The Quest For The Perfect Tree...

Well it is that time of year again... the time we adventure out into the wilderness in the quest for the perfect tree. You may remember from the post last year, that this has been an annual tradition with Brad's family for over 20yrs.

The day started out warmer in the valley but as we drove up the mountains past Heber it started getting dark and cloudy.

When we arrived we all got ready and headed up the mountain. My unwritten rule is that we have to hike uphill to find our tree so when we bring it back to the truck we are hiking downhill. Makes life much easier!

After we all hiked for what seemed like forever... Monica & Chris as well as Megan & Dave had found their trees. I had also found one for Brad and I but he wasn't satisfied it was the perfect tree for us. So his quest continued. We all watched as the others cut down their trees and waited playing in the snow until Brad got back. He hiked probably another mile in a circle and still found nothing... (I was still standing by the tree I thought was great! Just in case..)

After a lengthy discussion, we decided the tree I was standing by was not "our" tree and continued to hike in a different direction. Another 1/2 mile or so we found a few trees that may work.. Nicole and Paul found a couple they liked and Brad continued another 50 feet and found the "perfect" tree! I came down and helped him decide that yes in fact it was a great tree. As he cut down the tree it fell up against another one before falling to the ground. We think that is where our "perfect" tree lost a few branches! After surveying the situation, we realized there was NO WAY the 2 of us could carry out such a heavy and tall tree by ourselves. This tree was twice as heavy as the one last year. So the waiting began... Paul and Nicole carried their tree down the mountain to get some help. About 20min later -it felt much longer than that - it was getting dark and colder by then. Chris and Will came to our rescue. To make a long story longer... all 4 of us had to pick up the tree and put it on our shoulder to carry it down. We all fell at least 1 time except Brad (he was in front and could see where he was going), I fell at least 3 or 4 times... Will almost landed on a branch that would have punctured his stomach but luckily he caught himself just in time! By the time we finally got back to the truck we were all worn out! We do enjoy our annual adventure... but occasionally get to do things the hard way rather than the easy way. Next year we will remember the tarp! A few pictures from our adventure...

Emma goofing around :)

Ali and Lily taking a break after hiking about 15min!

Us all waiting for Brad to find a tree!

Monica and Lily

Chris and Monica

Paul

Nicole making a snow angel...

Megan and Dave's tree

Monica and Chris family tree

Nicole and me

Brad and Chris loading our 20ft tree.. we had to cut off 4 feet just to get it to fit in the truck bed! Once we cut off the extra 4 feet it was about 100lbs lighter. Why didn't we think of carrying that piece down by itself --before we carried it all the way down the mountain??

Lily, Emma, Alison and Will waiting for us at the cars getting warm!

Megan and Dave trying to get their tree home without scratching the top! We had a neighbor call and ask if it was an elk we were trying to fit in there!

Brad asked him if he wanted to have pine gum in his car and he said "what if we just wrap it up really tight?" Dave cracks me up! Nice work you two!

This is what the tree looked like the next morning.. is that huge or what?? Brad cut off another 2 ft Monday morning before our dear friend and home teacher came over to help him lift it in the house so he could start stringing the lights.

Thanks Rob!

After Brad had put lights on the top 1/3 of the tree we had one of our favorite families come over to help lift the tree into the tree stand. Thanks to Greg, Josh, Caleb and Garett for helping out! It really took all 5 of them including Brad to set the tree in the stand!

Stay tuned for updates of the finished product!

Park City....

So... finally I am blogging about our anniversary celebration! First of all, we went the night of our anniversary to the Mt. Timpanogas Temple to do sealings. We started this tradition on our first anniversary while in Las Vegas at the Las Vegas Temple and have been able to do this every year except 2 years ago when Brad ended up in the hospital while we were in San Diego (long story that I will have to share at a later time!) It is great to be reminded of the covenants and promises we experienced on our wedding day.

We spent the first 3 days of our honeymoon in Park City before heading to Cancun. I feel so lucky to have had 10 full days with Brad right after we were married before getting back to reality! The benefits of getting married later in life.. there are a few. We thought it would be fun to go back up to Park City to do some of the things we did on our honeymoon. So I took Friday off and we headed up to Park City.

We hit the Alpine slide and the new Alpine roller coaster.. it was SOOO much fun! We loved the new roller coaster, you are heading down so fast and there are lots of turns. Here is a picture of us in our cars... I seriously want to go back!

There is a funny story about the Alpine slide.. see us on the slide below. When we were on our honeymoon I told Brad not to go so fast down the slide that he would fall off... well you know where this is going.. yip you guessed it! I fell off and scraped my knee in two places - yes I still have the scar to prove it. I have yet to live that one down! Brad reminds me every time we go up to Park City. Isn't the view gorgeous!

More pictures of the Alpine slide and coaster below....

We then headed to the Baja Cantina restaurant where we ate on our honeymoon. It is at the base of the Park City ski resort and has really good Mexican food. Yummy! Brad loves it when I want to take lots of pictures.. :0)

On our way home we stopped off at the Park City outlets to do some shopping.. not a favorite past time for Brad but he was a trooper and we were in and out within 1 hour 45min. I was very proud of myself! Great memories and I look forward to MANY more!

Cutting our Christmas Tree

Ok.. so cutting a Christmas tree has been a tradition in the Bennett family for over 20 yrs. I was told in order to marry into the family I had to keep the tradition going. Of course, I said anything to get the man of my dreams and now 5 yrs later I still love the "experience" of cutting a tree. I just don't love the time it takes to put lights on every year. I would be happy with an artificial pre-lit tree but that would never fly with my sweet husband.

So a couple years ago we agreed that if we were to continue the tradition he alone would be in charge of the lights every year. He does a great job wrapping every branch and doesn't complain even though it usually takes several hours to complete. Last year was the first year in our new home and we have a 20 foot ceiling where we put our tree. Brad of course wanted to get the tallest tree possible, last year that was about 14 ft and this year it was 16 1/2 ft. It took him over 12 hours to put 3500 lights on our tree this year! Yikes! We had one partial strand burn out and he hasn't found the energy to get back on the ladder to fix them or add another strand. Hopefully, all lights will be functioning by Christmas. :)

Here are some fun pics from our adventure cutting the tree this year. We always go cut our tree with Brad's family the Friday after Thanksgiving. Usually, there is snow but this year we were lacking; we had to carry our tree out rather than drag it. It made for some fun hiking back to the truck. (FYI -If you click on the pictures you can see the larger version.)

Here are Monica and Chris' kids Lily, Emma, Alison & William and us with our dog Abby.

Here are the "boys" (Dave (Megan's hubby), Will, Paul (dad), Brad & Chris(Monica's hubby))
and the "girls" (Brad's sisters Nicole, Monica, me, Karen (mom), Megan and Monica's kids Lily, Emma and Alison)

Just some fun pics of the day..... not sure what Brad is doing?? Alison and Lily are having a staring contest... Emma just wanted to be in the picture!

I had this post written over a week ago but wanted to post pics of the final product.. so here is the fully decorated tree and mantel.

On Monday night Brad was working late and my sweet brother had dropped off a 16ft ladder (I had requested a 12 ft but he felt the 16ft would work best... until he came into the house and realized how GIGANTIC the ladder was!) Anyway, I only had 4 hours from when I got home from work to use this ladder before my brother would be picking it up the next morning. Originally, my mom was going to come up to help but something came up and she was unable to make it. I called around to find someone who could come over to help. Those that came were so kind to drop what they were doing and come over for 30-45min, before heading back to their families for FHE.

First I needed help to get the ladder into the house.. our neighbor Porter came over to assist me- we only hit the railing once.. oops! Then our friend Tasha and her son TJ came over to help decorate. She loved climbing up and down the ladder trying to scare me since I was balancing on the top attempting to get the star to stay put! TJ just laughed at us and would hand us beads to hang. Sonia also came over and helped with the ornaments. When she had to leave, I was left with Brad to finish -there was a Jazz game on so trying to get him to focus was not an easy task. I tried to get the final touches complete on my own but have been moving ornaments around all week to try and make it look balanced.

It has been an eventful couple weeks, filled with lots of memories!