Tell Alan - "We Want to Hear About Sushi!"

So, one of our fundraisers is a sushi night where Alan will prepare sushi for a group of 6 to 8 people. He has done this a few times now and each time we are learning something new - I say "we" because I am actually helping, though I have NO desire to eat the "yummy" sushi.

If you are interested in more info about the sushi night, go to Alan's Facebook wall and post to him!

Happy Anniversary

This weekend we celebrated our 18th anniversary - by having a garage sale! Yep, we did a fundraising sale on Saturday with the help of many donations from our friends! A garagle sale is a TON of work, just in case you didn't know...

Over the last couple weeks our friends have dropped things by the house for our sale then last Tuesday we started sorting through and grouping things - let's put all the hats & gloves over here, oh yeah, scarves too. Then we knew that more things would be brought closer to the day of the sale, so we waited to do more until Friday. Then came Friday! (sidenote: originally we were going to have our sale on Friday, but the weather was less than cooperative - rain, rain, rain.) We opened the garage to let some light and cool air in and then we started really going through things and pricing them around 10 a.m.We figured out sizes on bedding that was donated, cleaned up shelves and cubbies, put all the decor items together, put all the stuffed animals in a box, put all the shoes in a box, purses...you name it. We worked hard for about 4 or 5 hours. Then Alan's tooth started giving him, well, hell!

Back story - Alan had to have a crown remade, apparently it had cracked and it was less than 5 years old! So, he had to have the old crown taken off - which was bad because they don't just "come off," they are pried, cracked, and cut off - then they put a new crown on. Well, he was still experiencing some pain, then more pain, then unbearable pain. So at 3 p.m., Alan is standing in the doorway between the garage and the house with the phone in his hand. "Are you going to call?" I asked. "Yes," he replied. He came back out a couple minutes later and said he had a 3:30 p.m. appointment, so we dropped what we were doing and I took him to the dentist. Long story short, he ended up having a root canal (to which he would NOT say "bummer!" because it helped so much) and we didn't get back to it until about 8 p.m. that night.

So here we are, back to the garage, we continue sorting and pricing everything until about 10 p.m...except the clothes. UGH! How in the world are we going to efficiently sort clothes? Alan had hung up a nice rack in the garage and grabbed a bunch of hangers, but we still had to make signs and it was 10 p.m.!! So, I say, forget the clothes for now and we make signs. Around 11 p.m. we decide we should go to bed since we have to wake up bright and early to get everything pulled out, signs put on their respective intersections and get our game faces on.

Saturday morning, up and at 'em bright and early. Shower, get dressed and as I start pulling things out Alan heads out to put the signs out. By the way, it was a GRAND day outside - absolutely beautiful!! At this point, though, I STILL haven't done a thing about those darn clothes!! Around 7:45 a.m. my friends Andrea and Ruth show up (to shop) and ask if I need help - YES!! They spent about 15 minutes helping me getting those darn clothes either up on the rack or in nice piles on the tarp. That 15 minutes or so was like a lifesaver for me! While they were helping, one of Andrea's daughters is shopping and finds something she likes, and - get this - proceeds to pay me with a card...a hotel key card! So adorable!!!

Anyhow, we ended up having a good turnout and had great support from friends and earned some money to "help bring kiddos home" as my friend Vicki would say. Thanks to ALL of my friends who helped either by donating items for the sale, donating stickers and supplies, donating time, spending money or sending friends over. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

It seems as though spending our anniversary weekend getting ready for a garage sale is just one indicator of how things might be different when we have kids - but that's okay, bring it on and we'll figure it out just like we did the garage sale - with the help of our friends! :)