Garage Sale Nightmare!

Well, the girls have seemed to adjust to sharing a room and Ely hasn't seemed to be bothered we took away her crib and room. She's even done great considering she has a cold right now. It has been a very busy week with up to an hour of training several nights this week and up to 2-3 hours each night preparing for this weekend's garage sale.

We weren't scheduled to start our sale till Friday late afternoon when I had someone there to help me. However, I forgot I shouldn't open the garage door to take out the trash and people started to flood in. I at first thought, I'll do this for a 1/2 hour and then shut the door again. Then, I heard the forecast was calling for thunderstorms possibly later that day and all day Saturday. So, by myself, with two kids, I managed a garage sale until reinforcements arrived 4 1/2 hours later.

That wasn't what was bad though (although it was very tiring and stressful). An elderly guy arrives in a handicap van he drives himself and comes out of it in a motorized wheelchair. Since he is handicapped, he asks me, "What's that? OH, can you put that aside for me. Oh, that's nice, add that to my pile, please..." He also would snap at other customers, "That's mine, I just bought that-put that back down!" So, after a while, he has a huge pile formed ($55.00 worth of stuff). He tells me to keep it aside, he'll be back that afternoon. True to his word, he did come back that afternoon, starts up a whole separate tab and huge pile of stuff. All along, he's bickering with every price, trying to talk us down. Keeping track of the tab soon got confusing as we discovered that our calculator timed out after awhile. Anyway, his total came to 260 something. He says he only has 150 and needs to go get more money. He does come back and gives us more money, buys more stuff and is ready to load. Nate arrives home from work soon and kindly offers to haul stuff to his house in his truck for him. Nate had to bring 2 separate loads of stuff. After the 2nd load, this guy starts to bicker about the final sale price. Turns out, he wanted $5 more dollars. Nate kindly gave him $5 more dollars, despite the fact that he hauled all the stuff for free for him. 3 hours later, this man arrives once again in our driveway. He claimed that he bought a nice container from us (which I recalled) and that it was filled with Crystal. He did buy most of the crystal we were selling. He says he can't find it at his house and thought we forgot to load it or something. There wasn't anything of the sort left in our garage and he starts bickering once again about his horrible loss. He said he would come back the next day to figure it out and get it settled. I was in tears by this point from stress and Nate didn't sleep a wink all night wondering when he would come back and what we should do with him.

This is a warning to all of our Rochester friends, if you see this guy arrive at your garage sale. Either he has mental issues, or is a scammer. On a positive note, we did make some descent money from him. Just don't want to ever in my life see him again!

What A Week!

Well, it's Monday again. We are currently getting an entire new air conditioner installed. Nothing like spending a couple thousand on a Monday, huh?! Basically our two goals for this week are for me to train even more for the ever nearing Triathlon and to prepare for our upcoming garage sale this weekend. Oh yeah, if that wasn't enough, we decided this was a great opportunity to sell our crib and changing table/dresser. This means, transferring Ely to a toddler bed this week. Yikes. We are extra crazy and are putting the toddler bed in Mikayla's room and reclaiming our guest room again. Needless to say, we are all starting this week tired and cranky!

What A Day!!!

I had one of those days that needs to be documented due to pride of survival!

We had an air conditioning repair man scheduled to be here this morning. (When it did get hot enough here last weekend, the air didn't work at all. I didn't mind and it reminded me of the good old cheap college apartment days.) It got to be time for me to go to a doctor appointment and I called the place to see where he was and if we could reschedule. We rescheduled for noon. 1:15 I called to see where he was. Once again, it is now rescheduled for tomorrow at 8!

On top of that, Nate had to fast and get a CT scan for some sore throat problem that has since gone away. We both were a bit freaked out all day as we waited for the results, reminiscing of when I was a new Mayo employee and they discovered the AV fistula in my brain.

Ely was incredibly fussy today, must be teeth again. Even the Mormons thought I was due for a visit at just the "perfect" time. While Ely was crying, they had the nerve to ask if they could do anything. I was tempted to hand her to them at that point.

I picked Nate up from work, went through the nearest drive through and pull into the driveway to hear the sound of the air whooshing out of the back tire. Nate put the spare tire on, I headed out the door for my regular Wed. night swim/bike training. I returned in time for Nate to head out the door and me to put the kids to bed. So I have tomorrow to face. Air conditioning guy, getting the tire fixed, buying groceries, and getting together all morning for maybe the last time with a friend who is moving away this Saturday.

Here are the positives about today though:

• Nate is perfectly healthy! Praise God!!!
• The tire waited till we got home to blow
• My training tonight went great vs 2 nights ago where I came home crying because I was so worn out

My friend, Jen, who I train with, reminded me of a statement I made in a testimony speech I recently gave at church: We may have more than we can handle, but God helps us handle it every step of the way. Amen to that!

More on Elyana

If you are family and happen to read this blog, here's another idea for Elyana's birthday...anything Dora or Diego. She's been requesting to watch Diego. We welcome this because it's a nice break from having to watch Teletubbies or something! Here's some of our most recent pictures. One is of her loving her doll and the next one is of her after she dressed herself.

Finally Hot Enough For Sprinkler Fun!

Here's a picture of the girls dressed for church this morning:



Here is a picture of the girls playing in the sprinkler for the first time this summer. Ely still wasn't sure what to think about it. She insisted I put her sandals on because she didn't like her feet getting dirty. I was made aware that they both need new suits, they were way too small!

Summer Begins!

Well, Mikayla had her last day of preschool this last week. She will be attending Elton Hills Elementary School in the fall. I don't know yet if she will be afternoon or morning Kindergarten yet. It hasn't hit me that summer is here (probably because it isn't warm yet). Here is a picture of Mikayla and her good friend, Molly on their end of the year field trip. It's the only picture I got because the camera batteries died shortly after.



Little by little, the girls are playing together more. Here is a cute one of them playing computer together:



Here's an update on me. It looks like I am doing TWO triathlons this summer. My first is here in Rochester on June 29th (Elyana's birthday). The other is July 13th (Nate's birthday) in WI. As some of you know, I wrote an article in Rochester Women's Magazine on the various stages of triathlon training. The publisher of the magazine offered to sponsor me in both races if I wear their shirt with the logo. What an opportunity! My only issue right now is, I'm really worn out from this degree of training. I miss going out for a casual jog or a bike ride and it not having to be a certain amount of miles or time. It's very time consuming and I often feel guilty from my time away from the family. I guess prayers for health, endurance, and safety (an injury this close to the races would be bad) at this point could be used.

Nate continues to adjust to his new job at Mayo Clinic. I'm so proud of him and glad that we have some awesome benefits and job security. Nate is on the church softball league again this spring. I'm annoyed because I haven't gotten to see a game yet. I've been too busy working at church or training. Or, it's been too cold and rainy.

I've been busy signing Mikayla up for different things to keep her busy this summer. In a few weeks, she will take swimming lessons for 2 weeks. Then, she will have a week where she attends a gymnastic camp for 1/2 days with her friend, Molly. In July she and I are taking a pre-K reading readiness class for an hour a day for a week. Then she will spend each afternoon for a week in her favorite nature camp with her friend, Heidi. In August, she'll have another gymnastics camp with her friend Molly again. If I still get bored (ha!), there are always Wednesday activities at the library (puppet shows, sing-a-longs, etc.). Tues, there is a group of friends meeting at various parks around town for playground/picnic fun. Yup, we should stay busy. I already know that summer will fly by and I have to send my baby off to school. : (

Elyana's Birthday Wish List

Hey family,
My birthday is next month and I'm turning 2! Here are some ideas of some things I might want for my birthday. Hope this link works for you:

http://www.walmart.com/giftregistry/gr_detail.do?registryId=86181308132

Love ya!
--Elyana