Christmas Time!!!!

It's Christmas time!! I love this time of year, especially this year. I think since this is the first Christmas away from my family in Texas, I have really tried to keep the Christmas spirit alive because I know that it will be bittersweet. This being our first Christmas together as Mr. and Mrs. Mauger, I really wanted to have a real Christmas tree. We are too poor to pay $40 for a real tree that has already been cut for us, so we decided to chop down our own. Both Matt and I were excited to go on an adventure for the ideal tree and it started with us having to drive an hour and a half away in order to get a tree permit. Once that was accomplished, we were off to find the approved forestry area where we were allowed to cut a tree down. When getting the permit, we were informed that we would have to find a dirt road that would lead us to the forestry. It took us about 30 minutes to find the dirt road and it ended up being the scariest road I have ever been on! Not only was it WAY too narrow, but there was a steep cliff on one side AND the narrow road had either bulging rocks or deep holes that we had to carefully maneuver around. Sad to say I did not take any pictures of it since I was so scared, but I did take pictures of our tree.

There weren't many pine trees, so our pickings were slim. We did find one at the top of the mountain, so the hike begin. Matt ended up doing 99% of the chopping and dragging the tree down the mountain. It was because of him that we now have a wonderful tree in our home!!

Here is Matt where we decided to stop and start hiking. This is one example of the big holes that we encountered on the way up the mountain.

This is a picture of our tree in the distance and some of the dead shrubbery that we had go through to get it. Our tree is the one closer to the middle.

This is Matt when we got to the tree and right before he starts cutting it down. It was a lot bigger than it looked from far away!!!

While Matt was cutting down the tree I was taking pictures of the scenery which was gorgeous
Yay! He cut it down!!! Because it was too big for our home, he cut off the bottom 3 feet :)

Bringing the tree down through the dead shrubbery was tough but Matt did it!

It's strapped to the car and ready to go home!!
Our new Christmas all decorated!!!!
We decided to go with blue and silver ornaments