Tiiiiiiiiimmmmmm--Berrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

That's what we were saying as Chris gave his finest rendition of Paul Bunyan in our back yard last night.

We got back from our walk at 8:00pm (bbbbbrrrrrrr) and were looking at something on the computer when I hear a loud "POP". I directed my attention towards the living room where it seemed to be coming from and asked Chris if heard that. Not two seconds later we hear "POP - CRACK". Now I know I wasn't hearing things. The first thing to cross our mind is - "what is Ky getting into?". But Ky was outside in the yard... And that was too loud a noise to be him - even though he is quite the beast.

So, we get up to check things out... Chris looked around the house while I peeked out back to make sure Ky was ok. He was fine, but I noticed that one of the trees in the "forest" seems to be leaning a little to much to the left. No - it was leaning a lot towards the left. I call Chris over and ask him "does that tree looks a little sideways to you?". He agreed.

Now, this tree had been dead since we moved in two summers ago. Larry, Chris' dad, took a few swings at it with an ax a while ago but stopped short of his intentions when he realized that the 50 foot log would most likely fall onto the garage when it came down. We were going to take it down someday by cutting it in half first as to not damage anything. It wasn't a priority as it seemed to be holding up well. But, apparently it was time for the tree to go and we had no time for Plan A. Plan B: take it down now - in the dark - and hope for the best. Great. How much is this going to cost us?

So, I called Ky inside and Chris headed out to take on the tree. We watched through the windows in the french doors as he gave it a few of his best Jackie Chan ka-ra-tae kicks. He went back for one last kick when we heard a loud "CRRRRRRAAAAAACCCCCKKKKK". He jumped back and TIIIIIIMMMMMM-BERRRRRRRRR - the tree was down. As soon as it hit the ground, I flung open the door and ran out to survey the damage. Chris beat me to it and held up the 2 inch branch that clipped the side of the garage. That was it! No damage was done! YAY!

We reveled at the possibility of it causing serious damage and thanked our lucky stars that Plan B was successful. Then, the "what ifs" started flowing. "What if it came down when we were sleeping? - that would have scared the crap out of me" "What if it came down while Ky was playing in the yard" "What if... What if... What if..."

Meanwhile, Ky thought he hit the jackpot of sticks and didn't hesitate 2 seconds to go down and check out his new toy. He quickly began ripping apart the downed tree and found himself some nice sticks to run around with. Merry Christmas Ky! We went inside since it was a chilling 25 degrees with the wind chill and Ky happily stayed behind and played with his abundance of sticks.

Just another day in the life of Chris & Mel.