Our Christmas Tree

We decided to do a real first for our family this year and go cut down our own Christmas Tree. We have cut down a tree at my grandparent's in Oregon before, but Landon wasn't there, I was two weeks from delivering Trevor, so my Grandpa just cut down the closest tree that looked okay. We wanted to go all out this year.

We got a permit from the BLM and found out the closest place to go. The only problem was with all the early snow we had this year they said that you couldn't get all the way back in with your truck. They suggested snow machines, which we don't own. So, we decided to drive as far as we could and then walk in from there. We knew we might not make it very far and have to settle for whatever we could get, but it was worth it.

When we finally stopped the truck to get ready to walk the kids were so excited to play in the snow they could hardly contain themselves. Ellen immediately found this little bit of tree and decided she would take it home to be her very own tree.

So that Levi could enjoy the trip we brought the hiking backpack and he got to ride on my back. He actually really enjoys the backpack and was more than happy to participate that way.

We only made it about a half mile in before Landon and I realized that walking the kids in would be a slow process, so we started looking up the side of the hill for good trees. We knew that since we hadn't gone very far we might have to climb up a bit to get a good tree. We did see a good one up the side of the hill about 100 yards. It was a pretty steep climb so we sent Landon up and the kids and I stayed and played by the road.

The kids were having a blast sliding on their bums in this little ravine right next to the road. We laid on the ground and watched Daddy and called our encouragement to him as he sawed off our Christmas Tree. Our kids had been watching "Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakqual" recently so the entire thing was also sound tracked with our kids singing, "All the Single Ladies." Levi usually got to sing the "Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh" part. He is pretty good at it.

When Landon finally got the tree cut and brought down the mountain to us we tied a rope on the end to drag it back. Trevor really wanted to help pull and tried soooo hard to get the tree to move. In the end he had to settle for helping Daddy pull or carrying the branches at the top of the tree.

On the way down the side of the mountain Landon broke the top off of the tree. It actually turned out okay because the tree would have been too tall of our front room anyway. Ellen was once again happy to find a small Christmas tree just the size for her.

Levi again happily road in the backpack on the way back to the truck. The whole time singing Chipmunk songs in my ear.

And there he is. My hunk of a husband with his Christmas Tree he worked so hard to get. It turned out fabulous and we are sure glad we have him around to scale mountain sides for us. Yeah for Christmas!