A couple weeks ago we went with our dear friends, the Koenen's, on our annual tree hunting expedition. Since Brian and I have been married, we've held this tradition and have greatly enjoyed romping through the woods to find the perfect tree and haul it home. However, this year gave us an adventure we weren't quite ready for.
We left in the morning with our friends and headed to the same location we had gone the year before with plans to be home by noon with our lovely trees. We were all bundled up and already thinking about getting home to decorate with a nice cup of hot cocoa in hand. All was going well with everyone in high spirits until we got a little ways down the backroad that would lead us to our destination. The snow was getting fairly deep and we were breaking trail and weren't sure if we were going to be able to make to the forest service access that we needed to. But after Brian and Sam discussed the situation, it was decided that we would try to push on as far as we could because we needed to get up and around the corner before we could even think about cutting a tree down, and it was too far of a walk with four little kids in tow.
So we continued on and made it a little further up the mountain but afraid to go any further on our own, we stopped. Just then, a huge group of off-road vehicles came up behind us and they broke trail ahead of us. So we decided that since we now had tracks to follow we could probably keep going and make it a little further up the road. So we journeyed on, but not for long. With a large jerk and a bump we slid out of the tracks and off the road... we were stuck! And when I say stuck, I don't mean "get out and push" stuck, I mean "how in the world are we going to get out of this" stuck! We were up to the wheel wells in snow and actually had to push snow away with the door in order to get it open. Thankfully there were a few off-road vehicles still behind us, so one of them plowed their way around the other cars to our rescue. This thing was absolutely amazing, by the way. It could plow through snow better than a four-wheeler. It was like a snowmobile with four wheels... crazy! Anyhow, this vehicle had a wench on the front of it so they hooked it up to the front of our truck and worked on getting us unstuck for about 1 1/2 hours . Meanwhile the kids and I sat in the truck, ate snacks, sang songs, and watched all the men sweating, shoveling, and working to get us back on the road... The kids were amazing by the way! They didn't cry hardly at all.
Once we finally got back on track, it was decided to be a bit crazy for us to attempt this trek up the hill for a tree, so we slowly worked our way back down hill. Fortunately, during our excavation we had gotten turned around on the road and were faced downhill, but the Koenen's still faced uphill so they had to drive backwards. We got about a mile down hill when we were stopped by two trucks who had gotten stuck in the road. So Brian and Sam went to help while the rest of us waited... for another 1 1/2 hours! It was quite the process getting 3 vehicles unstuck who were all trying to back down the hill in deep snow! Brian (my hero) walked down the hill a little ways and shoveled out a large area on the side of the road for the vehicles to turn around in. You could say he got his fair share of a work out in on this day! So, about 3 1/2 hours after we had begun our journey up the hill, we were finally leaving... without our Christmas trees. The thought of making another attempt to get our own trees (even if we went somewhere else) was highly unappealing to most of us at this point, so after we got home Sam and Brian went and bought us some beautiful fragrant trees in town. So, the day wasn't a complete disaster... or so we thought.
Brian got the tree home and we had a nice relaxing dinner with the kids. All was well until we attempted to set our very full and very heavy tree into one of the two tree stands we had. One of the stands is apparently not very high quality because the weight of the tree started to bend the legs. The tree wouldn't stand up straight no matter what we did! After much frustration and work (mostly on Brian's part) he decided to take the tree outside into the frigid cold and saw off some of the trunk so it would fit into our other and much smaller tree stand. We hauled it back inside leaving quite the trail of needles behind us and made another attempt at putting up our tree. Brian did a good job cutting the trunk because the tree fit into the stand, but it hadn't been cut quite enough for the stump to sit on the bottom of the stand. Therefore, it wasn't very stable if left alone. It was my job to hold onto the tree while Brian secured it in the stand, but of course I got distracted with our two little boys and lost my grip on the tree. Before I knew it, the tree was lying on the floor. It must have gotten angry at me for letting it fall over because it threw an amazing amount of needles onto the floor (as if there weren't enough already). At this point, Brian and I were both beyond frustrated and it was even stated that we were ready to be done with Christmas altogether (ridiculous, I know). So, we propped the tree up against some chairs and after getting the kids to bed and taking a half hour to cool off, Brian decided to go to town and buy a big sturdy tree stand that would support our stout tree so we could be done with it! In the meantime, I made an attempt to clean up a ridiculous amount of needles that had been scattered all over the house. Brian brought home a great tree stand that does its job beautifully and he also brought home a whole new attitude that was a great blessing to me at the time.
So, after an entire day of exasperation over a single silly tree, we finally got it put up, lighted, and decorated... and it's beautiful! I know God must have been teaching us something that day. But what???
I still don't know, but at least we can get a good laugh now!
Our beautiful tree... which we really enjoy now by the way!
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