A Christmas Tree?

It has been pretty warm here the past week, as you can see from Matt's flip flops from our Christmas tree trip. About 70 degrees (like 20 celcius for all you Canadians) even though it doesn't ever get very cold here, it is usually down to the low 60's in December. The weather is an important part of our Christmas tree purchase. Because it never gets that cold here, we don't have the same type of foliage as other places...like we have the Leland Cypress tree. And people here, they use that as a Christmas tree. Ummm...NO. It is a very ugly bush-type tree. There are some places that sell the Virginia Pine, also a somewhat ugly tree, however, its biggest problem is that Matt is allergic to pine trees. Then they have the Douglas Fir. This is a fir tree, but it has very long needles, like 1 1/2 to 2 inches. These are the only "christmas type" trees that will grow here. But since they are ugly, they bring in trees from out of state. You can get Fraser Firs from NC, I guess they can grow them there because it actually gets fairly cold there. You CANNOT get a Noble Fir. Anywhere. Fraser Firs are only available at certain tree farms. SO we drove to a tree farm that carried Fraser Firs. And we found a pretty tree. And paid dearly for it. It was way overpriced. I don't know what we are going to do next year, probably get a fake one I guess. We really like our tree this year. It is really pretty and it smells really good. But it was quite the ordeal!

On Saturday night we went out with our friends, Kyle and Almira to dinner. Then we went and saw Casino Royale. The movie was good but I seriously thought it was over about 5 times before it actually ended. I guess we are all lame because all we could talk about it how tired we were after, it was the late show!!

Today I went to the Mart. What is the Mart, you may wonder. Let me tell you, the Mart is the largest wholesale mall in the US. It is a 13 story building with more stores then I have ever seen. Truly it was kind of overwhelming. You have to have a wholesale and a resale license to get in, and you have to prove that you have a legitimate business with a yellow page ad or URL. BUT, lucky for me I have a friend who got us passes to go. So since it is so hard to get in, the Mart isn't really that crowded. It was weird and seriously we couldn't look at everything there. They have all kinds of stuff. You could really make a killing buying stuff and selling it on eBay...which is basically what I guess online retailers do...buy stuff at the Mart and sell it for more online. So eveything is SOOOO cheap. It was really fun to go but kind of crazy. I will have to go again when I have more time and I am more familiar with the layout. They have maps and stuff that people study to get the most out of their trip to the Mart. Crazy!


I can't seem to get a good picture of our tree. If I take it with a flash you can't see the lights, if I take it on a different setting I can't hold the camera still enough and it looks blurry. I think I need to figure out how to use my camera....