Festival of Trees ~ Charley's Angels

The day after Thanksgiving I flew out to Salt Lake. Our family had decided to donate a tree for the Festival of Trees as a service project this year. I haven't done a tree or gone to the festival, since my mom would do it each year with the Pharmacy wives and I would get to skip school to go help decorate. I deliberately chose a late flight so that I could spend as much time as possible with my girls. The weather had been fussy all week and another storm was in the forecast for Friday night. Mark took me to the airport a few hours before my 10:00 flight so he could get back home before the storm.  I got through security etc fairly quick and was super frustrated to see this ....

It just kept getting worse! An hour delay turned into nearly three with multiple gate changes. Honestly, I couldn't believe that this was all solely related to weather. The storm I was seeing didn't seem to warrant it. As we were FINALLY loading, a gal at the gate said the delay was also mechanical related .... just what you want to hear. I was so so grumpy and disappointed in Frontier for their lack of communication through all of this. God bless Jami and Scott for sticking with me and still coming to get me at nearly 2 am even when I insisted that I would stay at the airport until a decent hour in the morning. 

I drown my sorrow and anger in a maple donut (who am I kidding ....several) 

After a few hours of sleep at Jami's, we met at Kris's house to start getting the tree decorated. We decided to get as much wired on beforehand and Chris was going to transport it to the Expo Center in Sandy.

My family had done so much work prior to this that I wasn't involved with.

Although I had seen pictures of bits and pieces, it was fun to see it all together. 

We had decided on a theme of Charley's Angels in honor of our momma. It evolved from there into a tree to raise awareness for several conditions that have affected our family  (MS~orange, Juvenile Diabetes~blue, Ulcerative Colitis~purple, and TTP~red)

The pre-decorating crew. Kristy also helped from Texas by sending games and puzzles for under the tree.

Set up day was Monday. I carpooled with my sisters to the Mountain America Expo Center. We really had a great spot for our tree. Top of the row on a corner. However, we were in direct line of a delivery door that was left open all day for unloading. It was freezing!!

All the information and guidelines the committee gave out, indicated that they were restricting furniture, big structures etc. They seem to want to take it back to what it started as ... a festival of TREES .... not the over the top displays that it has become. We followed those guidelines and went for what we envisioned as a simple, clean display. I think we were successful!

notice the coats;)

We were pretty excited about the idea of returning to the "roots" and having it more about the tree and less about the "one-up" displays that seem to have taken over. So as we walked around a bit after decorating our hearts sank a little to see nonsense like this.

I liked the Gingerbread House displays too. Made me feel like we need to step up our game at home. Lots of talent there!

From the inside you would never know the difference, but my nostalgia had me longing for the feel of the days at the Salt Palace. 

 One thing that was the same, was the smell of Cinnamon Scones wafting through the air. We had to get some of those just out of tradition. 

This little man joined us when he finished school. He became our "wire man" and did a great job making sure we had what we needed. He was so committed to having wire in hand at all times, he even poked himself in the eye with it at one point .... poor little guy!

A little close up of the tree. My sisters found some really great ornaments, and handmade all the angels and wood beads for garland.

Our post decorating crew -Jenn and Cooper who had to leave to pick up Olivia.

I had originally planned to stay with my parents the entire time I was in town. The arrival fiasco and then wanting to help Jami with getting Hazen off to school early Monday, meant I ended up alternating nights between the two houses. Because we hadn't had our fill of decorating, after Shana brought me back to my parents Monday afternoon, we convinced (forced) them to let us help them get their Christmas stuff set up. It is a huge undertaking ... they have A LOT of decorations. It can also generate some tension with where and how things should be set up. All was well and we made a decent amount of progress.

I taught my mom how to add GIF's to her text messages ... and we lost her to her phone for quite some time 🤣

My dad drove me to the airport early Tuesday morning. The flight home was uneventful. I had such an amazing time with my family. I am so grateful to have such a supportive partner who not only encourages, but arranges for me to do these things. Mark picked me up and we were able to spend some time together before the girls were out of school.

Emm likes to see whats on the tail