Charlie Brown Tree

Disclaimer: This excursion was against Arthur's better judgment. But I convinced him that nothing bad could happen. I was sure I wasn't having the baby that night, and I wanted to cut down our tree instead of getting it at Lowe's.

So . . . . On Saturday afternoon we went up to the Jemez mountains in the Southern Rockies to cut down our tree. Unfortunately, we left a little too late and only had about an hour of daylight to find the perfect tree. Well, when you are looking around the forest for the perfect Christmas tree with a two-year-old and a nine-month pregnant lady, you don't walk around the forest as quickly as you might otherwise. Sean was such a trooper, but he kept tripping on hidden twigs and logs. Every time he fell, he would get up and would say, "I did it!" But I spent most of my time helping him up, and brushing off the snow. Dallin and Daphne were great at encouraging him to keep going. Eventually, we stayed by the car while Arthur made a big (faster) sweep of a certain area as we were running out of daylight. Meanwhile, the kids were getting cold and hungry and cranky, and we ended up cutting this tree next to the road that was a far cry from last year's perfect specimen, but passable. We lovingly call it our "Charlie Brown Tree."
I don't have any pictures of the tree we chose because we were racing the setting sun trying to get it up on the car and back home. In fact, we were grateful to actually make it home with any tree at all after we had some trouble getting out of those snow-packed forest service roads. Our first attempt back out, we spun out and decided we'd need some chains to get out. (Keep in mind we're in a mini van. No 4-wheel drive for us. ) Oh, and we forgot our cell phone. So we had no way to contact anybody if we actually got stuck.

Unfortunately, one of our chains broke the first time we tried to make a climb. Not good. We limped along with chains on one front tire and the other front tire spinning out. We prayed and prayed and Heavenly Father was looking out for us, because Arthur was finally able to maneuver us out, and I'm thinking we may have had angels pushing us up the final ascent.

Meanwhile, maybe because of the full moon and the emotional stress of contemplating the worst possible scenario, I had some pretty good contractions start up. But they subsided when we got home and I put my feet up. We felt very, very grateful to be sleeping in our own beds and not in the car out in the wilderness waiting for the next mornings' tree hunters to come find us. And especially that Arthur didn't have to deliver our baby out there in the freezing cold car.










We brought the tree in last night to decorate for Family Home Evening. Once the holes were facing the corner and it was fitted with lights and ornaments, I must say it doesn't look half bad.
















Here is a video of the kids decorating the tree for Christmas.