This is a Story Of...

... a tree. But first, an update on my weekend. We did most of the things on my list. There are a couple of exceptions. I was going to have the kids play in the kiddie pool and run through the sprinklers, however, Brian put down fertilizer so that was cancelled. Instead they ran through the fountain downtown. Just as fun, except for baby who doesn't like water showering on her.

Then on Sunday, Brian and I made the executive decision to take a day trip up to the cabin to have dinner with his parents and brother. We didn't tell the kids what we were doing. Instead, we made them believe we were going on a bike ride. None of them seemed to notice we didn't pack the bikes. Hello! Anyway, once we hit the hills, which is a huge indication of where we are going, they got all excited and asked if we were going to the cabin. They're dorks.

When we arrived we were greeted with the great, great news that the water was working. This, after I insisted Brian stop at the little cafe at the bottom of the mountain to use their disgusting facilities. I should have waited and used the outhouse it would have been more sanitary. Ugh. Anyway, we ate a yummy turkey dinner, which I had planned to make on Monday and headed home. On Monday, I made our turkey, but we had sandwiches instead of the whole entire meal. It was still delicious And now we are still eating the delicious, cajun-injected turkey leftovers. I added the "cajun-injected" part, because it sounds funny to me. I don't know why.

Now for my story about our tree. Once upon a time, just a few weeks ago actually, we had a little maple tree.

(It wasn't this exact maple tree, but it looked like this.) We cared for the tree and looked at the tree when we were outside. We even contemplated getting rid of the tree or moving the tree whenever we decided to get a fence. That was all shattered one Saturday afternoon when we came home to this.

Do you see how awful that looks? It was completely stripped. Our little tree was murdered. There was nothing that could be done to fix him. He was gone. We asked our neighbors, not the ones with the minivan there in the picture, but the other neighbors, if they saw anyone around our house. Indeed they did. They saw a child. The thought it was just one of our kids, but they said it was weird he was by himself because our kids are always together. Which they are and it's a little weird. See?

Except for the baby. She's a loner.

Regardless. Our poor little tree was ruined and we had to plant a new one, which was also smaller. It's alright. I know we'll move on, but you have no idea how disturbing it was to come home and see that tree like that. I even phoned the police on the non-emergency line, of course, and they didn't seem too concerned about our vandalized tree. They sent me some paper work to fill out. Whatever. Someone ruined our tree! It's not like they're easy to replace. It took Brian all afternoon to dig out the old one and put in the new maple. Geez!