Family Yard Sale

Madison and Hannah were selling snacks and goodies this morning - all for charity.  It was part of our fund-raising yard sale that wound up doing pretty well.  We met our goal by noon, and were quite content with how it all went - a really long day too.

Madison was of course adorable collecting one dollar for different snack packages.  Meanwhile, the grownups were acting as salespeople in the driveway, moving and advertising for the big items we wanted to get rid of.  You never know what you'll sell.  Of course, there were certain objects we knew would go, like Madison's baby stroller.  Madison was quite proud of that sale.  She got the $20 bill and brought it over to us, quite happy with her salesmanship.  Daddy was wondering if any of the old records we had would go - he'd inherited from different places a pretty big pile of records.  Some were kept and are currently downstairs.  But there was a pretty decent stack leftover, some of it with quite a bit of banjo music in it - including banjo lessons.  And yet who should come along but an avid banjo enthusiast with a record player.  In fact, we had a conversation, and this person actually had the latest Steve Martin CD in the car.  The point being, we sold the unusual stack of records.  Which goes to show you with yard sales:  bring it all out, because you never know who will be dropping by.

Mommy cooked everyone breakfast, and even made lunch for us all later on as well.  We sat on chairs outside in the shade on an absolutely perfect day, all up until around 1:00 or so, when the steady flow of traffic through the neighborhood seemed to be trickling through.  This is the point where the whole family worked together to bring the remaining goods back into the driveway, and where we let David count up the amount we made that morning:  it was exactly what we set out to earn.  He had to make a certain amount to go, put together with another pledge that was recently made - with those two put together, he'll have enough to go.  The point is, he made his money this morning, and everyone was quite happy with the event.

Madison didn't spend the entire morning outside - the temptation of going inside to play with Hannah was a little too much.  The two had the dollhouses out, the ponies out, the dolls out, pretty much everything out in that playroom upstairs.  She had a great morning, with a bit of good experience thrown in.

The rest of the day was a bit of a party for Daddy.  Or, at least it seemed like one.  It was actually quite a bit of work, but we were filming for Summer Xtreme at a local warehouse, and we made quite a big mess.

These were largely countdowns for each day, using lots of paper, high-powered fans, confetti, balloons, and exploding smoke bombs that spray out burning colored ink.  Yeah, that last bit was a little unexpected and unnerving.  But our assignment was to dress up as one or more of the many various tribes for our camp, and basically celebrate and carry on quite a bit, all inside a small white tunnel area inside a warehouse.  This went on for hours.  That's how long some of these filmings take to do.

But Daddy got home eventually, though quite weary.  We all sat down together, and the last thing Daddy wanted to do on a beautiful day like this was go outside and enjoy it.  Sadly, that was the state of our union in regards to the beautiful day.  But we did enjoy it in the morning, which went absolutely perfectly.  As did the rest of the day too, of course.  It was just a very full day!

We sat and played some games, and yes, Madison did her recital piece just right as well.  But it was quickly time for bed, and yes, we were all quite ready for it.  Speaking of which... good night!