Up Goes The Tree........The Season Begins

Things have settled a bit here so I'm taking this window of opportunity to blog. John is working tirelessly in his office, my youngest is resting and rehydrating and my oldest says she is feeling nauseous and feels like throwing up ( oh no). I've posted a picture of John and his brother putting up the tree on Sunday. Luckily I wasn't helping out as it looked to be a frustrating experience but I am getting ahead of myself.

On Saturday our entire group converged at our house around 9:00am for a cup of coffee and a few pastries before heading out to find "a great" Christmas Tree. The snow began early and by the time we arrived at Ayers Tree Farm the flakes were huge and plentiful. Perfect!!

It seemed to take us Maddens forever to find a tree we all agreed upon. Near the end I was willing to take a Charlie Brown tree for all the walking back and forth we did. Finally John counted to 5 and cut down one we all "kinda" liked. Unfortunately we had an ice storm about 4 or 5 days ago so every tree there was frozen solid. We usually put it up that night but the poor tree would have to spend the night in the garage thawing out until Sunday. Got back to our place around 1:00pm, heated up the chili, put out some cheese and crackers, rolls and butter, opened a bottle of wine and let the fun begin. Many of the people who were there on Saturday had met on the shores of Lake Superior for our 20th anniversary so it was so wonderful to see them all connect again...........just like old friends should. As I mentioned in my previous blog, I did take that moment to stand back and appreciate all that was going on. This experience will probably take place again next year(hopefully) but it will never be exactly what is was in that moment and that was the moment I was taking the time to enjoy. I believe life is just that......small moments all strung together that create memories that last a lifetime. Now before you think that is soooooo cheesy, let me tell you that is the way I am.........I will always find the sentimentality in everything and I like it that way.