Cancelled - seriously?

So haven't written in a few weeks due to the insane schedule at work. Our Welcome Christmas concerts at VE are in full swing.

This weekend, Ken & Susan came into town for a visit. They sure picked a perfect weekend - we have gotten approximately 24 inches of snow dumped on us. Susan had to cancel her Saturday plans due to the weather, which was too bad but great for us because it meant we got to hang out with her and Ken all day on Saturday!

The plan was to hang out on Saturday and then head to Stillwater for our Welcome Christmas concert at Trinity Lutheran. Philip, the Artistic Director, is as stouthearted as they come and has vowed many times to never have canceled a performance (in fact, he's almost never canceled a rehearsal, not even during the power outage in the middle of our Essentially Choral rehearsal in 2008). However, due to the danger of the snow and ice, Philip and Mary Ann made the collective decision to cancel the Stillwater performance of Welcome Christmas. This will go down in history as the only canceled performance in the organization's 42 year history.

But for me, it's a SNOW DAY! EEEK! I sort of felt like a little kid! Although we were all REALLY bummed that K&S couldn't see the concert, it was for the best. It would have probably taken hours to get out there. Unfortunately, we had to get the word out to the singers, volunteers, performers, and the public that the concert was canceled, which involved at least an hour's worth of phone calls. I spoke to many very happy people that day. No one was happy we had to cancel, but there was a lot of relieved people who could now enjoy a safe evening at home. All in all, a good call.

So, what to do with all of this free time? Well, we must get our first Christmas tree, of course! So me being the INSANE person I am suggested we all go out and drive through this crap and get a Christmas tree. Never mind that we have 2 feet of snow, I want a tree, and I'm pregnant, so I get what I want, right? Luckily, Paul, Ken & Susan are as crazy as I am and didn't try to talk me out of the idea. They were all troopers and we piled into the car to go find a tree. We were going to go down to St. Anthony where they have local MN trees, but after getting about 3 blocks in much more than 3 minutes, we decided the SA on the corner was probably a better idea.

So Paul and I got out and tromped through 3 foot snow drifts to look at the trees. What you don't realize in this sort of snow is that the bottom portion of the tree is covered by quite a bit of snow. So we picked one out that looked like it would fit (mistake #2, #1 was even going out in the crappy weather) and got it out to the lot. We have a fairly high roof in our living room, so I wasn't worried about it fitting. She measured and said it was probably about 8 feet tall, maybe a little less. Well, turns out, this thing is a little higher than 8 feet - it's HUGE! We have affectionately named it the BAT (aka BIG ASS TREE). We got the snow off and somehow Ken and Paul got it in the house and upright enough to thaw it out.

It's a big, and sharp, beautiful tree and it smells fantastic. Decorating tomorrow! (I'd add a photo, but we don't have a digital camera right now, lost it in the move. Pictures later, I hope!)