Come on it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you

I was thinking about the Wild West again together for several reason. One, the huge snow storm that's headed toward us on Thursday or Friday reminds me of weather in the Wild West. And I loved all the cold and snow there. Something about that was just perfect and didn't seem so inconveniencing. The other reason I was thinking about it was because AlaskaSam sent me some pictures of all the snow in his yard and told me about more that's coming and it seems appealing. The last reason I was thinking about the Wild West is because Daddy-O changed his desktop picture to a horse drawn sleigh in the snow.

When I lived there one of the cool things that happened was my horse drawn sleigh ride experience. There was a really OLD sled outside of town in a field and I went out there and had some pictures taken my first Christmas. I was wearing my pink boots and a pink cowboy hat. My intent was to use them as a Christmas card but I never did. Anyway, I told some of my students I did that and they saw the pictures and thought how cool they were because that was stuff they never thought about. A sled to them is typical winter transportation and didn't think I would think of it as a novelty.

With that in mind, when we had a huge snow a few weeks before Christmas, I suddenly had banging on my front door on Sunday evening. When I opened it, there were about 7 kids standing on the stoop giggling, They "caroled" and then told me there was a surprise. They stepped aside and there was a horse drawn sleigh. They were going around town with hay in flatbeds of pickup trucks and riding there and they took turns riding in the horse drawn sleigh. They were with a youth group from a local church and they were also my students. It was my turn to ride in a REAL horse drawn sleigh, not some old abandoned one outside of town. So I got dressed and the bundled me up in warm blankets and then we rode around town singing carols for about 30 minutes.

The horse clip-clopped and the owner/ driver had tied sleigh-bells to the reins and so we jingled all the way. It was exhilarating and magical. It was a complete Currier and Ives experience. They even let me sip hot chocolate out of their thermos. We laughed and giggled and sang. It was cold and the smell of crisp air, and the horse whinnied, and I couldn't have experienced anything better than that moment.

When they dropped me off, all the kids shouted "Marry Christmas" as they rode out of sight.

We haven't had any significant snow yet this year but I have hope. I'm sure I won't be going on a horse drawn sleigh ride when and if we do, but I think I'll always remember this night when the snow falls (or when it's supposed to).

One my best memories ever...
Maggie