Catching Up

Hey everyone! I just got back to Seattle from PA yesertday afternoon. I probably should have blogged from my parents' house, but I just didn't think about it.

I came back to PA last Friday, the evening of the 3rd. I had such a great time during labor day weekend, hanging out with my family at the lake! It's always my favorite thing to do, hanging out with the family, but I especially love it when we all go out to the lake. Many of my best memories are of being with everyone at the lake, and many new memories are still to be made. My other favorite thing is when there are adorable little family members visiting, and there were plenty of those as well! I had a great time on Sunday watching the original Burn the Floor on VHS with my grandma Lemon, and it was an extra nice surprise when Hannah and Stella came over and we had a super cool slumber party! Aside from family, I like to visit my old PA friends. Kaylie and I started a bit of a Robin Hood Season 3 marathon on Saturday night. We watched the first 8 episodes that night and the last 5 episodes on Sunday. It's really a great season.

The rest of the week was spent cleaning out the house so that it will be ready for someone else to snatch it up and move in. I spent a lot of the time helping out by painting the garage and such so that it will be more sellable. My mom tackled a lot of the crazy cluttered areas, like the attic and garage. It just seemed like there were piles and clusters of stuff in so many places, forgotten drawers, little side closets. 20+ years of stuff! She found a jar of cranberry jelly in the basement that was well over 23 years old. It had to have been there since before my parents moved in. There were canning jars galore down there too...most of them filled with dead spiders!

Last Friday, we spent most of the day getting ready for our garage sale on Saturday. Even though it's kind of a pain in the butt to put one on, it's nice to make a little money off of things, and the rest is easily donated to Goodwill. We weren't sure if more people would be garage saling to find bargains since the economy is still in the dumps, or if there would be fewer people around. Considering we did a great deal of business between 8:00 and 9:00 am (although we were supposed to start at 9:00), I'd say there are still a lot of people who like looking for cheap deals at yard sales. However, no one wanted to buy bigger or slightly more expensive things like furniture. We sold a lot of little items. It's also interesting to see the different kinds of things that people want to buy. I priced all of my awesome old VHS tapes at 10 cents each. "Who'd want these?" I thought to myself. Well, the very first thing that sold that day were six VHS tapes! I didn't think anyone watched those anymore. Score for us all! People were pleasantly surprised at how cheap they were, and we didn't have to haul most of them any place afterwards. To top off the day, the Huskies totally kicked Syracuse's...uh...rears at football! I hope it's a productive year, considering Jake Locker will graduate and be leaving us after this.

On Sunday, my grandma and grandpa Braun came over to have raspberry glace pie (at my dad's request) for a September birthdays celebration. It was pretty fun! Afer we ate, my dad and grandpa played crib while the girls went down to the living room to watch the Seahawks game. The Seahawks totally creamed San Francisco, so that was exciting. However, the best part of the game came when the announcers were interviewing some old coach via a studio in LA. I could care less about what the guy had to say, but for some reason the TV people decided that they wanted to try and fit both the announcers and the old coach on the TV at the same time. The image had to be cut off on either side. So, the caption labeling former coach Jimmy Johnson simply said "My Johnson". I thought it was hilarious and mentioned it to everyone. My mom thought it was pretty funny, but I'm not sure anyone else picked up on it. Oh well! Eric would have gotten a kick out of it, so I texted him and said, "If you liked my interview, you should see the interview with My Johnson". Just a little inside joke.

My parents' house went on the market yesterday! So, keep your fingers crossed and say your prayers that it will sell soon.

Happy Birthday to my dad! Hopefully he has a great day, and I will need to call home soon since he is bound to be coming home for lunch!