Snowmobile and Sister

Actual photo.

February in my 8th year of life was consumed by two things: snowmobiling around my great uncle's farm field, and the birth of my sister. When I came back to school from that monumental February break, my teacher asked me, "Something big happened over the break for you, I heard. Tell us about it," and my response was, you guessed it, "Yes! I went snowmobiling!"

Now I know what you're thinking, "typical guy!" But in my defense, it was a Yamaha Phazer II. I mean come on.

Me... on snowmobiles.

Okay, don't get me wrong, my sister's birth loomed over my life from then on out, and I was the best big brother in the world to her, but up to that week, I was still just a kid living my normal life and enjoying it. Ripping up the snow across the field with dad was exactly my idea of fun back then.

Actually I seem to remember another trip to some snowy place for snowmobile fun waaay back before I had brains enough to compute where I even was. All I do remember is... "hell yeah!"

But uh... seriously, I don't even remember my mom's pregnancy. It all seemed to just happen one day. One day I was a kid sitting in front of my dad on a snowmobile, flying off the hills, riding over the bumps in the thick snow, hearing the howl of the engine in the frosty wind, watching the snow explode on impact... and the next, I was laying in the hospital bed next to mom with a baby sister between us. She was born on 2/19/94, and I met her first in hospital room 219 (coincidentally). I got to be the cool kid that month, regaling all the boys of the adventure with the snowmobile, and at home I got to be something else.