In the spirit of the Griswolds...

One of my favorite Christmas movies is Christmas Vacation. It's classic 80's and as soon as the theme song starts you begin to hum along. Chevy Chase is bound and determined to start the season off right by finding the perfect Christmas Tree. So he packs the family up in the trusty station wagon and heads for the woods to cut down the quintessential tree. In the spirit of the Griswolds we packed the trusty station wagon aka Andy's truck and headed for the tree farm not far from our house. Beforehand we stopped at the Dwarf House to eat breakfast with our friends the Hornsbys. AG fell asleep en-route to the tree farm and actually slept the first few minutes we were there. Unlike the Griswolds we didn't hike in the snow for miles and uproot a massive tree but we did traipse all over Silver Creek Tree Farm looking for just the right tree. There was plenty of room and Emma explored to her hearts content. We had to carry AG but next year I'm sure he'll be chasing Emma every where. I was thrilled to find a white pine just like what my dad cut down every year. We found a great tree, however, I've decided that accurately determining the size of a tree is harder in a field than at Home Depot. At the Depot you can hold multiple trees up and gage the correct size...not so much in the middle of the field. I say all of this to say that the tree we ended up with a much larger (wider) tree than I realized. Ha. The last two years in this house we've picked a tall skinny tree to go in a corner of the dinning room--so it can be viewed from the street. The tree is residing in the dining room but we had to move the table a bit to accommodate its wide girth. Ha.

So far we haven't had any problems with AG and the tree. He has figured out how to unplug the lights...we've remedied this by putting up a gate to keep him from the tree. However, the other night this frustrated Samson because our neighbor, Keely, came over to ride with us to dinner for college night. She knocked on the door and normally Samson would have trotted to the front of the house to make sure he approved of the guest at the door. On this day I had gated the entrance from the kitchen to the dinning room and had the door shut between the front hall and the living room...leaving Samson to bark for all of Old East Rome to hear and run between the hall door and the kitchen gate. Thus, waking AG from his afternoon nap and melting down due to all the commotion. Never a dull moment to say the least. :)

Here are some photos from the tree farm...I'll do a post in the coming days showing off the house. Stay tuned.

Trying to figure out the tree...

AG and his best friend Emma in front of our tree...

Can't hold one without the other...

Taken just days before AG took his first steps.