Weekend Update

I feel like a newspaper with a post title like that... but it seems fitting.

My parents and two of my sisters came down to visit this weekend and help me have a gigantic yard sale. And, as Canaan explained, quite emphatically, to a young boy who came into the garage to check out his bike, "It's a yard sale, not a garage sale."

We sold A LOT of stuff. Before Andy came home from Afghanistan, when I was still staying with my parents, we had all started cleaning out closets and cubbies. The idea behind this yard sale was to do more then just get rid of stuff that was not needed. We really wanted, and needed, to raise some more money to complete this adoption. The closer we get, the more "extra fees" that pop up - as well as the things we already knew about, like the plane ticket and the food and lodging while we are in Benin.

So, everyone in my family cleaning out their closets for me. We managed to raise $350, which I think is pretty impressive for a yard sale. Especially since we are pretty cheap ourselves, so it is not like we have a lot of name brand fancy stuff laying around.

We also enjoyed some family time. We played Wii, put together a puzzle, and attended the fall festival at our church, where my children got to eat hotdogs, doughnuts, popcorn and cotton candy, while getting their face painted and winning prizes. I managed to not get a single picture of that entire experience... but my sisters did, so hopefully they will E-mail me a link sometime this week.

Here is a picture of our late night project...

A Norman Rockwell painting, in 1000 piece puzzle form.

We're not geeks or anything!

While we were organizing all the yard sale stuff, someone stumbled upon this scrap of paper. We don't know where it came from - I was getting rid of a lot of old textbooks from college, so it probably fell out of one of them.

It says "Happiness is in his smile. All I need is his hand in mine. Every day, more and more, Life is Beautiful, because of Andy. "

So, even though Andy gets all the credit for being the poet in the family (and I am not about to try to take that away - I love the stuff he writes!), I was kinda proud of myself for my ability. This was from "back in the day".

Brings back some very good memories, when life was so simple. Still, even now, all I need is his hand in mine.