Rhododendron Craziness!!

We are so lucky to have the parents we do! My dad is an all around "handy man" and my mom is the resident plant enthusiast. haha! My sister and Ben really used their skills on Saturday!

On Friday when we were over for their cookout my dad began talking about this horrible Rhododendron Tree Lisa and Ben have at the back of their house. Someone long ago planted this tree and it took over most of the back of their house. They have this cute sun room on the back of the house but it never received any sun inside because of this stinkin' tree! :) Here is a picture I took of the tree on Friday at their cookout:

Wow! Can you believe that?!?! Look at that thing!! So after talking about it some more my Dad asked Lisa what they had going on on Saturday and she said "nothing" so he said, "Me and your mom (or just me) are going to come up here tomorrow and get that thing out of here". My mom wasn't keen on the whole idea of cutting it down completely but after seeing the inside of it, there wasn't much of an option! She had to succumb to their decision to gain a larger backyard and utilize their sun room! :)

On Saturday afternoon the work began and continued until dinner time! They accomplished a lot of work. Lisa and Mom pulled all the weeds from around the backyard (which was a lot) and Ben and Dad battled with the Rhododendron tree! I had earlier plans and didn't arrive until a little later on in the day but got my hands slightly dirty by helping break branches in half. Here is the "after" picture of where the Rhododendron was previously:

It's incredible! I can't believe how much of a difference it makes now that the tree is gone! They filled a ton of trash bags with this tree and even have a ton of firewood to use in their fire pit! I know they are so glad that they removed the tree and have the opportunity to possibly plant grass to increase their yard space or plant smaller items around the back of the house. Kids love a yard to play in and now they have a bigger one than before! I love how the sun shines in the sun room now! Here are more pictures of the crew working hard on Saturday:

hehe!!

Ben and Lisa treated everyone to Pizza for dinner and the first half of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 before we all got super tired and some of us had to head home in our different directions! It was a nice day!!