Got Tree?

Yayyyy, after a near fiasco day we got our Christmas Tree yesterday. I made a major faux pas that I really should have known better having had teenagers for nearly a decade now. When I got home I asked would someone please help me get stuff in the car and did somebody get the saw like I asked? (yep, you can see this coming) One of the boys said "got it" and I thought that meant he was putting it in the car. So we took off and got up to Banks where we usually get our tree-cutting permit (when we've gone as a group on Saturdays in the past years) only to find that they are closed on Tues and Weds! We decided to drive on up to Crouch (about another 10 miles) where we turn off to the back-roads for tree hunting and check there. We stopped at the "Trading Post" and asked them about permits. They said if we go back to the highway and to the Forest Service HQ that they thought they would have them. Fortunately they did and we asked if they knew of any other places to cut trees (rather than go back through Crouch). They said to try the road south of them and we drove about 20 minutes in and started looking for trees. That was when I discovered that we had no saw (hmm, reminds me of the old "I see said the blind man as he picked up his hammer... never mind ;).

So after nearly losing my cool we headed back to the Trading Post in Crouch where the lady that had told us about the Forest Service no doubt got a kick out of the "city folk" that drove out to cut trees without a saw. I told her that I did have a saw blade on my Leatherman but thought that would be too much work. She said "yeah, and by the time you get it cut down with that it would be too late to need one anyways!" We did think it was cool though that she looked at Josh's hoodie and said "Oh, you like Switchfoot! I'm a Switchfoot fan too!" (She had to have been in her fifties) I asked her how SHE had heard of Switchfoot and she said "Oh, my son plays in the band at the local Calvary Chapel!" Too cool.

So on we went on up the road where we have found trees the last three years. Sure enough after less than 1/2 hour we had found another "perfect" wild tree! I put "perfect" in quotes because they are of course not the average Christmas Tree farm groomed and cultivated trees you can get at either the local supermarket, nursery or "cut your own" tree farm, but an honest to goodness, real natural tree. It had character and even though Josh and I couldn't convince Birgit to settle for a 2-1/2 foot tall scrawny Charlie Brown Christmas tree, we ended up with a tree that we all agreed is even nicer than the one we got last year!

Here's the one from last year: