Christmas shopping and the aftermath

What is wrong with people? Why can't we just enjoy the seasons without having to run one another over? The Chard's have a long standing rule about Christmas and the expectations of it. We don't want gifts, and we generally don't give gifts. We started our Christmas season this afternoon by writing a check to the local food pantry and starting a list of friends and family for whom we will be donating money to charity in their names. The holidays should be about family, friends and enjoying each other. Not about material items and trying to find the 'perfect gift for so and so'. I for one am so incredibly unenamored with what Christmas has become and I hope to emulate to my son that Christmas is a time of giving, not receiving. We'll see, I suppose. Life throws curve balls and what we hope to pass to our children may or not come to pass. However, I'm extremely adamant about keeping the holiday season to what it's supposed to be: enjoyment of family, friends, and giving and not about "what Santa is going to bring me". Our first lesson to Gavin this season is that for each toy he receives, he will have to (and hopefully one day want to) give up a toy to the needy. And this lesson will continue into later years. We shall see...

O Christmas Tree

Today we drove north to Bob's Hardware in Preston, Idaho to buy a $10 Christmas tree cutting permit. On the way there Brandon and I rationalized the heinous act we were about to perpetrate. The forest needs thinning, right? And by carefully selecting and removing a young subalpine fir for our Christmas tree we would be reducing the fire hazard and helping the critter-friendly undergrowth of the forest to flourish (wait a minute - aren't those two ideas in conflict with one another? Yeah, probably. So they cancel each other out, right? Yeah, probably.). In the end we immersed ourselves in a head-in-the-sand sense of giddy excitement and pressed on into Cub River Canyon. We ended up at a campground, where we parked and then hiked ~1 mile into the forest. We forgot to grab the baby-hauler (backpack) on our way out the door, so Brandon and I took turns carrying our happy 24-pound sack of potatoes, aka Gavin. Gavin seemed to really love being outside and surrounded by snow and he had a huge smile on his face for the whole hike in. Joie and Brody were ecstatic to be in the mountains and able to freely romp and play. Eventually we found "the one". I choked back my moral fortitude, fired up the camera, and documented the butchery as Brandon sawed our beloved tree down. I set Gavin down in the snow while Brandon was sawing. He was curious and happy at first, but then realized that his hands were freezing cold. Once he was wrapped back up in the blanket and headed back down the trail in Mommy's arms he regained his happy disposition. We are home now and our tree is sitting outside in a bucket of water. I hope it likes its new home in Hyrum. In a month or two it'll be hauled off and sunk into a local body of water to provide vital fish habitat. Right? Yeah, probably.

So much to be thankful for

This year we enjoyed a scrumptious Thanksgiving meal with Brandon's mom's side of the family, the Elisons. The pictures show Gavin with Brandon's Grandpa Elison last year and this year. Gavin's changed a LOT but Grandpa - well, he's still Grandpa and still keepin' on keepin' on. As Brandon says, he's a great man. One of the best. Ever. Really. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

We had a wonderful trip to southern Utah this past weekend. We stayed at the Brown's in Loa for a night and headed south through John's Valley, Black Canyon, Red Canyon, Long Valley, and through Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park before ending up at Pete's house in Apple Valley. We spent two days there helping him get ready for "Thanksliving"...a raucous event that we unfortunately will not attend this year. We went on a nice long hike on Gooseberry Mesa above Pete's house on Sunday afternoon and spent the rest of the time enjoying the beautiful weather and just hanging out and having a good time!

What goes up....

... has figured out how to come down.

More Yard Work

Saturday was a big day - we rented a skid-steer and had 5 yards of pea gravel delivered. Brandon's got mad skiddy skills. He pulled out some big chunks of concrete and graded the area to the west of the sun room, then he relocated the big piles of mulch and road base from the northwest corner to areas where we can actually use them. While he was working Gavin and I hung out with Nan and DJ. DJ came really close to starting a fire with two sticks (ok maybe not that close, but he tried really hard). Nan's a great babysitter, thanks to lots of experience with her nephews (e.g. DJ) and nieces.

Yard Work

On Friday we took advantage of another gorgeous fall day. We raked and raked and played a little and raked some more. When we were done (once again, when I say "we" I mean mostly Brandon) the yard looked so nice and tidy! Until 2 hours later when it was covered in leaves again.

Tonka

Brandon has been wanting to buy Gavin a 'classic' metal Tonka truck. He found one on ebay and I'm pretty sure he's a jillion times more excited about it than Gavin is. I don't mean to say that Gavin doesn't like it - he does - Brandon is just THAT excited ;).





In other news, Gavin discovered how to flush the toilet. As you can see, our once-boring-white bathroom is now very very blue (a nice contrast to the very very red color of our state on the election maps).

Salutations

If you've been following Gavin's blog, you know that he just celebrated his first birthday and is now far too busy for such trivialities as blogging. Knowing that his loyal fans would be jonesing for their "Little G" fix, I decided to start a blog for the whole family. I don't know that this will be a whole lot different from Gavin's blog since our lives pretty much revolve around him, but at least you'll get more than one perspective on life here in the state of Utah, valley of Cache, city of Hyrum, and yard of Chard.