I Got Older

I am totally weird about birthdays.

I never want to plan anything, never want to make a big deal out of it...but I'm also the person that will wear her prettiest dress and sparkliest shoes because "It's my birthday." Which is also my line when I try to get people to do things for me. I will milk the heck out of that line. This includes but is not limited to: making people grab things that you are too lazy to grab, explaining why you've eaten desserts after every meal, reasons why you should get what you want.

What can I say? I must be a real gem to be around.

I turned 23 yesterday and this is by no means a special age. You know how some birthdays just mean something? 23 means that you're on your way to 25 (which is my designated "adult" age). Scary stuff people. Yes, I am a bit neurotic.

I worked during the day yesterday and then spent the night with my family. We went to dinner at the Keg and filled our bellies with laughter, but more importantly, with food. 

I wore this because I'm a birthday princess and I deserve to look beautiful (I told myself as I stared in the mirror). Please enjoy this totally "candid" and definitely not staged selfie:

Fun fact about me: I tend to cash in all of my birthday presents early so my birthdays seem even more like a regular old day. In April I got Ray Bans from my parents and decided not to wait until the end of summer to get them (because sunglasses should be used in the summer. Call me crazy, but this is a strong belief of mine). Another equally fun fact about me: I am on my third pair of Ray Bans. I have actually gotten them for three birthdays now. How can a get a "Find My Ray Bans" app onto my iphone? That would save me a lot of grief. Jordan got me our Jack White tickets from earlier this summer so all that was left to enjoy was the company of my family (which is a-okay by me. They're pretty alright...I guess :)

Another pretty alright person: Erika. She came over the second it turned into my birthday (12am my friends) with ice cream sandwiches. This is by far my favourite birthday tradition. She also brought me this from her adventures in France:

Moral of the story: I'm older and also happier :)

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Former Birthday Princess

Diving from the Sky

This past weekend I did one of the most amazing things I've ever done: I skydove!

Honestly, it was the most mind-blowing experience. I can't compare it to anything I've ever felt.

A couple of weeks ago Jordan mentioned skydiving and I kind of blew the idea off. It's really expensive and I really didn't see the idea coming to fruition. When he actually started looking into booking his dive I realized it was now or never.

So Saturday August 9th it was. We drove an hour and 45 minutes to end up at the Niagara Skydive Centre at 1pm. I don't think we've ever been so excited for anything in our lives. I couldn't wipe the smile off of my face as we watched the informational videos. We then did some quick training and suited up in some very tight onesies. I felt like a race car driver in mine, it was pretty damn badass.

We chose to do tandem skydiving because 1) it takes less training 2) it's cheaper and 3) because I prefer to have someone more competent than I doing all the work while I just enjoy the ride.

We got in a place and went three kilometres up into the air. We passed over the Falls and looped back to the centre before jumping out. Weirdest part about skydiving: you need to get reallllyyy close with a complete stranger, and fast. My instructor/personal human parachute was named Fredrick and he had the best french accent and said my name like this: "Taylerrrr." For the ride in the plane we were basically riding a rattling old tin can up into the clouds. There were no seats so we sat in between our instructors legs. We were at the back and there were two other tandem divers going as well so I also had another instructor in between my legs. I've never had each of my limbs touching so many strangers. Even more, when you get to the right height it's time for your instructor to attach themselves to you. To do this you sit in their laps…for the remaining 5 minutes of the ride. Hellooo Frederick, nice to meet you!

When it was finally time to jump the door opened, the light was green and a pair of jumpers fell out of the plane and disappeared. WHOOSH and they were gone. Oh and the plane was so light that losing two people caused the plane to jolt up and then find it's stability again. I watched this happen three times before it was my turn.

We scooted up to the door, legs dangling and I screamed "I"M SO SCARED." Fredrick took that as his cue and out we went. I've never experienced such a weird feeling in my life. I was rushing towards the ground, there were fields below me and I couldn't do anything but scream, laugh, and take it in. After about 30 seconds to a minute of free fall time the parachute deployed and I laughed in relief that the most dangerous part of our trip was over. The rest of our fall was spent putting our parachute into corkscrews while Fredrick instructed me on pulling the cord to make us spin.

When we started approaching the ground Frederick reminded me to stick my legs out in front of me and to let him do the work. He asked me to try to stick my legs out and they wouldn't go very high. My suit and the harness around my thighs was SO TIGHT. "Highherr Tayllerrr. You can dewwww it." And I used all I had to pull them up…for the practice round…not even the real thing.

We finally got to the ground and as it got closer, and closer, I just dangled and waited until he told me when and the finally I heard "Now Taylerrr." I took the rest of my strength and pulled my legs out straight and we magically slid to the ground. It felt pretty dang graceful. Frederick unhooked me and I just sat there and said "THANK YOU! THAT WAS AMAZING!"

My legs felt like jelly and I watched as the other divers landed around me. When Jordan finally landed we walked towards each other, hugged and talked about how our minds were literally just blown.

If you ever get the chance to skydive I highly recommend it. It was the most amazing thing I've ever experienced.

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Certified Badass

Jack White, Mexican Food and Being The Fanciest People We Know

Last week I got a very early and very amazing birthday present from Jordan. My birthday isn't until August 27th but Jack White came into town on July 31st and my birthday dreams came true.

I'm a huge White Stripes and Jack White fan so this was basically as fangirl as it gets for me.

We decided to stay the night in Toronto so we got a hotel near the ACC and walked to El Catrin for some delicious mexican food for dinner.

I got a dee-licious watermelon Margarita to drink and Jordan got some sort of Mojito that had chilli peppers in it and burnt my soul when I tried to drink it. I'm a big sissy when it comes to hot stuff. To eat we had fish and chicken tacos, which is about as adventurous as the two of us get.

Afterwards we grabbed some drinks with friends and then quickly made our way to the concert.

I cannot express my love for this night enough. It was SO good. He played for two hours and basically made all my dreams come true…if I'm not being dramatic enough. Did I mention I love Jack White?

Of course I had to grab myself some merch to commemorate the night:

Honestly…the highlight of the trip was ordering room service in the morning. I was doing my makeup in the bathroom when the room service arrived so I didn't see them come in. When I walked out I was expecting to see a tray with our order on it but instead I saw a table that they brought in and set up with our breakfast.

We honestly thought we were the kings of the world. We were so pleased with ourselves for being so fancy. Of course everything was delicious :)

It was the perfect early birthday present and I couldn't ask for a better person to share it with (woah…that got a little too mushy there. I'll try to tone it down next time :)

From the desk of:

Taylor Brown
Jack White Enthusiast, Queen for a Day