Christian's Tree

We recently planted a tree in Christian's honor. Well, I didn't do much planting since I was still in early recovery, so "Pop" (as Chase has decided to call Grandpa Buente!) and Wes did the work.  (Chase helped by throwing some mulch around in the driveway.) Before Christian's birth and death we knew we wanted to plant a tree to honor his memory. We even had an old crabapple tree in our front yard that wasn't doing well and we thought we'd replace it with this tree. The day we got home from the hospital, this is what we saw as we pulled into the driveway:

We had a storm the night before and the tree fell over! Now it's hard to know for sure if that is a "sign" from above or not, but it still gave me the chills because of the timing...

We went to a local nursery and picked out a Serpentine Snowfountain Weeping Cherry.  Chase had a blast running around and playing among the trees and a water feature they had on display.

There were several of this type of tree to pick from...and I had it narrowed down to two. Then a little ladybug landed on one of the leaves: I then knew that we had found our special tree for Christian! This type of tree was interesting to us for several reasons. First, it is weeping, and that carried meaning for obvious reasons. But we liked that it has a trunk that winds back on itself and bends like a snake - which reminded me a bit of the road we have been on. It's definitely been a hard and windy road. Christian's tree will bloom a beautiful white flower in the spring and have orange/red leaves in the fall.

Wes and Pop planting Christian's tree!

A big thank you to all of our friends and family who donated towards Christian's tree. It means so much to us. We also plan to find a special stone marker for underneath his tree...I'll be sure to post pictures when I find the right one. We are looking forward to enjoying the tree for many years to come and we will always think of our sweet Christian when we do!