Festival of Trees (12-4-11)

I heard about the Festival of Trees this year and thought it would make for a fun date night. As luck would have it, we were already headed south last weekend for our niece Kaelynn's baptism and her brother's baby blessing. It worked out perfectly to stop by for some tree gazing on our way home.

It was freezing cold and very busy since we went the last night it was open. But we made do. And looked cute wandering around in our Sunday best.

We documented all things Jimmer for Jacob's sake. Here's the first shrine.

Jeff spotted a tree made in our family blog's honor.

Jeff was pleased to see he made the nice list this year. But disappointed that Santa spelled his name wrong.

It only took about five minutes before Eli was screaming "All done! All done!" -- his trademark move these days. Here was one of our many efforts to keep him entertained.

Here's an "Up" tree.

A very Jimmer Christmas.

The tree that accompanied the Jimmer jersey.

We ignored the "No Outside Food or Drinks" signs hoping if Eli's mouth was full of marshmallows he wouldn't scream quite as loud. It worked.

"A Christmas Story." I've only seen this movie once. It was with Jeff when we were first starting to like each other. How romantic.

"Harry Potter" tree. Jeff's brother-in-law, Ben, told us to watch for this tree. His friend submitted this one and Ben had actually helped with it.

If I understood correctly, Ben shot a bullet through this book. Good aim.

The Cougars were even represented among the gingerbread houses.

Confession: We almost skipped the gingerbread houses all together with Eli being less than cooperative. But once we whipped out those snacks and made our way back towards dancers and music, Eli was a pretty happy camper. Boy am I glad we were able to see the gingerbread houses because I ended up liking them even more than the trees. The detail was incredible!

Another confession: One day in 8th grade my science teacher was gone and he left the substitute with a documentary on Stonehenge for us to watch. I took a weird liking to the movie and ever since then Stonehenge has been at the top of my dream vacations list.

The funniest part of this is I've been embarrassed of my love for Stonehenge, but I had just opened up to Jeff about it for the first time about a week before our date. We spent a good hour talking about the ancient rocks and we tentatively made our unlikely vacation plans to England.

So when we saw this creation we were a little tickled:

And then there was the White House.

I can't even imagine making just one of those flags. Props to whoever did this. I will forever wonder how long it took to piece together.

Since Eli spent the morning being reverent at a baptism, the evening strapped to a stroller and several hours confined to his car seat, we made a pit stop on the way home to reward him for his good behavior.

McDonald's. With a play place no less. A play place that sometimes results in pictures of what looks like your baby through a bug's eye.

And a play place that disorients your child with so much excitement that they forget where their mouth is.

Eli LOVES slides. The whole time we were there he screamed "SLI!...SLI!..." over and over. He was in heaven. Well, we brought the toy from Eli's Happy Meal to church with us last week. As soon as Jeff got it out of the bag, Eli started screaming about slides again. It's funny to see the things he puts together.

When I was little I loved finding my Mom from every window of play places like this. It was fun to be on the other side of play place hide-and-go-seek as I watched Eli wave at us through the windows, full of giddiness. Being a parent is the best.

Jeff High - Finding the Harry Potter tree because we nearly missed it.
Jeff Low - The crowds.

Sarah High - We actually made a quick stop at IKEA as well. I stumbled across a kid rug that looks like a road. We're planning on making Eli a car room so the new baby can have the dino room, and I thought that rug would be a fun thing for his room to have. I'd found one online for $25, but the IKEA one was way bigger for $15. I was thrilled when I found it and it has already given me lots of inspiration for Eli's new room!
Sarah Low - Also fighting the crowds at The Festival of Trees.