I really wish I had pictures.  When Andy and I first got married, we were just beginning to move into the digital era, and most pictures that we took were still on 35mm cameras.

One year, my dad decided that he wanted to do Christmas light Clark Griswold style.  His goal was for satellites to see his property from space.  Seriously.  Of course, now, he probably wishes he would have had LED Christmas lights to keep his bill down.

My parents had a pretty large house with a wrap around porch, and most people put icicle lights on the front of the house facing the street.  Not my dad.  He wrapped the entire house with icicle lights.  We also had columns all the way around the house that were wrapped, and the porch rails had large X’s in the middle of them.  Those were all wrapped as well.

As if that weren’t enough, dad decided that he was going to light up the driveway.  We lived out in the middle of nowhere with property that backed up to the lake, so the driveway was pretty long – about 100 yards.  He had about 10 arches over the driveway made up of PVC pipes wrapped with the newest in Christmas decor – rope lighting.  While everything else was plain white, he did those in red and white.  I’ll have to admit it was pretty cool.

It really looked good from the road and the yard, but I’m pretty sure he regretted his decision come January’s electric bill!

Of course, the inside always looked great, as well!  Mom’s trees are always beautiful, and the fireplace always had a roaring fire.  Even thought dad got a little goofy on the outside, I miss that place around this time of year.  It was fun and comfortable for the whole family, and always a good place to do Christmas pictures with the little ones.  Sadly, my youngest two never had the honor of visiting this awesome place.

photo groesbeck_zpsbd0333ea.gif

This is a picture of the actual house, and I did a horrible Photoshop job to give you an idea of how the lights were.  Of course, it was much brighter, and there were light wrapped all the way around the house.   No one from NASA ever called, and there wasn’t a neighborhood contest living so far out, but Kylie loved it!

When they sold the house, he passed all of those lights on to us, and because they’re not energy efficient, we’ve since given them away and made the switch to LED and other types of lighting to reduce our carbon footprint and electric bill!

We’ll never forgot the time dad tried to be seen from space!  I can’t wait until my parents sell the house they’re in now so that they can build out in the country again!  My boys are going to love it.  Who knows…  dad may even decide to try to wow NASA again now that he has 7 grandkids and not just one!  We’ll see.