Festival Of Trees

So, Utah does this super cool thing called Festival of Trees.
Pretty much people donate all their time, money, and resources to deck out these trees/wreaths/center pieces, a price is put on them and they're sold.  All the money made that night goes to the Primary Childrens Hospital. Same for the money that is made from the concessions, little gift store, and the tickets.  But these aren't normal trees that you decorate with your family, these trees are sold for prices up to 18,000 dollars! WHAT, CRAZY.  And the people that buy these trees just put them in their home so they can look super pretty.  And each tree has a theme, one tree was made out of tires, another was a barbie doll theme, and beach theme, anything you could think of.  Coralee has been helping out at this festival for...forever, so this year we came to help. We got there a little before 10, looked around real quick, and then waited to be assigned jobs.  We were going to be taking down the trees.  And by taking down I mean, bagging them, then saran wrapping them, and everything that surrounded the base of the tree.  (Honestly Saran Wrapping was the best part, you just went around and around with these GIANT rolls of wrap until the tree was nice and tight.)  The set up lasts three days.  Friday, Saturday, and Monday.  Coralee's Aunt Connie say people stay from 7AM to 7PM setting up their tree to make sure its perfect for when the festival opens. If you want to know more about it, look here!

It was such a cool thing to do, honestly.  I know people always say you feel better when you're helping others, and I always blow that saying off.  But I loved this, and I loved doing it with my friends. When I left my apartment I asked Coralee if I needed to bring money, and she said only if I wanted to donate.  I made a snide remark with something along the lines of, "I'm too poor to help myself, how am I going to help someone else?" Dropped my purse on the floor and walked out the door.  I just wanted to buy all the trees while I was there, and all the candy, and all the everything.  It was such a cool concept that everything, EVERYTHING is given to the hospital.  The had giant delivery trucks that would bring your tree to you after it was wrapped up, people running everywhere, but I didn't see anyone in a bad mood, and everyone was so willing to help the people next to them.  AND, Aunt Connie even scored us some scones, milk duds, soda in cans, AND soda in bottles that they had left over.

This is Us! Aren't we so good lookin?

(Damon, Katelyn, Me, Coralee, Sam)

And you best believe those skirts/dresses/tights didn't stop us from getting on the ground and wrappin those trees.  And those are our legit name tags, with out not so legit made up names.

(Mr. Clean, Rachel, Lucy, Mariah De Carmen, and Felipe)