The boys took an exceptionally late nap, we were waiting, and waiting for Mitch, Curtis and George to finally wake up, so we could get to the tree farm before it closed at 5pm. By the time they awoke, we had rounded them all up, changed diapers, shoed, hooded, and coated them all, we were walking out the door at 4:07pm. It's a 36 minute drive. We needed gas. Of course. Matt then stopped by our still-not-sold previous home, to open the garage, there-by interrupt the agent showing the place, to run in and grab the chainsaw battery.
We pull into the tree farm at 4:47pm. As I get the boys out and situated, Matt gets our tree ticket. It's kind of misting, a tid chilly, definitely muddy, and Curtis and George have decided they are terrified of tractors. Mitch is tucked safely away in the wagon, along-side the chainsaw. What!? The baby is by the chainsaw!? Whatever, I don't have time to worry about this hazard. We truck it to a patch of trees. All too small. But perfect for a picture. I insist we take 2 minutes to set up the timer and snap a shot. So we do. Another patch. Too dead. Any further and we will never make it back by 5pm. Then we see it. Not perfect, but it appeared usable. But we ventured on, hoping for better. There were none. We circled back. By this time, all 4 boys were out and about wandering. I rounded them all up, carrying a P'O'd and squirming Mitch (he insists he is a "big boy" now) back to our tree. Mitch and George watched Matt fell the tree with the chainsaw. Mitch, decided the falling tree meant certain death and began crying and pacing in circles.We dragged the tree to the tractor path, I stowed George, Mitch AND the chainsaw back into the wagon, and we trucked it to the office. Only once we all got to the cashier, did I notice that Mitch was missing a shoe and had an extremely wet foot. Crap. Forget about it. That shoe has been through 4 children, and I think I paid $4 for them at Target in 2009. I'm just leaving it. I pay for the tree. But I know EXACTLY where we cut down the tree, I'm sure that's were it fell off. Damn, OCD. I'm going back out there. I sprint BACK to the tree stump, Matt rounds up the kids. We are the last people at the place. No luck, no shoe. I get back to the van and they are all waiting for me with the receipt and tree stub!! Oops. The employees kindly load the tree on our van. And...I have no cash!! We made them all stay late, and we had NO tip!!!! I promise I am mailing cash, with the date, for the proper people to get a tip.
Four days later, we bring the tree into the house. It's really crooked. It's huge. It's completely unstable. Matt did A LOT of cursing while trying to get it properly in the stand. As I type, I fear for the life of Berry who is happily sleeping on the couch adjacent to the tree. We did lots of trimming. I am pretty sure we found a huge spider's nest that we chucked out the front door. We should have torched it. The center is filled with dead pine needles, and I don't want to think about what else...probably more spider eggs. *shiver* There is a somewhat large space deficit, that I will attempt to repair with some clever finagling of the lights. Berry thinks the needles and branches are chewable. I bought candy canes, because Brock kept insisting we needed them to decorate the tree, and that's all the boys can think about. They keep touching the package. The tree isn't even up and Curtis is all but trying to hang them!
