Family 'Outing' - January

I'm one month into my New Years Resolutions and have successfully fulfilled at least one months promise of an outdoor family outing. Last Saturday we took the one hour drive to Daniels Summit Lodge near Heber City, Utah to try our hand at snowmobiling.


I haven't been snowmobiling in more than 20 years and none of my family has been so we decided to take a minimalist approach. Instead of renting 2 sleds we just rented one and only planned on going for about 2 hours. Not knowing if Shelby would like this activity we decided that I would take her out first and just be gone for a few minutes and see how she did.



She did great! I however managed to roll the sled on it's side in the first 5 minutes. BTW, I had a similar experience a few years ago when we went jet skiing for the first time. I guess I had better not take up flying ;)
No one was hurt I was just trying to turn around and got off the trail a little too far and well yah, we came off the sled. Shelby stood right up buried to her waist in snow and said, "WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!?"



Shelby had her 15 minutes and was done for the day. So, now it was Michelle's turn. That is her in the pic above. I know with all the helmets and stuff it's hard to tell who is who. The first 5 minutes with her was all about screaming like a little girl. Not in glee but in sheer terror. She stopped quickly but the reason she stopped is pure Michelle. Let's see if I can get it right. As she was screaming she realized that she did trust me after all and that I wasn't going to kill her and also she realized how incredibly beautiful it was up there and that she really just needed to enjoy it. Something like that. Ask her to tell it, it is just vintage 'Shelly'. I stopped to ask her if she wanted to go back about 2 times and she was just loving it so we took a nice 30-40 minute ride. I took her back and she was done for the day and so she took Shelby to the lodge for some girl time.



So, of course last but not least, patient KJ got his turn. After waiting in the helmet room for about an hour Father and son took off into the hills. I drove for a ways but then let KJ drive. (he could legally drive the snowmobile because he has his drivers license now. Just got it the Wednesday previous to this outing. A post about this will be forthcoming)
We took turns as we headed down the 20 mile loop. We had a great time. We were hootin and hollerin several times. We went over the summit and drove through a pretty good snow storm for a few minutes. It was soooo beautiful.


It was beautiful and oh so much fun! It's definitely something to save up for but we can't wait to go back. I'm sure we will.