Just adding some photos here for another purpose as I don't have a better place. 
I don't know anyone but myself who has long awaited any additions to this picture blog, but isn't it best to assume the positive? Here are some photos from various genealogy or other sites. These are just thumbnails to tempt you. Clicking on the photo or on the link I give should link you to the family's site, to the page where the photo is. This is for courtesy and possibly copyright reasons. The Jacob-Buys family. Clicking on the picture above will take you to the original site, where names are listed under the photo. Upon reading a little further, I came up with these interesting points about this Dutch family. There were 19 children; two were born after this photo. Their given names were actually much more "interesting" than the ones under the photo. They are very Latin sounding. There were 60 grandchildren, from 9 of the children in the photo. Of the other 10 children in this family... 3 died as babies (3rd, 11th, and 18th children) 4 took holy orders (7...
Comments
I am also impressed that you kept your tree alive so long! Although, I finally figured out that rust in my tree stand may be part of the problem.
Thanks for the pics!!!
As far as the tree surviving, we get it cut at a tree farm as we watch and take it straight home and into water. If you can do this within the first hour or two so a "scab" doesn't form on the cut surface they will live a long time. Of course you also have to not forget to keep the water up or a scab can still form. The scab prevents any further water from being absorbed. Maybe some varieties last longer too. I hadn't heard about rust being an issue but it makes sense. This year I put plant food in the water too, though I can't really measure whether it helped much, but it sure couldn't hurt. 6 1/2 weeks after cutting it is still flexible and only dropping a few leaves.