How Ballooning is Amping It Up

March 28th is my birthday (national holiday, everybody take the day off).  My boyfriend Michael wanted to give me an experience for my birthday rather than a thing, because he knows that I'm creating the rich life of my dreams, and outrageous experiences are really fundamental to that.  But I'm even more fortunate because Michael is a maximizer.  He tries to get the most out of every experience, and I've seen him accomplish it over and over because he's willing to ask for more. Here's how he maximized this experience for me. 

After donning gloves and helping to hold the balloon open as it filled with air, we jumped into the basket and took off at sunset.  We rose 4,000 feet into the air and gently drifted over the Savannah River.  After some conversation about the sights below, Michael reached into a gym bag he'd brought along with him, and pulled out an excellent bottle of pinot noir we'd been saving for a special occasion.  He popped the cork and poured me a glass, and we sipped and sailed silently over the forested lands below.  It was magical.

As it came closer to the time to land, our balloon pilot slowly let us drift toward the ground.  As you may know, balloonist cannot control the forward motion of their balloons, so the landing location is usually a surprise.  Our pilot's balloon chasers were ready, though, and they followed us as we drifted closer and closer to the tops of the trees.  At first we thought we might make the golf course, but that didn't work out.  And then it was a cul-de-sac in the neighborhood next door, but there was a tall pole there that might have damaged the balloon.  Finally, with our basket brushing through the trees, we landed safely and exactly in someone's back yard. 

Because we'd been so low for so long, children were waving at us from the ground, and when we landed, whole families drove up and piled out of their cars, having followed us to our landing spot. When Michael saw the crowd, he informed them all that it was my birthday, and asked them to sing Happy Birthday to me.  Which they did. 

Now, that's getting the most out of a situation.  That's amping it up!  I'm learning this trick from Michael: don't accept the ordinary, when the extraordinary could just be a question away.

Wishing you every possibility!