So I’ll let you in on a little secret. I get ideas. Sometimes they are grand ideas and sometimes they are small ideas. Usually these ideas push my husband out of his comfort zone. Walking into the wilderness with my family to cut down a Xmas tree is one of these ideas. Leif knows that when I get one of these ideas into my head, he stands little chance of talking me out of it. The funny part it, even if he fights me on it, 9 times out of 10 he is the one that has the best time. We just work that way.

And so, despite the fact that we needed to clean the garage and organize the Thanksgiving and Christmas stuff, catch up on work, etc etc, we packed the kids and the dog into the car instead and headed 40 minutes out east fork on an icy, narrow road to go find the perfect tree. Yes, we can be a little like the Griswolds at times.

But as we hiked up the mountain with everyone yelling “this one!” “No, this one!” Leif looked over at me with a huge grin on his face and said “you know these are our “good ol days”, right?” And I got it. It’s true. I know we will look back at this stuff and remember it with such fondness and love and awe at the life we created together and the experiences we were so blessed to have with our kids.

So with that all said, I will let the pictures tell the rest of the story…