We thought it would be fun to take the whole fam up to the mountains and cut down our own Christmas Tree this year, and - take the family photo while we were at it. We went up out of Wahlsburg. (Thank you to Doug and Tricia who went someplace at 4 a.m. last month to get the permit) Our family numbers 13 plus Brooke's dog, so we drove 3 cars, then when the road got bad, we crowded Jeff and Halie into our car for the last couple of miles. We got the picture taken, then Jeff and Halie walked back to their car, while the rest of us (with 4WD) continued up the road. We got to a tiny turn around/dead end and decided - "we're here". We tramped around a bit, then the menfolk spotted a tree that they thought would do. Stacy got out the saw and he and Ben mostly sawed it down. (Shane was trying to start a fire to get warm). It was a pretty tall tree, but the first 4 feet or so was bare, so after they cut it down, they sawed that off and it went to Brooke and Ben's for firewood. The men put it up on their shoulders and hiked back to the car with it. After some huffing and puffing and consulting, it was tied on semi-securely and we loaded back up and were off. We kept checking to make sure it wasn't sliding too much and made it safely home.
Well, you can see that no one had stood it up in the mountains after we cut it down and it was a LITTLE taller than it had looked surrounded by giant trees! Keep in mind that our ceilings are 8 feet, max - we have an old, grandma house! So, there was plenty more sawing to do, to get it to fit into the family room. (We probably should have gotten a clue when it was pretty much the entire length of my very large SUV!) We then enjoyed pizza and hot chocolate while watching "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation", our family favorite.
P.S. The tree is still undecorated, since I went out of town the next day -we're hoping to do it for FHE this week!
