I always try to go get our Christmas tree at the beginning of December so we could enjoy it the entire month. I also hope that the weather is decent, so we don't get soaked. This year we were not going to get rained on. Yay! We put the Christmas lights on the house a few days prior.
We stayed up way too late the night before, I was working on a bunch of random Christmas stuff (getting the totes out of the garage) and Ben was playing his video games with Josh. I was able to get him away from the game for a few minutes while he helped me take down the larger totes from the top shelf, so that's a win. The next morning, we got up around 9:30, got our butts in gear, ate at quick breakfast and called Mom and Grandma to let them know we were on our way to come get them to go get our trees.
We grabbed our gloves, saw and tie downs. We jumped into the Escape and headed into Rainier. We picked up Mom first. Earlier we called Dad to see if we could borrow the truck and he said yes, which made it easier to transport trees from the farm to Grandma and their house. We started up the truck and drove it over to Grandma's house. Ben had to sit in the back to get us all squeezed inside.
We got to Grandma's house, she got into the truck, and it was even more squishy inside. We headed over to Gerrit's Greens. When we got there, we noticed there were a lot of people getting trees. We had a tough time finding a parking spot and once we did, we made it work. We got out with our saw, said hi to Greg and Lynn, grabbed a knee pad and walked out to the back 40 to start looking for a good Douglas Fir.
We went back and forth a few times on a couple trees and finally found the ones we wanted. Ben cut down ours first while I got some pictures of him. I am glad I brought the knee pad with us. Grandma continued to wander around looking for a good one to bring home. Meanwhile, Mom picked out a fancy fir tree. Ben helped her cut it down. We took them over to the shed and waited to see which one Grandma picked out. She finally picked one out and we helped her cut it down. Ben and I took it over to the shed and laid it next to the others.
We chatted with Greg and Lynn for a while by the fire. I had some hot cocoa and a tiny candy cane. Ben cut the bottoms off of the trees with Greg's chainsaw to make them straighter. I walked out to the truck, since people had left, and moved the truck closer. Ben and I loaded them all into the back of the truck. We paid for our trees, I paid for Grandma's since that was our Christmas present to her, visited a little bit more, thanked them and then left the farm.
We dropped Grandma and her tree off first. We brought it into the house for her and helped her put it in the stand. She said she was going to decorate it later on when she went up to the shop to get her Christmas totes. She thanked us for helping her. We took Mom, her tree and the truck back to the house. Ben and I spent some time tying our tree to the top of the Escape. It wasn't going anywhere because Ben used four different types of knots to secure it to the top. Ben was hungry so I asked Mom if she wanted to go with us to the Rainier City Pizza and Burgers (the new Sonja's) for lunch. She said she would even though she and Dad had been there already in the last few weeks. She said she would drive herself down to Rainier.
We got into Rainier, parked and went inside. I could see some of the changes that were made right away but most of the stuff was the same. It was super busy, and we had to wait a while for our food once we ordered. We really didn't think we were going to be there that long. Because it took a while, we were not able to go into Tenino and donate food or money to Ben's fire station's food drive that was happening that early afternoon. He was disappointed we didn't make it, but he said he could donate the next time he's there.
Once our food arrived, we all had burgers and fries, Ben had a coffee, Mom had a water, and I tried their lavender lemonade (it was delicious). The food was decent. I'd probably eat there again. We just chose a bad day to go apparently. I asked everyone if they wanted to go over to the school and check out their craft fair, everyone said sure. We drove over, found a parking spot and went inside. I immediately saw the changes they've done to the school since that last time I was in there.
We talked to Shari, the neighbor down the road from Mom and Dad's house and Mrs. Karnes. There were a lot of booths and lots of cool stuff. I ended up purchasing a crocheted chicken because it was cute. I showed Ben my lockers and the pictures on the wall. We were there for probably a half hour or so. We decided we needed to go home so we left, Mom went home, and we drove home to get our tree decorated. I was so glad the weather held up for us because you just never know in the Pacific Northwest.
We spent the rest of the evening going through out our Christmas bins, decorating the tree and the house. I got out our Christmas ornaments we've been collecting together since we've been dating. Including this year (2023) we now have celebrated ten Christmas's together. Holy cow! We are getting old! Next Christmas, we will celebrate our first Christmas together as a married couple. Where does the time go?
Of course, we stayed up way too late, but it was totally worth it. I enjoy decorating the house for Christmas.
Next Adventure: Erika's Dinosaur Birthday Party
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