Mush!

As many of you know, our daughter is a complete and utter dog fanatic. We have always had dogs in the family, including our current beautiful snow dog, Maggie. Irie is always ready to give love to any dog with which she happens to cross paths. For years when we've asked her what she wants to be when she grows up, her answer is either "working at the pound" or "being a veterinarian." She also loves any movie that involves dogs as main characters from Eight Below to Snow Dogs to Underdog. We have wanted to take her on a sled dog adventure for years, but it never quite worked out. Well, as chance would have it, through our newly acquired french network of friends and their acquaintances, we ended up in a chalet for a week in the beautiful southern Alps of France ,
and there were multiple teams of well-trained sled dogs willing to make Irie's dream come true.

On Thursday, March 5, we showed up for our reserved adventure at 11 am in the little town of Ancelle, and had an absolutely fantastic experience! It had snowed about 8 inches the night before so the entire surroundings were dreamy white, but that also meant the dogs would be working extra hard. We watched as the trainer picked his teams. He picked 7 dogs for the big sled he would be driving with Irie as passenger. 3 dogs for Lisa's team, and 4 dogs for mine. He gave us a brief rundown on starting, stopping, and staying balanced. Lisa learned real quickly about the balance trickery, but as always was a fast learner. I became pretty adept at filming while also controlling my team, and at one point asked Lisa if she had anything to say. Her comment: "I'm speechless"...followed shortly thereafter by "Who needs heaven?" It was blissful. I will let the video tell the rest of the story: Our sled dog adventure.

I also made a fun little video of the three of us skiing.