Neighborhood Yard Sale

A very big portion of today was spent outside at our annual yard sale.  It's a community yard sale, so we took advantage of this timing by getting all of great-grandma's stuff out onto the driveway to see if any of it would sell for charity.  The charity in question was Jonathan's upcoming missions trip to Honduras, and by the end of the day, we amassed something like $450.  That chair you see Nana seated in went to our next door neighbor, but we unfortunately didn't get rid of the Haiti artifacts.  I'm sure you'll see that again as a joke gift for Christmas!

Mommy had chicken teriyaki that Daddy grilled out on the back porch, and there was macaroni salad, mashed potatoes and other food items to have for lunch.  We grilled the chicken on sticks, and it turned out really tasty!  

Madison at one point did something all on her own:  she walked up to Jonathan and gave him five dollars of her own money as a donation.  It was really sweet.

Today is Earth Day, so Daddy had a few tsum-tsums to give to Madison, partially as something to remember the day, and also something to reward her for that giving spirit she had showed.  The tsum-tsums she is adding to her collection are Wall-E and Eve, and they're currently on her bed right now, next to the growing army of other tsum-tsums up there.

The day went well, and the weather was perfect for such an event.  A nice cool breeze would come by, and we just sat there together in the shade, talking and sometimes haggling with folks who would expect a price drop from fifty cents to thirty-five.  Really?  We're not much on the haggling, and there weren't too many of these types of people, but there are plenty that come out with that healthy spirit of haggling, as if we are in China or something.  Our prices were already so amazingly low to begin with, and in one experiment later on, Ye-Ye actually started out with a much higher price, then dropped it to what we expected, and we got what we expected, with a fifty dollar gain for the missions trip.

Tonight, we concluded our voyages of Sinbad, at least Harryhausen's Sinbad journeys.  We watched "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger," which has nothing to do with Rocky or Mr. T.  Actually, the "tiger" bit only shows up at the end, by which point you sort of almost forgot about it.  A good portion of this movie takes place in the arctic, with ice and snow and... giant super-sized walruses.  No doubt PETA is probably not pleased about.  This supernaturally large walrus squashes a few of Sinbad's men, so maybe that's something that would get them cheering.

Ironically, there's an animated walrus in the movie "Elf," and right next to that is a polar bear who is voiced by Harryhausen himself.  

It was a good day today.  We're now reading with Madison a book called, "Return to the Isle of the Lost," which is something we saw an advertising poster for down at the Transportation Center there by the Seven Seas Lagoon.  A few months later, Madison got the book for Christmas, and here we are, visiting with Mal, Carlos, Evie and Jay as they return to the Isle of the Lost.  Or, at least I think that's what's going to happen.  It is the title of the book.