In the months and weeks just prior to my dad's passing last year, he often talked about how wonderful life is. He would tell us, "It's a Wonderful Life. Enjoy it! Every day you wake up; it's wonderful. Make the most of every day."

I can't tell you how many times he repeated that to us. He wanted to be sure that we understood and cherished our time with family and had many enjoyable experiences.

Shortly after his passing, my husband told me if there is something that you really want to do, we need to do it! We need to enjoy our life.  Taking that cue from my dad, we didn't want to let time pass without experiencing those things that we really wanted to do together and with our family.

I must mention that I had started a bucket list prior to this time. And, on that list was to ride in a one-horse open sleigh. So I started looking for opportunities to make that happen.

Then, some good friends of ours invited us to join them on a trip out west to South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore, to Big Sky Montana to experience a part of that beautiful state,  and then down through Wyoming and on to Estes Park, Colorado.
Surely, I thought, there may be a chance to find a one-horse open sleigh ride excursion at one of those stops. We were going to be traveling at the end of winter... we might be able to make my sleigh ride happen!

I started searching the Internet and found a place in Keystone, that had sleigh rides excursions. We all agreed that it would be fun! It was a sleigh ride to a restaurant where we could enjoy dinner before riding in the sleigh back to our vehicles. We reserved it right away and all were excited about this part of our trip!

Our first big stop was in South Dakota near Keystone.  When we checked into our hotel, we said "Where's the snow?" (I felt like the two couples in White Christmas while disembarking the train in Vermont!) The admissions clerk replied, "Well, we haven't had snow in a while!"  to which I replied, "Well, we're supposed experience a sleigh ride in Keystone.  He had never heard of it. (Insert Red Flag here.)
Our friend said, "Oh, don't worry. We'll find the location tomorrow morning."

Morning came and we started looking at a map trying to find the location of this sleigh ride. We just couldn't find it anywhere. My friend noticed there was a Keystone, Colorado, too. So, I called to let them know that we were having trouble finding where to meet for the sleigh ride...in Keystone, SD.  She responded, "it's on a main highway in Colorado!"

 "Colorado??? I'm in South Dakota!!!"

"Oh, I'm sorry, ma'am.  This is Keystone, Colorado."

Oh my goodness. What a mistake!

Now, just to give me a little credit, the email confirmation for the sleigh ride DID NOT mention Colorado...anywhere! Nor was it mentioned on the site.

I was not a seasoned traveler. I had no idea that there was a Keystone, Colorado. She said we should have known by the area code! (No way!)  After some communication with this company and the credit card company, we received a partial refund.  What a mistake! But, now we just laugh about it!

So, that item is still on my bucket list and you can imagine what a reminder it was when Stampin' Up! released the One Horse Open Sleigh Suite!  Stay tuned as we share projects with the Horse and Sleigh Bundle and the One Horse Open Sleigh Designer Series Paper this week!