::tree hunting::

We've only done it once before, but we want it to be a serious family tradition. Every year we go up in our mountains and find ourselves a special Christmas tree.
There was a big snow storm predicted for friday into saturday, and we were really hoping that it wouldn't stop our tree hunt. It was the only possible day to do it in weeks.
So, though it snowed a bit--much less than predicted--we didn't let it stop us!!

It's interesting searching for trees, especially out here in the desert. It's not like there are just a billion perfect ones sitting there for the picking. Especially when one has a car full of little 'uns and has to stay close to the road and the car.

And it's tough because a tree that looks good from the car can look completely different up close.
This is a cute little one, isn't it?

Well, not so little now that we see it in perspective, right?

It wasn't quite what we were looking for, so we pressed onward.

Finally, after some more bumpy snowy driving we spied a good looking one. And when we got out to study it, turned out that there was one behind it a little ways that was perfect! So we went for it.

It's like a puzzle trying to see the tree in all the snowy branches.
It was a little ways down a snowy bank. It was also super tall, and we only needed about the top 10 feet, so we cut it a little higher than usual.
Sandy was so good and patient.

He just hung out in the car and ate pretzels. Then when he ran out he squeaked and screamed until somebody filled his little fists again.

Here are the boys cutting the tree.

Max had the hold the saw for a bit while Kris moved the car--there was other traffic up in the snowy mountains, surprisingly.

Then he got tired and put the saw down, and when he thought nobody was looking he had a little snack.

Hah.
And here's the tree! Huge!!



And then we all hung out while Kris did the tough work of tying the tree up top.

We really like this picture. It gives a good feel for the whole experience.



Then on the way out we searched out a cute little tree for our other room. I got greedy and just couldn't leave without more than one.

When we got this one home it turns out it's a truly lopsided little guy. But fun nonetheless.

And afterwards we got to eat Dairy Queen, since that's really the only place to eat within miles. I guess that's part of the tradition!
And here are a couple of bonus pictures of our Sand, since he was stuck in the car the whole time. He was looking very festive and deserves some attention too!


And today I got the lights on, so more tree reports to follow!

**And I forgot to mention the poor Land Rover. It's truly our adventure car, but the Infiniti had to stand in for it this year since it's totally non-functional. Kris has plans to trade some dental work for repairs in the next year though, so we'll see if the poor thing can be revived. We're thinking of you Land Grover!

::::

Our good friends from college, the Wildes came to visit us this week so that we could all go down to Albuquerque's ultra-famous balloon fiesta.
We were headed out this morning. To go to this thing you have to get up super early in the morning, because the first balloons go up at around 5:45.
Weather hasn't been great here the last couple of days, which is totally unusual for this area. It's been cold and cloudy and rainy. I guess we don't have it that bad though, since I did hear that Utah got SNOW! Crazy!
Anyway, the balloons didn't go up yesterday morning because of winds. We were worried that might happen again, but we rolled the dice and went for it. I mean, the Wildes came all the way from Tucson--how could we not try?

The adults were up at 3:30, and by slightly after 4AM we had all the kids in the car and were driving south.

As we drove south the rain started to fall. And it didn't stop.
We got down there and waited for a while in the dark to see if it would stop. It let up a bit, but not much. We got everybody bundled up and went in to see what was happening. All that happened was that we got wet.

After that we went back to the car to give things one more chance. The kids watched a movie and I think there's a good chance that all the adults fell asleep for a least a tiny bit.

By 7AM it was pretty clear nothing was going to happen so we drove off to get some fast food breakfast and head back.

Bummer for sure, but an adventure nonetheless. And at least we tried. It would've been pretty sad if the balloons had gone up without us there to see them!!

::adventures::

My Max likes adventures.

For the first week of school his new teacher sent home a brown paper lunch sack and asked the kids to bring it back the next day containing five things that they felt defined them as people. They were supposed to share and explain these things to the class.
When I saw this assignment I started to brainstorm of course, so I could give Max some good ideas. I started to talk about it and he told me he already knew what he was going to put in there.
"I love adventures," he said "so I'm going to put my geodes in there and a Matchbox Land Rover. I'm also going to put a little yellow bike that looks like my Scott Bike and my stick that I found in the desert that looks like a gun."

I thought it was very very interesting that he defined himself that way. I hadn't realized that about him up to that point--in fact I don't think it was true up to very recently.

I'm happy to have a boy that defines himself as an adventurous outdoors guy. There are so much worse and more boring things to want to be at this age.

And what it really comes down to is that I thought it was awfully cute.
I suggested he include a family picture in his bag and off he went to school. I think it went well for him.

(No, I don't know why Max is wearing a bike jersey backwards.)
When my parents were here last week Max invited my dad into his special club--the club I didn't know existed. It's called the "Explorers Bike Club" they had a secret handshake, a secret meeting location and they went on all sorts of cool bike rides. Adventurous and fun. And active.
Pretty cool, right?

::new mexico bowl::

Saturday was the New Mexico bowl--BYU vs. UTEP. We really wanted to go, I mean a BYU football game an hour away from our house?!!
Luckily, the big snow storm didn't keep us down and we made it to Albuquerque right on time. In fact, the snow probably helped because we had to cancel work on friday, so we were able to leave even earlier than planned.

We started our outing by going to the football team's fireside at a stake center in ABQ. It was really fun to see the team up close and to hear a few of them speak and sing. The coach spoke last and he gave a great talk. He's such a good guy. He talked about how after the team struggled so much at the beginning of the year people were starting to doubt that the team could be run the way he runs it--with emphasis on the honor code and being a good person--and succeed. And then he talked about successes and where they come from, and the right reasons to do the things we do. It was quite inspiring really.
The boys behaved really well too, which made things even better.

Then we stayed the night in a hotel not far from the stadium. In the morning we got up and headed over to the stadium for the alumni tailgate party. The moment we got to the stadium I realized we'd left the tickets to the game at home. I was just sick! So as soon as we parked at the stadium, we hurried over to the will call and begged them for some help--inadvertently cutting in line on the way and getting yelled at by an angry BYU fan texan. He was mad.
Anyway, they gave us three more tickets, thank goodness, and then my weekend wasn't ruined anymore!
We went over and Max got to spend a little time in the bouncy houses, which is the stuff of dreams to him.

We ate a big southwestern breakfast complete with BYU catering's mint brownies and hot chocolate. We listened to the band for a bit.
Then we headed over and took our seats in the stadium. Max got some awesome stickers for under his eyes so he looked really intense.


Sand spent the whole time sleeping on my chest in his carrier. He was warm (super duper warm) and snuggly and seemed pretty happy. And the awesome baby carrier that I have is pretty easy on the back, so I survived the experience.



He was a trooper. Actually both boys did great and instead of ruining our fun, helped it along for once!
We stayed until half time and then left. It was good timing really and considering the game was a blow out we didn't miss much.
But we did stay long enough to see Santa, who apparently is a UTEP fan. Who knew?!


It was really fun and we'll do it again. Too bad BYU won't be coming to NM regularly anymore for football, but that's just how it goes. All this did was just strengthen our desires to come out to UT for a BYU game sometime in the fall!

::the tree::

On monday morning we set out to find a christmas tree. We were all prepared for the adventure with cold weather gear and snacks. We headed south to the confusing areas on the little map where tree cutting was allowed.
It was a cold cold day.
We were excited and I was a little nervous, hoping we didn't get stuck or something up in the mountains with a brand new little baby and another sweet boy that whom I don't want freezing.

The dudes in the back:


We drove and drove and finally reached one of the forest service roads. We headed up the crazy bumpy road and I sat in the back and held little Sandy's head so I wouldn't have to worry that it would bounce off.

We kept seeing nice trees, but then we would realize that they were HUGE. Like really really big. Our sense of scale was all off in the mountains. We looked and looked and then finally saw a couple of good candidates halfway down a pretty steep gorge. We stopped and Kris went down there to check them out.

We were only supposed to get a tree that was 10 feet or under. We had to eyeball it because even though we remembered everything else, we didn't remember a tape measure.

Baby slept and slept through the whole adventure, thank goodness, because it was awfully cold out there. He was tucked in all warm and cozy and enjoying the extreme vibrations of the land rover.


Here is our tree. We also liked the one to the right.

It looked so small to us after all the others we'd seen on our way.

The scenery:


The crazy boys:


The slightly nervous mom and slightly obedient boy:

Why I'm letting him hold the saw here I'll never know.

Kris had to have Max's help cutting the tree down--they'd been talking about it for quite a while. So Kris rigged up a rather ingenious solution to the problem of the extremely steep bank.

Max looks like he's on his way down from Everest or something.

There they go--Sultan was freaking out. See him there in the picture zooming under the tow rope? He wanted to go down to the tree so bad, but was smart enough to realize it was just too steep for him.
But he was still sad about it.


They cut it down. "TIMBER!!!!" said Max. Then they had to get themselves and the tree back up to the car.
No small task, but Kris can do anything.


Luckily the tree isn't really too heavy. The trunk isn't super thick.

Then they had to figure out what to do next with the dang thing.

And up it went. It was snowing by this time and I wish you could feel the cold air. My hands were freezing!


Taa Daa!!
Then we drove him in a big snowstorm by way of Dairy Queen. Yes, there is a Dairy Queen in the middle of nowhere quite a way south of our house. It's pretty funny.
Sandy stayed asleep until we got home, such a blessing.
Then we got the tree in the house and realized it was HUGE! Definitely at least the 10 feet and probably more like 11. When Kris stuck it in a bucket to wait for our stand it brushed the ceiling, and our ceilings are really high in this house. I couldn't believe how big it was! So funny that our sense of scale was so off.
If only I had a picture of it to show you. Soon enough. It's sitting here waiting for me to put lights on it. Who knows how long it'll take me, especially since I'm going to need a ladder for the top part! But pictures will come.
And that's the story. Pretty epic.

::::

We went out adventuring yesterday and got ourselves a wild christmas tree from the mountains. We're pretty proud of ourselves.
More photos and story to follow--tomorrow hopefully.
I wish my mom was still here to do the dishes for me, that was way too nice. I'm totally behind now that she's gone!

::lost::

In order to keep this blog from being 100% cute baby pictures, I thought I'd tell you all about a biking adventure that Kris had on saturday.
First important detail--Kris got a new mountain bike and he was so excited. He'd been yearning after this bike for months. He's been riding on the same old entry level mountain bike that I got him before Max was born, and it just wasn't holding up to his level of riding. When we got to NM we met friends that had a bike for sale--of course the perfect size, and a better price than the store.
So we finally were able to buy it after months of working towards it. I surprised Kris with it and he was very happy.

See? That's definitely his excited face.
So he got the bike late friday night. Then the baby was born on saturday night! Poor Kris was dying to ride his bike. He went for a quick ride on saturday afternoon, but I didn't want him to go far.

So the following saturday morning he planned on heading into the mountains early for an adventure. My mom was leaving to go back home early afternoon, so he had a deadline.

Of course he got lost. Totally lost. He went up the mountain on one trail (272 if you're looking at the map) and then ended up going down on a completely different trail (175). That trail went completely in the wrong direction. By the time he realized he was in the wrong place it was too late. He couldn't get back up the trail easily because it was too steep. So he just had to keep going. He called me right before he lost reception and asked me to try to figure out where he would come out and meet him with the car.

I'm not that great with maps, geography or directions, so I wasn't super excited about that.

But I tried. I found the road I thought he'd end up on and we packed my mom up and headed out with a car full of kids to go find dad.

He called me as I was driving towards the road and said that the trail had disappeared and that he'd had to hike his bike along a creek for a ways, then through and ranch and he had no idea where he was. That was discouraging news. Then he lost reception. We kept on driving. I thought it was a serious long shot that we would find him, but I had to try.
Then of course, the deeper into the mountain foothills we got, the less phone reception, until we were completely without communication.
We drove up this random dirt road, and after a while there he was! It was kind of miraculous that we found him, and such a relief.

Lucky Kris got to drive all the way to Albuquerque in his spandex. We barely got my mom dropped off in time--by way of Chick'fil'a for lunch, then we drove home exhausted.
So that's the story of Kris lost.

And just so we don't accidentally forget that this blog is 99.99% about cute baby and kid stuff, here's a confused baby with puppy ears.


Good night!