A Sperry, Iowa woman is just back from Washington D.C. after decorating the White House for Christmas.
From the lights on the wire decorations outside her house to the winter village she has set up inside, it's not hard to see, Laurie Rappenecker has a thing for decorating.
"I love to decorate," she said.
But it is how she sets up her dining room table, for Christmas, that sent her somewhere didn't think she would get to go.
"I just thought this was out of reach," said Rappenecker.
A few years ago, Rappenecker applied for a chance to decorate the White House, but never heard back. She tried again this year, sending a picture of her dining room table with the application. She forgot about it until she looked at her email one Friday night.
"I clicked it and it said, 'You've been selected as a volunteer,'" Rappenecker said, "'And then in your mind, 'Just how am I gonna do this?'"
She and her husband left for Washington D.C. on Thanksgiving and returned just a few days ago.
She proudly wore a "Holidays at the White House" apron.
"We were all given a different room, and there were 11 of us who were assigned to the grand foyer. Back here in Iowa we call it a foyer, but I soon learned that the name was the grand foyer; and we had four 14-foot trees that we were to decorate," said Rappenecker.
"It was pretty surreal, you know. You get busy decorating the tree and, in the grand foyer, there are huge portraits of the presidents and you would look up and there's Jimmy Carter,"Rappenecker said, "and you would just think about his presidency, and everything that's happened behind those walls over the years, and it was pretty surreal."
Her love for decorating her home sent her all the way to the White House.
"I thought when I came home, I would want to change everything up, it wouldn't be good enough. It's just the White House; pretty much the same, but it's on a larger scale."