iFly at Universal Studios Hollywood

Today we're doing something exciting!
You might remember back at Christmas-time, we gave the kids a fun present saying they were going indoor skydiving! Today is the day!

Ian has gone before when he was 4 years old, so this is all old-hat to him. Alli though is brand new to it. We made sure to show her videos and talk about how fun it was. She wasn't nervous at all. She's practicing being in the wind tunnel.

The kids were so excited... that they fell asleep on the drive there. I can relate though. LA traffic is pretty boring.

Amazingly even with Jon driving 6 hours to get there, and us driving 1 hour, we arrived within minutes of each other, parking only 2 spaces away from each other in the parking garage. And man, paying $25 per car to park is not fun.

With a little time to kill before our flights, everyone wandered the shops of the Universal City Walk. It'sugar was a popular one, though the kids were begging for candy the whole time.

These giant gummies have intrigued me, but there's no way to each that much gummy candy.

Ha. These boxes are an expensive way to do those taste tests that we do ourselves. For $10 you get 6 different candy bar flavors.

The kids weren't allowed to buy any candy, but Theresa was prepared as soon as we walked out with lots of snacks from the backpack. Gummy fruit snacks and goldfish.

Seeing as how we're at Universal, the gift shops here have lots of theme park merchandise. Jon's kids are totally into Harry Potter.

Alli, you've got Fawkes!
Alli - He's a bird, not a fox!

Unicorns, she loves them. They're so fluffy!

A couple photos with some of the icons of the park, since we're here.

Finally 3:30pm rolls around it's time for us to fly. Ages 3 to 103. Alli, you just make it!

In training we learned the proper way to fly for beginners. It's the Belly Fly on the sign in the background.

Finally it's time to get suited up.

Ian was being a "helper" and finding tons of earplugs on the ground, and handing them to the instructor. Until we told him to stop picking up other people's used earplugs off the ground. That's gross.

Looking good!

They're just too adorable in their little flight suits. Alli was very excited they had pink for her.

Let's go!

Alright, let's figure out who is going first.
Alli - I want to go first!
Ian - I want to go next!

Guess that settles the question on if they were nervous or not.

As soon as Alli went in to the chamber, she held her arms out big and was flying! She was amazing! I was so proud of her!

As part of our iFly package, everyone got (2) 1 minute flights, plus 1 photo and 1 video. In every case, I chose everyone's first flight. Here's Alli's very first time hopping into the wind tunnel.

Ian was next. A little more wild than the last time he went, but he is a bit taller than last time, with long skinny legs to match. Here's his video.

I've gone 4 times now, so I'm pretty used to it. I really wish the tunnel was a little wider. I feel like I'm bouncing off the walls most of the time. My video.

Theresa did fantastic! She was showing great control, moving herself forwards and backwards at will. Her video.

Jon has jumped out a real plane before, but this is a little more controlled. He did well. His video.

Emma was a bit nervous about flying today, but I'm glad she powered through those nerves and did it.  And when it was all over, she was really happy she did it. Our instructor Samuel did a great job at projecting confidence and making her at ease, telling her that he'll keep anything bad from happening to her. Her video.

Isaac was a huge surprise. Within 15 seconds of him going into the wind tunnel all of us sitting on the benches were looking at each other in shock at how well he was doing. Has he really never done this before? He just naturally knew how his body should be arching. His video.

Jess did great and had a lot of fun with it. Her video.

Josh was nervous too, but still did both flights. His video.

Eli finished everyone up. His video.

After we were done everyone was feeling high. It was hard to talk while we were in the wind tunnel, but once we were out we could talk about how good everyone did and some of the amazing things we saw. The kids mentioned how much they liked our instructor Samuel.

Sam gave everyone a certificate and told us what we could improve on for next time. And given how much everyone liked it this time, I'm sure we'll be back.

And a funny follow-on. Using the hand dryers in the restroom, Ian said "It's like my hands in iFly!"