The Power of Yard Work Parties

Thank goodness, it's not a jungle out there... not anymore, at least.

Check out these "before" and "after" photos and you may understand why we're so grateful to our parents for showing up. Thanks to both families for donating your trucks, tools, and time to scraping back the layers of awfulness in our front yard.

Our parents turned the driveway from Dandelion Central into a place we'd actually be proud to park our cars:


As for the transformation from Curbside Eyesore into Non-Embarrassing Bare Flower Bed... well, that took a little longer than one afternoon... (This one's worth clicking on the picture so you can see how bad it was originally. No, really.)


How did we tackle that shrubbery mess? It took months, but only because we get distracted very easily. It went a little something like this:

Step One: I cut out all of the old plants--including one sad, scraggly fir tree. There was also an initial weeding. (Note: weeds grow back if you don't, you know, put real plants in the bed. Who knew?) As you can imagine, this created quite the yard compost pile! (The picture is just one part of one hedge...)

Step Two: Mike dug out most of the stumps, but we had to hire a stump grinder for the tree.

Step Three: Our parents came over to help us weed and level the flowerbed, which we'll be covering with weed-block (and planting next spring). They were so energetic, they even moved on to some of the other flowerbeds, picking weeds that you can't see from the road. (So thorough!)

Thanks for all the help, family! We'll be sure to call you when we get brave enough to tackle the backyard...