Lucy’s Blog

This weekend we started a new tradition-going out and finding our Christmas tree in the forest.  My sister and brother-in-law have done this for years and I knew that when we moved here that I wanted to get in on the tradition.

We drove up to McCall on Friday (it’s about a 2 hour drive) and then woke up on Saturday to go find our tree!  We bought our permit, rented our snow shoes, and set out to find the perfect tree.

It didn’t start off so well…

But it quickly turned around:

We hiked down hills with saws:

Staked out the perfect trees:

Got one! (We were on the lookout for four):

Got two! (Look at that stud):

Got three!

We still hadn’t found OUR perfect tree.  We went on the hunt and saw one on our way back, WAY down the hill.  Shaun got on the sled to get down to it and proclaimed that it was THE PERFECT tree.  He cut it down and got it back up the hill (with the help of my brother-in-law).

We were a happy family:

It’s the tree standing up behind us.  We stuck it in the snow and we’re below it.  It was still 10 feet and when we got it home we had to trim it down a bit.

Here she is on top of the car:

And outside our house:

That’s one beautiful tree!  Pretty trees that are under 12 feet are hard to find out in the forest.  They are few and far between.  We totally lucked out.

When we got home, we put the tree in the house (you should smell it in here!) and decorated with Christmas music going.  Lu LOVED it.  It was the first year that she’s really understood Christmas and got into it.  We had such a nice night. 

Shaun just came upstairs and proclaimed, “I love our tree.  This is the best Christmas yet!”

I think I need some more ornaments since I’ve never had a big tree before. My old tree topper also won’t work because it’s too skinny to fit on top of the tree.  Expect to see some improvements .

I agree with Shaun though, this IS the best Christmas yet!

It has been COLD and snowy here in Boise.  The coldest I’ve seen is 1* on our outdoor thermometer and we’ve had snow on the ground since Monday. We woke up today to more snow!  There was a Christmas parade and the Farmer’s Market in Downtown Boise this morning so we bundled up and went!  Call us crazy

Lu in the car, ready to go!

Don’t the girls look happy?

Wouldn’t you be ecstatic if your Mom dragged you out to watch a line of Minis?

No? How about a snowman! On a Harley!

Really?  Are you having fun yet? Maybe not:

(I think my dear daughter is thinking “EFF YOU MOM.  This SUCKS!”)

The marching band that made both my sister and I start crying-they always do-WTF is up with that?!?!?!

Dancers…sort of dancing…

Isn’t this fun? Well at least there are candy canes!

(“Really Mom?  Really?  Even this candy cane can’t make me smile.”)

Cool old car:

These people said “EFF IT!” and put up there hard top.  How awesome is this car?!?

This float was so sad.  The characters were all falling over because of the snow

Horse-in a a blizzard! (not really)

We ended up going to a Vietnamese place for Pho and watching the rest of the parade from the window.  We saw Santa, sorta…The girls said they had fun or something like that…

  While we were doing that.  Daddy was out mountain biking.  No really!

He had a blast!  So did we-no really we did!

I’m loving the seasons here.  We’ll see if I say that in January or February or March….