Oh Christmas Tree

Saturday was our second annual Overman Christmas tree expedition. I had meant to purchase our permit from the South Platte district, about a half hour from our home but when I called on November 30th they had already sold out! Luckily, Fairplay is about an hour and a half away and has unlimited permits so we were still able to carry on our tradition. When we got to the ranger station the kids were eager to stretch their legs.

 Wonder how Johanna did with potty training on her first mountain road trip? Well lets just say she won't be peeing on the side of the road anytime soon! Poor thing would ask to go potty then of course we would drive for miles with no luck of finding a restroom. We finally spotted a porter-potty along the side of the road (yuck!) and what do you know it was locked. I tried explaining the concept of  squatting to pee and she looked at me as if I was crazy. In hindsight I should have brought along her potty chair but thank goodness we had some pullups in the car. It was very disappointing when she ended up having two accidents in her undies later that day after a day in pullups so I won't be doing that again. Luckily she was back on track the following day so it wasn't a complete fail!

After paying for our permit (which is only ten dollars!) we headed to Pike National Forrest to find our tree. Remember last year? We went during a snow storm and spent our time hiking through a foot of snow with little Johanna in tote while I was 6 months pregnant mind you! We talked about how this year we would need a sled to drag the two kiddos along but what do you know a year later and we were sweating from the warm weather.

When we started to venture away from our car the first thing we spotted was a giant tee pee made from sticks. Normally this would be creepy to find randomly in the mountains, but we were also right next to a campsite so it made a little more sense.

Johanna thought it was really neat and didn't want to leave of course.

And then little JJ had to get down and explore as well.

The spot was gorgeous. We were about 10,000ft in elevation overlooking the mountains. It was a beautiful spot and secluded from any other civilization.

We told Johanna we were searching for our Christmas tree so she made sure to look for one herself. Looks like she found the perfect Johanna-sized tree!

Exploring with Daddy.

 "Mommy! Mommy! Look, treasures. They're caps!"

So my daughter was searching the forest for bullet casing. Great treasure, peanut haha! She was proud.

Hiking around to find our tree.

Me and little man.

Can you spot Johanna and Daddy?

Another Johanna find. What is this, the wild west?!

 We had to try the timer on the camera to get some family shots. If you can't tell from my awkward placing I had a hard time snapping the photo then running back into place to pick up Johanna before the shot was taken. But they do make me laugh!

After a good hour or two of hiking around we finally decided upon a tree, success!

So we wanted to get a different type of tree than last year but I'm pretty sure we still ended up with a douglas fir. I'm not complaining, they are so fragrant and our house smells heavenly right now!

Johanna was helping Daddy inspect the tree.

Little bubs posing by the tree.

Peanut wanted to help straighten out the rope to tie the tree down with.

JJ thought it was pretty funny watching Daddy figure out how to secure it down to the top of the car.

Notice Jeff's shirt?

Even though Jeff secured it down nice and tight we still kept the sunroof open to watch. We only had to pull over once twice to make sure it was doing okay. As we were driving home we saw several other cars with their luscious giant trees strapped to their cars. We couldn't help but crack up at the fact their trees looked so giant and full. Either 1. They didn't get them from the mountains or 2. They are going to better spots than us and picking a better type of tree! We decided next year we are going to find a family that looks like they know what they're doing then secretly follow them around till we find a big giant tree too that isn't so Charlie Brown looking.

I still love our tree though and the memories that come along with it :)