Exploring With Jake.....

After going sledding Jake decided it would be fun to go the back way to his parents house (I didn't think this was such a great idea). The part of the road we were on was plowed and everything, I just get a little worried about some of these back roads in MT. Anyhow....

Jake wanted to, Jake was driving, so off we went.....

Eventually we started to notice that the road coming up didn't look so beautifully groomed.....

Anyhow....without going into any hurtful blaming....I will jump forward to the part that....

WE GOT STUCK!!!!

And when I say stuck, I don't mean the rock the truck back and forth and you get out kind of stuck, I mean....good luck digging yourself out kind of stuck.....

In this pic we have spent maybe 30+ minutes moving the truck 2 truck lengths....

Here is a pic from where we actually got stuck showing how far we had gotten by this point (approx. 1 hour)

If you are wondering why we are stuck and there isn't THAT much snow....
There is a lot more than it looks like in an all white pic
and....

We were shoveling all of the snow out from under and around the truck out with our hands and putting it in the sleds and throwing it in the back of the truck for weight over the back wheels....

In addition to that if I wasn't pushing the truck I was sitting back there (only happened once, then I told Jake I thought the pushing made more sense) and then we realized we should just put the kids back there for weight....All 3 of them back there would help some......

Then After about 1 1/2 hours we were finally able to get the truck to more a little more than before, but then it kinda slid into a ditch we were trying to avoid......

So....our only option at this point was to pull the truck up onto the side of the ditch.....

So then we had one wheel up, and one wheel down.....

I had to get Aspynn out of the back of the truck for a pic so you could see how high the truck was up on the side of this ditch.....

Anyhow....after this pic was taken we pulled the other tire up on the side of the ditch (that gave us some traction because there was a tree there so there was some dirt rather than just snow) and then back up and got the truck sideways. After that it was a lot of digging and pushing to get the truck turned around. Once we were able to do that (it was getting really close to sunset at this time) I jumped in the truck and Jake got a running start at the hill we came down and with a lot of prayer and the Lord's help we were able to make it out of there!!!

When we got to a safe place Jake stopped the truck and we said a prayer with the kids thanking Heavenly Father for helping us out of there!!! We talked the whole way home about how Heavenly Father helps us, but also expects us to try to help ourselves. What a great lesson opportunity for our kids, but not one that I want to repeat ANY time soon....