Light up the Neighborhood!

I really wanted to make my service for Wayne special. I struggled to find the best service for him. I talked to Amy and Darcy for ideas.

Since Darcy isn't an official part of our service exchange, I decided to make her my deputy in serving her dad. While talking to her in early December, she mentioned that they had not yet gotten their Christmas tree because Wayne had been so busy with work and out of town.

A few days earlier, my next door neighbor, Sue, had mentioned how bummed she was that she hadn't had time to put Christmas lights on her house because she had been so busy with work and out of town. I realized that since I could not go help the Dittbrenners decorate for Christmas, I could help my neighbor.

Sue really loves having lights on the house especially for her young daughter, Sarah, who is a year older than Leland. Sue and Sarah have done many wonderful acts of service for our family, such as defending Leland from a bully on the bus or cooking dinner for us after Eddie's birth.

I decided I wanted to figure out a way to decorate their house as a surprise. I devised a plan with Sue's friend, Julie, that she would get me the Christmas lights and keep Sue away from the house in order for me to put the lights up. Julie brought over all the lights and let me know that at 2:00 p.m. that afternoon they had an appointment to get Christmas pictures taken.

The Hocks were visiting, so I enlisted their help, too. We also got Chuck to take the day off work. Lani watched the babies in the house while Hock and Chuck helped me get the lights up.

(Disclaimer: I had great pictures. Hock even took them. But my crazy new phone deleted them all and I can only find the one below. Bummer.)

At 1:55pm, her car was gone, so I thought we were good to start a few minutes early. But just as we got the ladders up on the side of the house, up rolls Sue! The surprise was ruined. She was coming home really quick to change before her pictures and she was running late. We quickly told her what we were doing and she was so grateful. She left for her pictures and we got to work. It was too bad the surprise didn't totally work out, but it was nice not to be rushed to finish in an hour.

We strung icicle lights along the front of the house and snowflake lights in one of her trees. We had some extra timers, so we set up her lights to an automatic timer so that she wouldn't have to remember to plug/unplug them each night.

While Chuck had the ladders out he decided to get up on the roof and clean out her rain gutters too. There was pine needles galore in the gutters, even though she cut down most of her pine trees a few years ago.

It was fun to help spread some Christmas joy. Sue was extremely grateful for our family service exchange.

Wayne, I know that your family is so grateful for how hard you work even if it takes you away from them for an extended time.

I had challenged Darcy to find a way to serve her dad. After they got their tree, she took on the responsibility of ensuring that it was decorated with lights and ornaments... All 17 feet of it! I am sure that was a HUGE task!