Every year since we have been back to the USA, we have carved pumpkins with the Helquists. It is a fun tradition that we look forward to annually!! This year we were lucky to have Greg, Jp's brother join us.
Here we are working away on our pumpkins.
Greg (sumo wrestler), Jp (soda), Natalie (cat), Alison (owl), Mike and Jens (Jack-O-Lantern).
Don't they look great!! I think they all turned out nicely this year.
Jp is getting ready to grind the stump left over from January. This is a good picture showing how we only had weeds, trees starts and moss growing where grass used to be.
Don't they look great!! I think they all turned out nicely this year.Project Landscaping:
The time has finally come for us to update and bring life back into our yard. Earlier this year we chopped down some obnoxious trees and that led to us painting the exterior of our house, which led to us re-doing the landscaping....much to the neighborhood's delight.
Jp is getting ready to grind the stump left over from January. This is a good picture showing how we only had weeds, trees starts and moss growing where grass used to be. 
Here's Jp with the stump grinder we rented from Home Depot together with Mike Helquist. It took them all day and into the evening to get all the stumps done at both our houses and also the Harrison's.Jp giving the stump grinder some action. The stump smelled gross...the next door neighbor boy said it smelled like the city dump. I had to agree. After the stumps were ground up, we decided it was time to call in the professionals. We had several quotes and decided to go with JWA Landscaping Company.
This is what we had done over the next 2 weeks: some serious demo, sprinklers added, drain pipes put in, sod layed, cement work done and trees and many plants planted, 1 ton of moss rocks, and everything was topped off with black bark.
This is what I found the first day JWA Landscaping started on our yard. It was nice to come home from work and have a lot of the yard demo already done.I was so excited I had to take a video of day one...
This is what I came home to about 3-4 days into the project. As you can see, we had some cement work done. We widened out driveway on both sides, had a walkway added, a cement pad for our green waste cans poured and also had some mow-stips put in. To top it all off, we had a salt treatment done to all the cement which added texture. We are happy with how it turned out.
Here's a look at front yard the day after they completed planting everything. So clean and crisp looking.
We had two trees planted in the back for future privacy along with sod that replaced the nasty rocks.
Here we had dwarf day lilies and purple plants added.
We transplanted our hydrangea and added a dwarf citrus tree.
Gardenias...I can't wait for smell the fragrant blossoms next spring.
In front we also have dwarf day lilies, verbena and a yellow fragrant rose bush.
This is a before and after view of the side yard.
Before and after of the back yard.
Before and after view of the front yard.
We are so pleased with the outcome!!! It is definitely more our style, and much more clean looking.
More to come soon: Highlights from months past...
Here is a look at the room mid-way through the project. 
Here's our customized component rack we got from Ikea.
Jp literally walking through the hole cut into the wall that will eventually house the component rack.
The finished component rack. It's complete with drawers and set up higher to discourage little fingers from pushing buttons. 
When the screen is up, no-one would would know the room transforms into a theater room. 
The finished project: a 135 diagonal inch screen, 7 speaker surround sound system, ceiling mounted projector, room darkening curtains, component rack, hours of sweat equity and loads of entertainment!! 
