Oh Christmas tree...

that we chopped down ourselves! Yes we did.
Jared got home earlier on Friday than he expected. We'd been talking about getting our own tree for about a year- last December we thought about it, but the forest service had already sold all their permits by the time we got organized. This year, I got the info around Thanksgiving- where to go, which forests were off limits, how much the tag cost, etc. So we loaded the kids into our big blue Durango and set off for Fillmore, Utah. No, I didn't know where it was either. :) But if you drive south about 2 1/2 hours on the freeway, you'll see it. It took us about 3 hours to drive there, as it was raining [in the valley] or snowing [over the mountain pass] the entire way. But we made it, and paid our $10 for the tree permit, and got the list of rules. We stopped to get gas, and bought everybody a snack, then headed off into the forest. It was still snowing, of course, and we had to go further than 100 feet from the road to chop anything down. So we cruised the dirt roads, looking for promising clumps of trees. After about 30 minutes of driving, and hearing "Let's keep looking, but remember that spot in case we don't find anything further up", I mentioned that it was getting dark. Which it really was :). So we turned around and drove back to the [you guessed it!] first spot, then unloaded all 4 kids and trudged into the wet, snowy, dark, cold forest. Since I had Myles, I was a bit slow, but Walker and Morgen had the spotlight, and waited to show me one of their finds:


I saw a lot of beautiful evergreen trees. I found several that I liked, a lot, but I also discovered something: Jared is a tree snob! When he was a boy scout, one of their fundraisers was selling Christmas trees. And he'd go out w/his dad and the other scouts and pick the trees that they would cut down and transport back to town. He has a great eye, and I do like the tree he finally settled on :) I just found our conversation a bit silly:
me: "Oh, that's a pretty one!"
jared: "It's two trees- see how the trunk split?"
me: "That one's nice!"
jared: "Well, the trunk has a crook. Let's keep looking"
[are you seeing a pattern?]
me: "Hey, what about that one?"
jared: "Hmmm. The one side of the tree looks kind of sparse to me."
And on, and on.
It was really dark by now, and Myles was screaming because he wanted to get down and I wouldn't let him. Dark forest, slushy trail, steep drop-off next to the trail; I'm a horribly mean mother, don't you think? So Myles, Hyrum [who was shivering], and I all headed back to the car.
About 15 minutes later, Walker and Morgen returned. Walker was sulking [he had a conversation remarkably similar to mine with Jared] because "Dad didn't like my tree." We sat in the car with the heater turned on, warming up. Jared brought down his 'perfect tree,' which was pretty darn good-looking, and got it all wrapped and tied down to the top of the Durango. Then it was another 3-hour drive home, again in the still-falling snow/rain.

And now it's almost 9pm, and the kids are starving, so we ate and got them to bed, then Jared set up the tree for me. He left Saturday morning about 5:30am, for another trip, and will probably be home between 10 or 11pm next Saturday. But hey, he got the Christmas tree LOL!