Holiday Cheer 2017 {1} - Holiday Lights Magical Nights

For those of you who haven't gone to this light display before, here are the details. The Holiday Lights display in Decorah is put on by Helping Services for Youth & Families. The Pulpit Rock campground is set up each year with TONS of light displays and it stays up from Thanksgiving through Christmas. Volunteers staff it each night as drivers pass through and you're encouraged to make a free-will donation. They also tell you to turn your radio to a local station for Christmas tunes as you drive through and some nights, even Santa is there.

While there is a sidewalk that takes you right up to the campground thanks to the Trout Run Trail, you can also catch a ride from a local bus company. The boys are obsessed with buses so we always park in the nearby parking area by the soccer fields and ride in an Earl bus to the campground. Even better, if you decide to go on the night with the walking tour, you'll be greeted by food and cookies from local vendors.

This year's annual walking tour for Holiday Lights Magical Nights crept up quickly, just before Thanksgiving, but I think this was a good idea. It was such a fun way to kick off the holiday season and it was still pleasantly cool outside. This is an event that we very much look forward to each year, and we get to trade support for the event and a worthy cause for an amazing light display, a ride on the Earl bus and fantastic Santa photos. Can't wait for next year!

Landscaping {After!}

Holy cow, you guys are in for a treat. If you drove by our house at all in the last year or so and then in July/August 2017, you got to see the transformation of our landscaping first hand. It went from downright dreadful to absolutely amazing so I'll be sharing the before, during and after photos you have GOT to see!

Ok, this is what you have all been waiting for. It's legit. Legitimately amazing. The weather was beautiful in August and September so the grass grew in so quickly. We watered the landscaping every few days if it didn't rain but we certainly got lucky that it did rain a few times throughout the month. I also really really really love the scale of the landscaping. Before it was so big, bushy and overwhelming. This now looks calm and actually makes me feel some peace in my heart. How landscaping does that, I'm not sure. Now if we could only keep the boys from stepping in the mulch!

Landscaping {During!}

Holy cow, you guys are in for a treat. If you drove by our house at all in the last year or so and then in July/August 2017, you got to see the transformation of our landscaping first hand. It went from downright dreadful to absolutely amazing so I'll be sharing the before, during and after photos you have GOT to see!

Now to get down to business! We decided to have Driftless Gardens do our landscaping and hardscape projects and they were great to work with. They are very methodical about their work and managed to get a lot done in a short amount of time. I highly recommend them! They started the job at the end of July, right around the time that RAGBRAI rolled through Decorah and of course when Nordic Fest took place. We lived with a mud pit for a week or two as they worked on another project but then picked back up again and had it completed a day or two later! Crazy to see all of the changes as they started to take shape. You can kind of see from the photos below that they first laid gravel and then a layer a sand before laying the bricks.  I was most excited about losing the handful of trees that had sprouted years ago and were starting to completely take over!

Landscaping {Before!}

Holy cow, you guys are in for a treat. If you drove by our house at all in the last year or so and then in July/August 2017, you got to see the transformation of our landscaping first hand. It went from downright dreadful to absolutely amazing so I'll be sharing the before, during and after photos you have GOT to see!

Today's post is all about the before photos. I'm almost embarrassed to show the world these photos but it's also a little comedic. I'll just leave it at that.