O Chringin' Tree

Today we went on our first annual Fletcher family adventure to cut down our Christmas tree in the National Forest. I went to the park ranger's office yesterday for the permit and a map of the areas we were allowed to cut one down. We drove up near Woodland Park, which is about 15 minutes from our house, and took the forest road out to the cutting areas. We bundled Gavin & Lochlan up in their warm outfits and equipped with our saw and camera, headed out.


We started walking down this steep hill into a grove of trees and Matt's knee starting bothering him. About this point, Gavin was wanting Matt to hold him. We wanted him to walk and enjoy being out in the snow and woods and e bable to run and play. When we realized he was going to just stay in place on the ground and cry, Matt picked him up and tried carrying him. Gavin's weight on Matt's knee really started to hurt a lot, so we walked for another ten minutes or so with Matt carrying Gavin, as Gavin refused to walk any longer (at this point, he had walked about twenty feet total-HAHA!).
Gavin chasing after Matt and clinging to Matt's legs:


We decided if we did end up finding a tree, it was going to be impossible to drag it back up the hills to the car with Matt carrying Gavin. We discussed going back out another day when Gavin wasn't with us and getting a tree, and started heading back to our car.


On the way back, we noticed a few different "lunches" for other animals, such as this one:

We made our way back up the hills, with Matt carrying Gavin over his shoulders, because his knee was hurting him so badly.


I made it back to the car before Matt & Gavin, so I took some cute photos of Lochlan in his bear suit, camoflaged into the snow:


Matt & Gavin made it back to the car after a little while.


Once we got the boys buckled into their car seats, Matt & I were contemplating if we should just come back another day during the week when Gavin was with his mom. While standing outside talking about it, we happened to notice a grove of trees across the road that looked promising. We walked over to them and spotted one that we thought would work. Matt had me spot the tree, as it was really tall and he thought that once it fell, it would land in the road.


To put it into perspective, Matt is 6' tall:

So we ended up with a tree after all! I assisted Matt in getting it onto the car. Well, really I hung out took photos of him getting it onto the car and threw the twine to him. HAHA! At least I didn't have to break a sweat!