Days 2 and 3

It's been a several days since my last blog post, but a lot has happened, including my procrastinating about uploading a separate blog post for Sunday November 14. With that in mind, this entry will be what I like to call "Two-Blog-Posts-Rolled-Into-One." Trust me, it will work. With twice the work and twice the Christmas spirit involved, let's take a look at what the Beautification Boys accomplished in two days of work.

On Sunday, November 14, we all hit the road for Hinton for day number 2 of putting up Christmas lights. What we imagined as being a very productive day wound up being more of a "correction" day. Our idea of putting up Christmas lights and the idea of the people we are helping were slightly different so we spent this day reinstalling the lights. That didn't bother us though because it acted as an opportunity to learn from mistakes and how to better communicate with those we are helping.

When we redid our first Christmas lights, we were given a tool that made tall trees seem not so tall. The innovation of a long stick with a hook seemed like something we would see on an infomercial turned out to make our jobs a lot easier and certainly much safer, unless it was used as a weapon. That could have turned out badly.

The day was a chilly one, but compared to the rain and snow that places just to the south received, we weren't complaining.

We finished up our second day of Christmas lights in a few hours and headed back for the warmth of our dorm rooms and in my case, so I could watch NASCAR of course.


That brings us to day number 3 of putting up Christmas lights. With days one and two devoted to doing and redoing what was already done, we were ready to make some real progress. With more big trees and even colder temperatures, Wednesday's trip to Hinton would prove to be a challenge.

We piled into Danny's car and continued our beautifying of Hinton.

 We got to Hinton and created a gameplan as we picked up the Christmas lights from someone's front porch. To bystanders, it probably looked as if we were crooks (bundled up in heavy jackets, gloves, and stocking caps), but luckily no one confronted us. That wouldn't have been good.


We found the trees we were to decorate on this day and got right to work. With the horrible circulation in my hands, thick gloves were no match for the coldness in the air. As soon as we started putting up lights, my hands were already getting numb, which is probably something I have checked out.

Anyway, we put our heads together and decided what would be the best way to accomplish the day's task and get it on camera. We took turns taking pictures of the others putting up the lights on many large evergreen trees.

Rockin' around the Christmas tree...

A few hours later, we ran out of lights so we contacted the group we are helping and discussed with them what we thought we still needed to finish the task of getting all the trees covered in lights by Thanksgiving.

We will be working in Hinton either tomorrow, Sunday, or both, so we can finish our service project. Although we are doing it for a grade, it is still fun to be helping people save money by volunteering our time to
help the non-profit group in Hinton beautify the town. In collaboration with the "Beautification Babes," the Beautification Boys are well on their way to continue beautifying Hinton just in time for Christmas.

Before this project, the four of us had little to no experience putting up Christmas lights, so it has been a great learning opportunity. Maybe someday our yards will look like this yard thanks to the experience we've gained; there are no guarantees though.