Let me tell you about the pine cone pictured above...and along the way we’ll get to the guy above, too!

Last December, Tristan and his Auntie Sarah had staked off a little corner of his bedroom which housed his carefully masked and labelled, “Top Secret Project”.  Moms and Dads and Phelans were not allowed to peek.  Whenever Auntie Sarah came over, they’d go work on it for a while.

As it turns out, they had been walking in the park together and Tristan got very excited about all the pine cones he was finding and saw so much potential in them, that he and Sarah decided to turn them into Xmas presents for loved ones. 

Then just before Xmas, Sarah and Jill had to leave for NB to attend Jill’s mom’s funeral.  For understandable reasons, the ‘top secret project’ was on hold.

Enter Auntie Katie, who arrived from Montreal and took over helping Tristan to finish painting, stringing and labeling his pine cone ornaments in time for Xmas morning.

Fast forward to February.  There are still a pile of pine cones in our house that are labeled with various loved ones’ names.  Mom resolves to help Tristan get some of them into the mail.  We prepare two packages to send to BC.  One is a large padded envelope, headed to Northern BC to Uncles Justin, Mark & Nick, Emily, Jacob and Susanna.  There are a couple pine cones in it, some hand me downs for Susanna a gift for Jacob etc.  The other is a very small padded envelope with only a pine cone and a card from Tristan for Uncle Josh & Auntie Kim in Vancouver.  Tristan works hard to prepare the packages and I promise to mail them the next day.

The next day.  Postal counter.  Large line-up behind me.  Postal worker weighs the big package headed to Northern BC.  Postage is about 12 dollars.  Fine.

Then she weighs the little package and tells me the postage is 11 dollars.

ELEVEN DOLLARS?!!!  “you’re not serious,” I say.  She is.

“It’s a PINE CONE!” I say.  She doesn’t care.

I turn to the growing line behind me, “it’s a pine cone!” I say.  They don’t really care.  The hysterical irony at this juncture in Tristan’s cost-saving gift project is lost on them.  I’m left with a choice.  I pay the postage and leave chuckling and hoping the pine cone will be appreciated on the other end.

A week later, I related this story to Auntie Sarah, Katie and Jill.  We all had a big laugh and decided that I should have just stepped on the envelope, crushing the cone, so it would fit through the ‘letter’ slot on the measuring thingy at the post office.

Well...it’s a good thing I didn’t do that...because a couple days ago, Tristan got this email from his Uncle Josh with the photos you see in this post.

Hi Guys,

 

  Just wanted to send a quick email to Tristan to thank him for the Flying Cone he sent me!

 

  I've decided that since this Cone came all the way to Vancouver from Toronto in an airplane, it has a lot of experience in flying and could teach me a thing or two!

 

  So, I've decided to take it along with me when I fly, so I can learn to be a safe Pilot. I've attached a couple of pictures of us flying the other day. As you can see, the cone had a chance to take the controls for a while, and even sat up front and did a little navigating for me. 

 

  Thanks again for the Cone, Tristan, and your aircraft picture as well. I hope next time we see each other we can go flying!

 

Talk to you soon,

 

Uncle Josh

 

PS - Auntie Kim says Hello as well!

Tristan’s delight at this email and the heartfelt assurance that his gift was appreciated and useful was a joy to behold!  The investment in postage returned several times over!

Loving thoughts to Josh and Kim across the miles - thanks, guys - your appreciation means so much to Tristan!

Thanks, Sarah and Katie for supporting him in this project. 

There are some more cones here...waiting to be delivered to the East Coast...waiting for cheaper delivery options!