Christmas Tree

We spent the weekend up in the mountains again with Omi and Opa and Mike made it up for one night so that we could all go cut down our Christmas Tree together. My parents, Tessa and I rode up on Friday afternoon. It was FREEZING when we got up there and it took forever for the cabin (and me) to warm up. ALthough, my parents think I have some strange disease becasue I'm always cold and my parents joke that they are hanging out in thier bikinis because it's so hot. Then the mental image of my dad in a bikini made me barf. Anyway, we woke up the next morning to SNOW! It was so beautiful. It started off as wet sticky sleet and then turned into beautiful fluffy snow that dusted everything.

Tessa actually slept until 9:00am that morning (and Opa slept even longer). Mom and I enjoyed our hot beverages (coffee for Mom hot tea for moi), watching the snow and chatting about this and that. Once we got the rest of the troops roused and had breakfast, we bundled up and went outside to play in the snow and get some kindling for the fire. Tessa had so much fun playing in and eating the snow. She loved running down the road and then back towards us. As any mom does, I had a fleeting worry of a bobcat jumping down from the hillside and snatching her (because she looked so cute of course), but we had no bobcat encounters this time.

On a side note, one of my favorite cabin past times is locating all the different wild life. The coolest (and maybe stranges) was when I was up there the summer Tessa was born, we had gone for a short walk up the gravel road and actually saw a turtle laying eggs in the middle of the gravel road. What a strange (and uncomfortable place) to lay eggs.

Tessa took a nice long nap and I helped mom make enough goulash to feed an entire platoon. She browned eight pounds of meat and I peeled and chopped 10lbs of onion. I swear my hands still smell like onion. She wanted to freeze the extra and leave it up there. After Tessa woke up from her nap, Omi took her back outside and I made Engineer's Dip for the SEC and ACC Championship games and we spent the rest of the night watching football (GO JACKETS!).

We woke up Sunday morning and packed everything back up, bundled up and went to the tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree. It was sunny, but really cold. And we walked all over that damn hillside trying to find the right tree. It's a really great place, because they have this old fire-truck that they have fixed up and they use that to take you out to the fields of trees. WHen you get back, they take a picture by a tree and if you can find your picture from the previous year you get $5 off. They also have warm apple cider which Tessa LOVED. As she gets older it will definitely be a fun little family tradition.

Now to the bad part. I forgot my damn camera so I don;t have a single picture (except in my head) of our wonderful weekend in the snow and cutting down our tree. So, I am posting one from last year of when it snowed it Atlanta. At least that way you can feel a little essence of the snow.