The Rainbow Tree (Saturday Oct. 25, 2014)

I noticed this morning that my post for yesterday failed to publish.  It completely locked up my phone and so I am starting it from scratch.  Unfortunately the picture I was trying to include in the post will be absent.

The boys and I went up on the mountain again to help cut and gather wood for members of our ward.  We were back at Thorley's ranch which is absolutely beautiful.  Two weeks ago on our last trip up there were golden leaves on the Aspen trees.  Today the leaves were gone.  There really wasn't much of a sign of the fallen leaves either.  Anyway, we had a good time and enjoyed working on the mountain.  What a beautiful place to be.

We started by helping Brother Will Bishop fill his truck.  He was cutting wood and I was hauling it to his truck and loading it up.  Both the boys helped move a few logs and helped with stacking in the truck.  It was a good time.  Towards the tail end of loading up Brother Bishop Andy noticed a tree that was shaped like a rainbow.  Granted there were no colorful stripes but it was an arching tree.  He wanted to climb it and so he asked me to help him climb the rainbow tree.  He was funny.  Tried to climb up but had some troubles with it being slick.  He took off his sweater and used it as a strap around the tree to help him get leverage and pull himself up in stages.  He said: 'I saw this on man vs. wild, you just have to knot it and pull yourself up then loosen it and move it up'.  I thought that was pretty cool and I chuckled a bit.  It was kind of tough and the aspen was a bit slick so it wasn't working all that well.  I told him he could use my hands as foot holds and scoot up the tree.  He did that and got up a ways.  It was a fun time there with the rainbow tree. 

We had a good time.  Lots of kids came up this time to help so the boys had some friends to run around with.  I had brought up some snacks and we shared.  Had a little congregation of kids at the back of the truck eating doritos and popcorn.  Good times.  Glad to have these experiences with my kids and hope they are experiences that will teach them the importance of serving others and that they will stay with them throughout their lives.  I would love to hear Andy telling his own children about the rainbow tree in some future day.