Winter Sleigh Rides

One of My families favorite thing to do this time of year is go on sleigh rides down by the river on my Uncles property. It's so peaceful and it's a great way to put everything aside and just enjoy your family for a while. Since we love it so much we decided to team up and offer Sleigh Rides to other families in the community. It was a lot of work, but we were able to get our whole family involved.

At the beginning of December I posted on a few Facebook pages this ad for the rides... 

At that time we had 20 times slots open. 

Within 3 hours they were full!! And I was making another wait list if we could round up another team and sleigh. 

We were able to get another team, so we opened another 10 spots- they filled up within only a few minutes! We were so excited and surprised about the response! We had families coming from Pocatello to Montana!! We couldn't believe it! 

We prayed and prayed for snow and we were all so excited Saturday morning when we woke up to fresh falling snow!! 

I love this picture my sister posted of my Dad,  Dick, and Homer as we were getting everything ready to go! 

The men helped me so much. They put up signs, and tents, and helped me manage and get everything in order! 

We had 3 teams: (My dad's friend RJ's- in the back) Pedro & Lefty

(Rodney's- front black) Huck & Tank

And my dad's: Dick & Homer. 

They ended up having to pull wagons instead of sleighs because the ground wasn't frozen yet.

Randall, Rodney, and my Dad drove the teams for a solid 5 hours! It was a crazy day, but they all enjoyed seeing the families so excited to get to do this together. 

Besides it being cold and muddy- it was a huge success! 

We ended up giving rides to almost 500 people! (Or 27 families!)  

Besides the rides we also had a warm tent set up in the trees for the kids and families to get warm and enjoy some hot chocolate. It was fun to watch the families just enjoy each other and the beautiful surroundings. Although it was a busy day and a lot of people were coming and going, we loved that we could do this for them all. 

 Everyone was so generous, we were so humbled by the response and the amount of  donations we received to give to Toys For Tots fundraiser! We were able to give an entire cart FULL of toys and money donations to the organization! 

My kids were pretty excited about handing the toys over, it was a great lesson on how generous people really are. There really sis so much good in the world. 

 I'm sure this is a tradition we will try to carry on in the years to come, as long as people want to do it we will provide it for them! (Well- as long as Dick and Homer are still alive and willing!)

I've already got a list building for next years slots, so if you want in you better let me know!