Oh Christmas Tree

11/27/09

The day after we decided that we were going to beginning a new family tradition. We bought a permit ($5.00) to cut down our Christmas tree. Our permit was for an area of BLM land by Cove Fort. Joe's mom and sister came with us so I could help with the tree and we would have help with the boys. We thought it would be fun to pull the boys on a sled through the snow. At first unfortunately but later thankfully there wasn't any snow.

Our permit was for a juniper tree. Do you know what they look like? I didn't, but now I do. They are so ugly. It doesn't look at all like a Christmas tree. It looks like a bush with tiny berries. When we got to our destination and saw these ugly trees we wondered what we were going to do. You could see were people had been cutting trees down and it appeared as if they cut the ugly bush into the shape of a Christmas tree.

We were preparing to do the same when we saw a cute little tree all by itself. We cut it down. (We may or may not have been where we were supposed to be and it may or may not have been a juniper tree.) We cut our cute little tree down and loaded it in the truck and enjoyed some hot chocolate.

Joe carrying our tree

Hot chocolate mustache

We drove two cars so that the tree could be in the truck. But Cris, Jill, the boys and I were in the van. As we were leaving I needed to turn the car around. I didn't notice a tree stump and I got the car stuck. It took forever to get it out. We tried everything. Basically, I couldn't go forward because of all the under carriage stuff and I couldn't go backwards because of the bumper. We were seriously stuck.

After surveying the problem and sawing off some of the stump, Chris decided that if we could get the car high enough we could get off the stump. We jacked the car up and piled rocks under the tire and tried to get out. it still wouldn't work.

Parker was on my back in the Ergo keeping warm. He fell asleep and I put him back in his car seat.

We called my trusty brother-in-law Mike. He was going to pull us out by putting a strap on our van and pulling us out with his SUV. This didn't work either. Then he decided Chris really was on to something. We jacked the car up again and put lots of rocks under the tire again.

It finally worked!

This is what we were stuck on.

I am so glad Chris and Jill were there to help and so extremely grateful Mike came to our rescue.

Unfortunately the excitement didn't end there. After putting the tree up it fell over three times and we finally had to buy a bigger tree stand. Half of the lights didn't work so we ended up buying all new lights. what was supposed to cost $5.00 ended up costing a whole lot more.

The tree was so poky we were covered with rashes and scratches. I think this tradition began and ended all on the same day.

Even though it wasn't the most enjoyable experience it was very memorable. The best part was the wonderful scent of a freshly cut evergreen tree.