Highs and Lows

We'll start with a high. On Saturday were able to attend Bracken's Aunt Juanita's baptism. She's been away from the church for about 30 years. While her grandson was serving his mission in Serbia, she started meeting with the missionaries. When Josh returned, he was able to baptize her. She was so happy Saturday, and we were so happy to be there to support her.



And now our major bummer of the week. Something I didn't disclose in showing previous pictures of my backyard is that part of the reason we were able to get such a great backyard is that there are power lines running overhead. Because of that, SMUD, the power company, has an easement on our property. A couple months ago, one of their men came by to tell me that two of our trees, our liquid amber and one of our fruitless mulberries, were growing too close to the lines, and are such fast growing trees, they would need to be cut down. I was hoping this idea would get lost in bureaucratic paperwork, but no. Yesterday, a man showed up to cut down the trees. Now, I wasn't too concerned about the liquid amber. It's pretty in the fall, but it does drop pokey balls and stuff. But this was our mulberry.

This was the tree the swings hung from. The tree that Chloe begged to climb everyday. The big shade tree in our yard with the bird feeder and wind chimes in it. The tree we planned to one day build a tree house in. The tree that Chloe sat on the couch and repeated, "My tree. My tree," as they brutally cut it down.

The before shot of the yard.

The yard sans mulberry, and action shot of the falling amber.

My now barren yard.

My heartbroken daughter.

Actually, I think she's getting over it. She's pretty excited to have piles of stumps to climb on. And now I have more motivation to find her a swing set on craigslist. And I didn't really love where that tree was located. And SMUD will be bringing me 4 new trees, and I will make sure one of them will be of a good tree climbing variety. But I will still miss my tree.


But moving on. Chloe loves to help me feed Addie now. We both get our spoons, and we both make the "open your mouth" face.

Chloe also got to paint her fingers and toes by herself for the first time this week. Notice I say fingers and toes, not fingernails and toenails. It all comes out in the wash, right?