How I almost died

My Pastor, Gene, told me once, that you get more reads on your blog if you can come up with a catchy title. I completely agree with this, and so after our conversation I took a look at my blog only to find out that my most read blog was, "We're moving to Alaska". Not surprising.

 Ok. I admit it. I didn't almost die. I mean I DEFINITELY felt like I might at the time. But mostly I know that a large percentage of you are reading to see how I almost died..not sure how I feel about that.

... I digress. Here is what really happened.

For those of you who know me well you know that we LIVE by my bucket list. I keep an album on FB which I regularly add pictures to once we knock something off my list. I am always adding to the bucket list-much to Daniels delight..hehe.

I have many "Alaska only"adventures that I am currently focusing on. One of those happened to be snowmobiling.

Now neither I nor Daniel had ever been snowmobiling, but I mean, hey, it cant be THAT hard. So when one of the guys who Daniel works with invited us to go with him and some friends, we were on board.

We probably should have considered that Cantwell, AK is one of the most extreme places to snowmobile in the world-for experienced riders..which was certainly not us. This became apparent when literally we went to start the day and went up the first little mountain and flipped the snowmobile. Basically from that point on I was terrified..especially after we soon after flipped again and then 5 minutes later i completely flew off a good 5 feet from the snowmachine.

At this point I decided 2 things. 1. This was the worst idea ever. 2. If I made it out alive it would be a miracle.

Granted, the snow was so deep when you flipped you literally landed in 3 feet of fresh snow covering many more feet of settled snow-so it never hurt-except your pride. But it DID sufficiently scare me half to death each time. I kept thinking, "this is it Lord...You're taking me home today".

Ok, so looking back I was probably being a little dramatic. But what made this so different from all the other crazy things we've done-I never felt secure. Usually you skydive, or whitewater raft and at first the adrenaline is pumping and your terrified, but then you realize this is awesome, and the excitement clouds your judgement enough your enjoying it. This-this..there was nothing but crystal clear understanding I was going to die. This was, "I'm about to fly over the mountain and I cant see if there is ground or a 20 ft drop awaiting me." You would come up on these mountains so vertical that you felt like you were going to slide off the machine, only to just barely make it on the top and hope you didn't drop because you weren't sure if there was ground over the mountain.

It was probably good that the machine was so loud no one could hear what I was saying..
I kept thinking the entire day of a saying my college roommate Jen used to say. It had to do with being tense and a penny-if she reads this she will know haha.

 Here are a few pictures from our adventure.

For those of you enjoying the warm weather at home-it's been snowing here. And it's cold, so very cold!! Thank the Lord for warm clothes and heat. Truly, I think God had me in mind when heated car seats were created. It's the small things in life...

-Leslie