Successful Garage Sale

Every year our neighborhood picks a weekend and everyone has a garage sale at the same time. It's very nice -- cuts down on traffic through the subdivision during the rest of the summer, and you have a bigger draw for shoppers than just whatever you have to sell.


The day started out cold and looking like rain. Ken and I sat out in the garage for almost an hour before anyone even stopped to look at what we had. We thought we were in for a long, boring, discouraging day. Discouraging because Ken was not looking forward to putting everything back in the basement after he spent so much time and energy dragging it up to the garage. We didn't have much we wanted to get rid of, mostly furniture and sports equipment. At the end of the day, we only had two things left -- some old golf clubs of Ken's, and a tennis racket Syd grew out of. We made about $100, but the best part is not having to store all the stuff anymore.

We had a couple big lulls during the day where no one was even driving by anymore. We thought about shutting it down, but now are glad we didn't. Ken was dying of boredom, andfound ways to entertain himself.

He made the stilts as tall as they would go.

And walked all the way down the driveway and back. Pretty impressive. I could only make it 3 steps.

Hanging out on the hard box springs, trying to entice people to take it. Must have worked -- that or the FREE sign we put on it an hour before we closed up shop.

Syd wasn't there for the beginning of the sale, but when she came, she added another element to our sale -- a lemonaid stand. Several people got out of their cars just for a cup of lemonaid and she made $2. She used her earnings to buy a fake Louis Vuitton purse no one had bought yet. Both she and I thought we got a good deal out of it.

She even had an open/closed sign for when she wasn't there.

Modeling her new pimp purse. She didn't have problems finding stuff to put in it. What exactly 7-year-olds put in purses is still a mystery to me.

We had Storm out in the garage with us. I'm sure she deterred some people from stopping, but several got out of their cars just to talk to her. She was a good salesdog :) She did so good all day, too. We gave her a little area to lay down in with a bone, and she stayed there or out on the grass all day. When people came, we always made sure one of us was holding her collar, but she hardly needed any instructions from us. For the most part she was calm and easy with all the people -- didn't try to maul or slobber them to death.

Storm re-discovered the place where the downspout comes up out of the grass. The water was high enough she could drink it. She stayed there with her nose buried for a good 20 minutes before she drank it enough she couldn't reach anymore.

The Bet Has Been Made

I'd seen commercials for a new thing for the Wii called "Active." It's a bunch of different workouts with a personal trainer to tell you how to do the exercises and encourage you. I told Ken that's what I wanted for my birthday, but he has a hard time waiting for special events. He ordered it that same day and it got here a couple days ago. I tried it for the first time yesterday morning and was pretty happy with it. Last night I was showing him all the different exercises it has and learning more about its 30 day challenge.

When he saw the 30 day challenge, he told me I would never do it because I couldn't work out 30 days in a row. I work out about 3 days a week, and usually take weekends off. Right away I told him that I would do the 30 day challenge just to prove him wrong. He took it a step further, and said that if I worked out for 30 days straight, I could have anything I wanted. We set some ground rules -- my workouts have to be at least 20 minutes long, and can be either a workout on the Wii, or a walk/run with Stormy.

So starting June 1, lasting through the end of the month, I will be doing something every day for at least 20 minutes. The prize I picked when I win?

A new baby cat!!!!

Ken really thought about taking back that the prize could be anything I wanted when those words came out of my mouth. But he's being a good sport about it (and hoping that I miss a day:) The cat doesn't have to look like these in the picture, and we'll probably get it from a shelter. I lovelovelove kittens, and haven't had one in the house since I got Biz over 5 years ago. It is definitely time for another one.

When I win the bet at the end of June, it will almost be my birthday, so he will have ended up getting me something even better than the Wii Active I originally wanted :)

Weather Retards

All day yesterday Ken and I had planned on playing tennis after work. There are some courts about a half mile from the house that we like to walk to with Storm.

As we were leaving work, we noticed a big wall of black clouds coming from the south. They didn't look like they were moving very fast, so we decided to chance it and walk to the courts with the dog anyway.

The whole time we were playing, we kept watching the sky get darker and the clouds get closer. But we kept playing. A set and a half into our match the sky opened up. Now, I'm not opposed at all to a walk in the rain. Last night's storm was no walk in a pleasant little rainfall. It was an all out sprint home in a torrential downpour! The rain was falling so hard it hurt your skin, and coming in sideways, even though there wasn't really any wind.

Ken had control of Storm's leash because I didn't want to be in charge of her if she freaked out. They ran faster than I did, and Storm actually did very well for being soaked through. We finally made it home and safely in the garage to begin the drying out process. Everything I was wearing from shoes to underwear was completely waterlogged. I dried Storm as much as I could with towels, but it still took her a couple hours to completely dry.

When we were cleaned up, Ken told me that the next time a storm is coming, we're driving to the courts. The ironic thing is that we even checked the radar before we left! When will we ever learn?

Summer Makes Me Happy

This weekend I got to do so many things that are only available and enjoyable when it finally warms up.

Saturday we went to dinner in St. Joe, and walked around afterward eating ice cream. Sunday we spent some time at Matt's new lake house on Magician Lake playing in the sun. He remodeled a small house right on the water, so we went to help him break it in. Today we went to see all my animals at Deer Forest and played tennis. Storm even got to come with us to tennis. We were the only ones there so we just let her walk around inside the fence. She didn't get in the way or try to get out. It was a very enjoyable Memorial Day weekend.

Syd, Ken and I on Matt's new pontoon boat on Magician Lake.

Soaking up some sun.

Hayden and Syd trying out the canoe in the shallow area next to the dock.

Ken had to go give them a push away from the dock so they could actually paddle.

And Here We Have Idaho

I think I saw as much of the state of Idaho on my 6 day trip as I did during the 23 years I lived there. I hit every major city except Twin Falls in all of Southern Idaho, and I'm sure if we had mentioned Gertie's Pizza when we were traveling to Boise, we would have made a stop in Twin Falls too.

There were a lot of reasons for making the trip out to Idaho, but the most anticipated reason was to welcome home my brother Randy from his mission to Winnipeg, Canada. We had him fly into Boise because my youngest brother Jared was playing his state tennis matches on the exact same day.

My mom made these shirts during Randy's senior year and we all wore them to his basketball games. Grampa's shirt had "Way to" added on top of the GO. We got several weird looks from people at the airport when we weren't in order. Once they saw what it spelled everyone smiled and understood.

From L to R: Grampa Chambers, Gramma Chambers, Jared, Dad, Mom, Cindy, Brian, Celia

First glimpse of him after 2 years.

You'd think we were excited to see him or something :)

Mom getting the first hug

Waiting for the luggage to come. Brian sneaked in behind us to be in the picture too.

The timing could not have been better all day. Randy flew in in between Jared's matches and he only missed one of the 4 matches Jared played that weekend. Jared and his doubles partner Megan played really well. It was fun to get to see him play instead of just hearing about his match on the phone.

Megan and Jared after all their matches were done. They should be very proud of themselves in how they played and conducted themselves during the tournament.

It's hard to get good action shots of tennis so I had to wait til they were standing still for a second.

They got to play at the Boise Swim and Racquet Club, which is a great facility with indoor and outdoor courts. Celia, Dad and Brian are checking out the balcony above the court Jared played two matches on.

We had quite the cheering section for Jared and Megan.

Randy, Dad, Brian and Celia across from Grampa, Mom and Gram

I had a few surprises while I was in Idaho. The best surprise was the announcement that Brian and Celia will be having a baby in December! They are very happy and excited. Check out Celia's blog to see the cute video she made for a Mother's Day surprise. Congratulations guys!

Celia, Brian and Ralphie -- soon to be an older brother :)

We knew we couldn't keep the secret from Randy the whole time we were in Boise, so they put Celia's video on Jared's ipod and made him watch it as soon as we had a quiet minute.

Another surprise was a 1965 pickup my dad has been working on restoring for the past 4 years. He bought it from his uncle and it needed a lot of work. He let the kids in the automotive classes at the high school rebuild the engine, and had it totally repainted inside and out. There are still some finishing details -- like the seat! -- that need to be done, but it looks really good. Randy didn't know it was so close to being done, or even back at the house, so it was a surprise for him, too.

Randy and Brian the midget driver

This foam archery target made a good seat, except now his head hits the ceiling!

Randy and Jared inspecting the shiny new engine.

Randy took me for a ride down the driveway (the truck isn't licensed yet). He's a giant sitting on the foam target, and I'm really a midget sitting on the floor next to him!

Of course one of the best things about going to Idaho is getting to hang out with all the family that lives there. We had a party for Randy on Sunday after church that everyone came to. It was so nice to reconnect and hang out with everyone.

Randy, Jared, Dad, Mom, Ken, Syd, Cindy, Celia, Brian and Ralphie

Jackie and Syd -- best buds and kind of cousins. They only had a little bit of time together, but loved every minute of it.

Beckie and Cindy -- we've become best friends online during the past couple of years. We email back and forth while we're at work all day, and always comment on each other's blogs. But we never actually talk besides when we're together in person. What would we do without technology?

I consider the animals part of the family too. Poky is getting so old, and has a huge tumor on his side. But he still moves good, and seems happy. He even got a yellow ribbon on him to welcome Randy home.

This huge cat named Baby is almost as old as Poky. She is very vocal and heavy. I was glad to have her sleep with me the first night to take the chill off the basement bedroom.

Our last activity of the trip was to go 4wheeling in Mackay. We had a perfect day for it -- sunny and warm, and everything was as green as it gets in Idaho. We picked Mackay because the trails are the easiest to drive on, and there are some old abandoned mines that you can look around in. We had 5 4wheelers and 10 people, Mom, Dad, Ken, Syd, Jared, me, Randy, and Randy's friends Mike, Courtney, and Cassia.

All loaded up and ready to roll

Jared and Syd as we were leaving

Ken and Syd ready to explore.

The pictures really don't do it justice. Everything really was green(ish). Sage brush is a gray/green color before it starts turning brown later in the summer.

We'd been warned before we left that we might not be able to get to the mines because there could still be snow. Sure enough, we found some and the lead 4wheeler got stuck.

Randy, Jared and Dad trying to get it out and turned around

The whole line was held up and we all had to turn around on a skinny piece of trail

Jared got a lot of experience this winter in getting machines out of the snow. In no time they had the 4wheeler out and we were on our way down the mountain again. We were looking for another trail to try when I heard a 4wheeler coming up behind us going super fast. I couldn't figure out why someone would be going so fast and by the time I could turn around to see who it was, Randy and Courtney were flying by us yelling that someone had rolled their 4wheeler. I had time to ask who it was and hear the answer "Ken and Syd" before Jared whipped our 4wheeler around and flew back the way we had come. My heart was racing, I had no idea what to expect, tears already streaming down my face.

We weren't very far ahead of them, just around a small bend in the trail maybe 300 yards, so we got back to them very fast. I jumped off the 4wheeler before Jared even stopped. The first thing I saw was Syd half sitting, half laying on the ground, and Ken crouched over her. So there was some relief that they hadn't rolled off the trail and down the side of the mountain. But then I registered that Ken's arm was all scraped and his face a little too. He definitely took the worst of the wreck. Syd had a chipped front tooth, and a weird scrape/bruise that looked bad but didn't really break the skin.

Ken and Syd were 3rd in the line of 5, when Ken got some dust in his eye. He let off the gas to rub the dust out of his eye, and as soon as he opened his eyes again he saw a big rock right in their path. He didn't have time to swerve and ran right over it. It was big enough that it tipped the 4wheeler, throwing him completely off. He thinks he landed on a rock and bruised some ribs, and his arm has road rash from the elbow down. (Notice in the picture of them that he has a sleeveless shirt). There were a lot of little miracles that happened to keep them safe. The decreased speed of the 4wheeler, the distance from the edge of the trail, the way they landed so no bones were broken, I could go on and on.

I was so thankful to have all the right people there. My dad, who is so good at staying calm and cool in a crisis. His medical knowledge and experience helped him check Syd's leg and body for more serious injuries and clean out Ken's wounds as much as possible. My mom, who is good at taking care of me when I'm trying to pass out, as well as thinking about how to keep everyone else calm. And my brothers who wrapped me up in hugs and let me cry on them. I would have been a complete mess without their support and comfort.

I don't want to end this post on this note. It was an accident that could have happened to anyone in our group. It's just foremost in my head because Ken's arm is a constant reminder. Everyone is safe and fine. We have a lot to be thankful for. We had a good time on our trip, and we are looking forward to going back to Idaho this winter when Jared leaves for his mission. Syd even says she'll get back on the 4wheelers -- with a helmet this time :)

Just a Quick Afternoon Project

I told Ken he was crazy when he told me he and Syd were going to paint her bathroom Saturday afternoon. We didn't get started even picking colors until after 3:00. We started at Kohl's for new towels, and then went to Lowe's to match the paint to the new towels.

He and Syd came home and got to work. They got it all taped and the basecoat -- a pretty light blue -- all done before dinner time. Pretty good for only having a few hours to work with. Ken finished up with the purples square this morning so Syd can be surprised when she comes back Monday night.

It looks really good and Syd was a good helper. It's almost like an extension of her room with similar colors and the random shapes on the wall.

Syd got the "midget" work -- anything Ken had to bend over to reach was all her job to paint.

A swimming suit definitely wouldn't be my first choice of painting clothes, but it worked for Ken.

It's a good-sized bathroom, but having two people working in there made for a tight fit sometimes. (I didn't even try to help :)

Syd picked two towels -- one purple and yellow striped, and the other striped in different shades of blue. We were lucky to find paint to match both sets of towels. She decided she wanted blue as the base color in here since purple is the base in her room.