Let's get us a tree!

Ahhh, the annual jaunt to the Christmas tree farm. Or as I like to call it: "Let's try and make Joanne's head explode day".

It's not that I don't love our tradition (which started 9 years ago), of trekking out to a Christmas tree farm in the middle of nowhere, selecting our "perfect" tree (this one... no wait, this one. How about THIS ONE? Where's that first one again? They all freaking look the same!), and schlepping it back to our house. It's that life these days is a little more complicated, and everything rides on keeping with the schedule.

So we started out this morning by waking up late. Okay, no problem, let's just get ready as quickly as humanly possible. We piled into the car only 45 minutes behind schedule. And we were very low on gas.

But because we like to live dangerously, we pointed the car east and drove. At a very old-lady-like speed of 60 MPH. Fred has learned the hard way not to speed.

We got to the farm and ran to where the tractor picks you up for a hayride out to the field. I gave Fred, Elise and Seven very explicit instructions... we have 20 minutes to find our tree. At the end of those 20 minutes if we're not chopping something down I'm going to close my eyes, spin around and point. Whichever tree I'm pointing at, we're taking. I don't care if it's 20 feet tall.

tractor ride!

With that in mind, we were off. To my surprise, we found a tree we all agreed on quite quickly. Unfortunately, there was nobody around to take our traditional "in front of our tree before we sacrifice it in the name of Christmas" photo, so we propped the camera up on Elise's diaper bag, set the timer and ended up with not a bad picture, considering.

Our tree!

After we cut down the tree, hauled it back, paid for it and strapped it to the car, that's when the fun began. We were trying to get out of a rather small parking area when one of the cars in front of us got stuck, essentially blocking our way out.

Now I was starting to freak out. Elise is on a type of insulin that starts to peak around four hours after we give it to her (hence the keeping to the schedule thing). If she's not eating her lunch when it starts to peak, her blood sugar will drop and she could pass out or have a seizure. We had planned to leave the farm and drive about 15 minutes to Chick-fil-a for lunch. We were fast approaching her time to eat and were stuck in the parking area. But like any good D-Momma, I had some food with me and started to feed her in the car.

Luckily there was another way out, but Fred had to go down a long line of cars and tell them to back out the other way. Which commenced the poorest display of driving I have ever seen in my life. People were backing out and turning the wheel the wrong way and almost crashing into trees. Women were vacating the driver seat so their husband (or some other male) could back them out. It made me weep for my gender. We were finally free about 10 minutes later.

Now were we not only running against the clock for lunch, but to get Elise back in time for her nap. We don't miss nap time at our house for anything. Because I said so.

What followed is a comedy of errors that you can only shake your head at and laugh. We missed the exit to Chick-fil-a and it took an extra 10 minutes to turn around (due to stupid drivers in front of us, and slow, small-town lights). We were pretty much running on fumes, so we decided to fill up right after lunch. First a guy stole our pump. Then the pump we picked was on the wrong side for our car and the hose didn't stretch. Then they didn't take Amex (the card we use because we get 3% cash back). On the way home I swear the tree was going to take flight from the roof of our car at any moment.

But, we made it. They tree stayed attached to the car, Elise BG was fine (albeit a little high), and she napped for an hour and a half when we finally got home. Most importantly, my head didn't explode.

If it had, Fred wouldn't have been able to take this rather cute picture of my daughter and I.