The tale of two trees

 So we went to get our Christmas tree this year the day after Thanksgiving like usual, we have been getting our tree from the same place since Jason and I have know each other this was going to be our 7th year buying from this guy.  He had a place on US 89 by Pace's in Bountiful, well we got there and the place was all dark with only a few lights on, and we were informed by a women working there that they had just blown their lights so they were trying to get them fixed.  She let us use a flashlight she had and we went looking for a tree.  We like to buy what we refer to as a charlie brown tree, its tall and looks kind of scrawny, well we found one we kind of liked and then when we asked the price and she said $150 both Jason and I kind of died.  $150 for a freakin tree is ridiculous, last year we paid around $50 for our tree, this is where we got talking and found our Fred Parker who use to run that tree lot had died earlier in the year and these guys came in and took his place.  It made me pretty sad to hear that news and it was freezing outside and the boys weren't happy so we decided that we needed to think about it and come back tomorrow when it wasn't so cold.  Or in our case not come back at all because there was no way we were going to pay $150 for a tree. 

So Saturday morning Jason had a haircut and he was talking about the tree incident the night before and he found out about some different places to go for trees.  One suggestion was J&L garden center, I and never thought about them before so we headed there and we found the most perfect tree it was awesome, it was tall and big and just perfect and even better it was only $65 we got the tree and came home and I put the lights on it.  It was actually too tall we had to cut off about a foot from the top because it hit the ceiling.   It took me three hours and 13 strands of lights later, that also included a trip to the store to get more lights because we had about 5 strands stop working or only half way worked.  This tree also was the best smelling ever, my whole house smelled like Christmas.

Sunday we finished decorating the tree and I have to say this is my favorite tree ever, it was awesome I loved everything about it, I would find myself stopping and just looking at it, (as cheesy as that sounds).  The boys loved helping decorate the tree, Noah kept looking at ornaments and holding them up and saying "gorgeous", I didn't understand what he was saying at first I had to have Ashton translate for me.  I later found out he learned that from Max and Ruby and show he loves!

I spent a lot of time up on the ladder, the boys would hand me ornaments so I didn't have to climb down every time.

Tiny our elf even made and appearance to help us decorate.

 Fast forward two weeks and I was watering the tree and noticed that it was not looking so good needles were turning brown and they were falling off like crazy.  Friday I was watering it again and really looked at it and  my perfect tree was dead, like really really dead so I called J&L and they said bring the tree back and we could get a new one, so Saturday exactly two weeks from when we got the tree I undecorated the tree took off the lights and we took the tree back to get a new one.  We went to pick a new tree and they seriously had about 10 tree to choose from and they were all garbage, but we still looked at all of them there was nothing that we wanted at all, so we got our money back, there was a little bit of a fight to get our money back but it finally happened. 

We still needed to get a new tree, so I remembered that there was a place on 5th south in bountiful that had trees so we went there, they had a lot of trees.  We were able to find a good replacement and it was only $70 so took it and headed home.  I got the tree decorated again and I am happy with it, even though it doesn't smell at all.  Jason actually thinks this one looks better than the first one did so I guess all it well.  I just have to say that if anything happens to this tree that is it and we won't have a tree this year.

I was so not thrilled to be re stinging lights, this one only took 8 strands of lights though so I had it done much quicker this time around.