Garage sales and storms and flooding - OH MY!

Well, Holtie had his poker night on Friday and boy oh boy did those guys have fun! So much fun that they carried on until about 3am. Needless to say, the 6am wake up call for our garage sale was rough to say the least. Hey, he made it there by 9:30 with some coaxing from Jason, Neil and a pink and white doll house.... oh the story behind that one! I'll take pictures and send more on that later...

I met Julanne over at my in-law's and Sam helped us set up. I wasn't much help as I had Tristan strapped to the front of me... never a boring day I swear! Trish and Matt then showed up with their three kinds and their oldest son Kenton sold brownies and drinks for $.50.... he's SO cute! He was saving up for some classes he wants to take. So, he was giving half to the garage sale and half to his classes... what 5 year old does that!? We were all SO proud of him!!

Then Jason arrived with Collin, then Holt walked in with a box of donuts and said "I'm not late... I had to go get the donuts" - it was pretty funny actually. Sam and Ruth Ann were off to the lake so we just took over the garage and did our thing. It wasn't a great turn out... but it was on the brink of raining all day and with the swine flu hype I'm surprised anyone came out. I did however keep me little man away from EVERYONE... still not thrilled about this flu myself.

Anyway, we wrapped up at about 2pm - after making close to $475 (I think) and bringing the rest to the Goodwill truck that was there. We did save some stuff for another garage sale in the fall, maybe we'll try again. The money we raise goes to our babysitting fun so when we are in Life Group, there are babysitters that watch the kids at one of our houses. It's actually awesome because all of our kids will know each other and it's like a big play date. More "cousins" - ha!

Then, we came home and put Tristan down for a nap...the moment I got home I heard "BOOM!" and then crazy amounts of rain fell. Holt was still driving home with the dogs and it took him a while so I knew the roads were bad. It POURED ALL NIGHT LONG. I mean when they say raining cats and dogs, they aren't kidding. And no... it didn't rain a dog... I just thought you'd like to see mine LOVING their new play area!!

Here are a few pics of our backyard....

There were ducks SWIMMING right behind our fence... we normally walk our dogs all back there and there is a tiny little creek... it GREW!!

I love my backyard... you can't see how awesome it is but Holt does an AWESOME job of keeping it beautiful and that is VERY hard to do when you are poor and you live in Texas!!

Guess our water bill will be lower this month! WUHOOO

At 1am another HUGE/LOUD *BOOM* - and it woke Tristan up. I went it, got him and he snuggled in bed with Holt and I until 7am this morning. I love thunderstorms and so does Holt so we'll always do our best to make Tristan feel safe in them so he can love them too. I have to say - not a storm goes by that I don't think of my sister Kel. They used to scare the crap out of her and it was the ONE time... that I got to call the shots because she was always saying "can I sleep in here with you!?" I always got something out of it... I wish I had just pulled up the covers and said "of course... because I love you"... what a brat I was. If you were here last night Kelly, I would have done that... because I do... love you. :)

More pics of Tristan soon...family photos today are delayed due to rain. We'll have lots more and we can SKYPE next weekend for anyone interested!!