Snowmobiling

 

Last Saturday we were invited to a birthday party for a friend in the ward.  They asked us to come enjoy the snow with their snowmobiles and sleds.  They even had a children’s snowmobile which was a lot of fun for the kids.  We had a really fun time.

 

The funniest part of the story though was just trying to find their house.  It was Me, Rachelle and the six kids we have between us in my 7 passenger van.  We were about halfway there (they live about 35 min. from our house) when I realized I forgot my phone and I didn’t have an address or anything.  Neither of us had ever been there and neither of us had a phone for GPS purposes or calling for directions.  All we knew was that she said they lived behind the school.  Okay so we got into town and the junior high is right off the main road so we checked all around that without luck.  Then we saw a sign for the high school down another road so we took that route only to fail again.  So I turned around to head back to the main road not knowing what exactly we were going to do at this point when suddenly I see flashing lights that we all know to be bad news.  So I pulled over and as the officer was coming to my door Rachelle reminded me that the guy who’s house we are going to use to be a cop.  So when he got to my window the conversation went like this.

Officer: “Looks like you’ve got a full house in here.”

Me (gulp): “yea…um… we are actually going sledding.”

Officer: “Well, the reason I pulled you over is because you were going 47 in a 35 the limit changed about half a mile back.”

Me:"I am sorry I didn’t realize it had changed, we are a little lost. We are actually looking for the ____’s house you might actually know them.  Don’t you?”

Officer(now smiling): “Yes I do know him, but I can’t tell you where he lives.  But I can tell you where a good sledding hill is.”

Me: “No, they are actually expecting us at their house for the birthday party so thanks anyway.”

Rachelle (brilliantly piping in over my shoulder): “Can you tell us where the Elementary school is?”

At this point he must have realized that we were actually invited over to his house and that this minivan full of 2 moms and 6 kids probably didn’t have plans to viciously terrorize a former police officer.  So he took mercy on us and proceeded to tell us how to get there.  I was thankfully blessed to have gotten directions and thankfully blessed to have gotten out of a couple of serious tickets.  (speeding and too many kids in the car)  It is the first time an officer has ever had mercy on me so maybe the old saying is true.  It’s who you know.