Planting of Trees

Wow, wow, wow, did my weekend rock. Aubree and I drove six and a half hours (which should've actually taken us more like eight hours) northwest of Saskatoon on Friday evening, speeding along to the songs of Beauty and the Beast, Michael Buble, and Natalie Cole. About half an hour from our destination, an unsuspecting Bryan called my cell to chat, but I cut the call short because I was "out with Megan Patzer" (and when I said that, a horde of semis inconveniently zoomed by). Bryan said he was just hanging out in Whitecourt with the other planters, and tomorrow he would call me at about two. I cheerfully agreed and hung up.
Aubree and I arrived in Whitecourt at about 11:30. An inside man had already called to tell us where we could find our boyfriends, so we pulled up to the hotel where all the planters were hanging out in two rooms. Aubs and I went our separate ways. I opened the door I'd been directed to and greeted the exhausted (smelly) crowd with a casual "hey." Bryan was the last person to turn in my direction, and when he did, the blankest stare I've ever seen came across his face. I just smiled and waited for it to register, and when it did, his eyes lit up and he stood up slowly, his happiness as evident as his shock. "I can't believe you're here!" he said over and over.
That moment was one of the many highlights of the weekend. The other highlight actually kinda sucked...I got to plant trees for half a day. It started with a 5:30 wakeup call, a quick breakfast, loading up a truck with baby trees, and driving out to a field. There, we stood around for quite awhile and waited for a helicopter to come so we could load up the slings with baby trees, and they could be delivered to the appropriate pieces (of land). I even got to help hook up one of the slings to the helicopter rope! (I'll put pictures on Facebook soon.) Finally we all hiked out. Aubree and I planted a box of trees together, and it was so much harder than I would've expected. The slash (wow, I feel so sweet using these terms) made walking hard, and the planting itself was difficult...physically, and mentally because it was hard to see the trees we'd already planted. We finally finished and had a lunch break, then were given free reign to stalk our boyfriends for the afternoon. So I walked alongside Bryan as he planted, but I had trouble keeping up even though he was planting and I was just walking. I tried to be useful but it was really hard since I have so little experience, so I basically bounced along beside him and talked and checked his trees for quality and made sure he wasn't planting too many or too few in each plot.
By the time the day ended, all of my muscles and joints were sore and my feet were killing me and I was drenched in sweat. I can't imagine going through that every day for a whole summer! But I'm really glad to know what it's like, and I wouldn't have have changed one thing about this weekend. Leaving was hard, and August can't come soon enough.
In conclusion, I hate tree planting and I'm dating the best man in the world.