been five years since my class went on our European journey but I still have very fond memories and it is something we will never forget! Sometimes the countries visited vary based on the travel arrangements for the year but our year we were very fortunate to be able to visit SIX different countries. We started out in Germany and then went to Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, France and ended in England. I thought it would be nice to share some pictures from our trip with all of you!

On the way to Europe, just a pic to show you how young Zach and I look!

Castle Neuschwanstein in Germany

Hillary, Kori and I in France

Gardens at the palace Versailles in France

Good ol' Big Ben

All the girls on the trip crammed into the stereotypical phone booth in England

Millennium Bridge in London

Our very first and most favorite foreign meal was in Munich, Germany!

All of our class that went to Europe- 14 of our 18

The view from Mt. Pilatus in Switzerland

 

It was an incredible journey and Zach and I definitely are looking forward to traveling overseas again but next time we are thinking more along the lines of Greece, Italy, and Southern France :) Hope you enjoyed that little trip to Europe!

JORDAN                                                               

The Barbarian Way

Found a book today that I haven't picked up in a long, long time- The Barbarian Way. Just wanted to share a little something that caught my attention from it:

"God would never choose for us safety at the cost of significance. God created you so that your life would count, not so that you could count the days of your life."

JORDAN

Something New

Tonight at the gym I am attending my first ever Core-Blast Class. I love trying new things and finding new ways to make my body fit and feel powerful. This class is only fifteen minutes long, which sounds like nothing; but for a class ENTIRELY devoted to abs, I have a feeling it will seem like a lifetime! Leah and I are going together and I am totally looking forward to the soreness I am sure to be experiencing tomorrow.

This past weekend was lovely involving a Saturday night out with my girls and a Sunday night in with my husband. Two totally different things that are both great in their own ways! Tonight Zach and I are watching The Green Mile which is a movie I haven't seen in ages and he has never seen before. Since I am in the habit of getting overly excited about what most people consider to be a small thing, I am completely pumped for our three and a half hour movie tonight!!!!!! :) Enjoy your Monday!

JORDAN

Skydiving: Part Two

The whole week before skydiving I was getting pretty nervous. I even had my parents over for dinner on Saturday night for what we were jokingly calling (sort of) our last supper. We (Leah, Grant, Zach and I) set out early Sunday morning to make the six hour drive to Fort Atkinson, WI and made it with time to spare.

The second we got out of the car we spotted skydivers coming down and I immediately just felt more peaceful. Actually seeing people accomplish (and live through) what I was about to do was a great calming thing for me. As we went through the training and got suited up I only became more and more excited and less and less afraid.

Zach practicing

 My tandem professional's name was Patrick and he was absolutely wonderful. I was his 794th dive! Zach and I went up first in the plane and I was actually the first one to jump. The plane ride to altitude takes about 20-30 minutes but it did NOT feel that long. Despite being in a rickety prop plane that didn't even have seats and ascending to over 11,000 feet, it just really wasn't near as frightening as I expected. It felt completely unreal and I was just so pumped to jump! As soon as you jump out of the plane you are just free-falling for a full minute- just spiraling towards earth and it is so exhilarating. It was the perfect day to jump too, perfectly blue skies and nice warm weather. After that minute of free-fall the parachute was pulled and slowed our descent by far allowing me to just see for miles and miles and miles and take everything else in. I even got to steer! Patrick showed me how by pulling one arm down and raising another you could turn and if you keep holding it in this position you start doing spirals, very fun :) The absolute best part though was pulling both arms down at the same time and you just stop. Just stop falling, stop moving, stop everything and you are just hanging there in the sky. Breathtaking.

The landing was smooth and just like that we were skydivers!

This is definitely an experience I would love to repeat. I really have a strong desire to jump in a tropical location where I can jump over the ocean, I think that would be so spectacular.

"DON'T LET FEAR CONTROL YOUR LIFE, YOU CONTROL YOUR FEAR! DON'T LET ANYTHING OR ANYONE (ESPECIALLY YOURSELF) ALLOW YOU TO MISS OUT ON AN OPPORTUNITY OR YOU MAY REGRET IT THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. DON'T THINK-JUST DO IT!" - Jordan Rabenstein ;)

JORDAN

Skydiving: Part One

Well I am still working on getting all my pictures uploaded and the same with the video, but once they are (hopefully by tomorrow) I will give you a full sky-diving report. For now I thought I should let you all know that I am still alive and we all jumped and all made it without a scratch! It was an absolutely incredible, breathtaking experience the likes of which can not be equaled. It was like flying :) We had an amazing time and I am so grateful for the opportunity I got to do this with my husband and two of our best friends. I hope that I have many more opportunities over the years to do it again and again!
Stay tuned for the in depth post tomorrow...

JORDAN

T minus 17 hours...

Though I don't really have a lot to say, I feel the need to post SOMEthing since tomorrow is....SKYDIVING DAY!!!!!!!!!!! Ack! Tomorrow Zach, Grant, Leah and I are leaving at 6:30 sharp to make our way to Fort Atkinson, WI. By one o' clock (WI time) we will be officially enrolled in skydiving class for the next two to three hours. Then, it is time. We will be tandem skydiving with a professional and I sure hope my professional doesn't have a random heart attack or something while we are in mid-flight because I am telling you what, these short arms will NOT be able to reach the rip cord! (Well and also I just don't want the poor person to have a heart attack.) So hopefully by Monday I will be posting an incredible video of my dive and telling you all about it. If not, please pay your respects by attending my funeral and for goodness sakes, someone feed my cats!!!!!!!!!

"FEED US!!!"

JORDAN

Friday's Feelings

I can remember when recess lasted forever, when it took AGES for Christmas to arrive, and when it seemed like a birthday would never ever come. Well gone are those days because time positively flies by at an alarming rate! I cannot believe we are already into May with vacation just 28 (?) days away. I am trying to live in the present though, and I am looking forward to being off of work and taking my mom here

for dinner tonight! The menu looks phenomenal and I, in usual fashion, have already picked out what I am ordering :) It should be a lovely girl's evening, something we don't get to do nearly enough of!

The fiesta was a success yesterday! Margaritas were enjoyed, home-made guacamole and taco dips were wiped out, Charlie our pinata was clobbered to death, hide-and-seek in the pitch dark ensued (a favorite game among my crew), the roof was of course visited (more than once), and lots of socializing with great friends made for a wonderful night! I will leave you with some pictures of our evening...

The girls in our Mexican inspired outfits

Unsuccessfully trying to hit Charlie

  JORDAN  

Remember to Breathe

Is anyone else's life absolutely crazy right now?! It's been so busy and my days have been so full that I have been neglecting my blogging... After our Cinco de Mayo fiesta on Thursday I will definitely have to do a catch up post on life, but for the moment I find my mind running in too many separate directions to even write a coherent post! I find my mind continuously packing and re-packing suitcases for our vacation that is a mere 31 days away. I am trying to reassure myself that not all that many people have been killed skydiving. I keep re-working our party list for which people are bringing what Mexican items. I'm working on narrowing down Indy restaurants to find the perfect one to take Mom to for her Mother's Day get-away. Currently I'm in the process of working on a picture project for all of the states we have visited thus far. Then on top of it all I must fit time in for the gym and home-cooked meals and spending quality (since we definitely don't get quantity) time with my incredible husband who puts up with all of this madness :) Maybe by tomorrow I will have found something useful to share with you all!

JORDAN