Our Saturday Garage Sale!

On Friday (March 23rd), we helped Aunt Jill and Uncle Jeff get ready for a garage sale that we were going to have the following morning (Saturday). I priced everything (after asking Aunt Jill) and I volunteered to be her cashier, since I love that job! :) We stayed up until midnight getting everything ready and we had a really fun night....Dad played the guitar and Uncle Jeff played the banjo upstairs while Aunt Jill, Mom and I cleaned out the attic. Aunt Jill and Mom ended up balling after they found letters they wrote to each other when they were young. Then after they finished, they started to sing along with the songs that the guys were playing! We went to bed at around 1:30am and got up at 6am to be prepared for our garage sale. That's a whole 4 1/2 hours of sleep! ;)

Uncle Jeff and Dad playing their instruments.

Mom and Aunt Jill joined in...

Aunt Jill and I, the night before the garage sale...

Our customers the next morning.

I was the cashier...Sierra and Fiona helped me!

Setting up the table.

The next day, we went to Church and then we had lunch at Skimo's, the Koontzes favorite restaurant. Their favorite lunch is the grilled cheese and marshmallow sandwich!

On our way home from Skimo's, we drove the back way and Mom spied a dumpster behind the building (they both have eyes for dumpsters) with three huge garbage sacks next to a pile of shoe boxes......Aunt Jill drove to the alley where the dumpster was located and we hopped out of the car to investigate. We discovered shoe boxes full of designer shoes inside and outside the three garbage sacks. They were all size 10 which Aunt Jill, Mom and I all wear! We brought home all the shoes and started to try them on in the driveway because we were way too excited to walk 10 feet to the garage door to bring them inside. :) Aunt Jill and Mom ended up donating most of them to Goodwill. I did find some really cute high heels to wear for fun!!

My new shoes! :)

The Bargain Barn

While we were in Memphis, we found out about the Goodwill Bargain Barn. It is a secret place behind the Goodwill store that my Mom and Aunt Jill found out about (unfortunately). We went almost weekly after that. Let me tell you a little bit about what the Bargain Barn is:

• The Goodwill employees would fill up huge blue bins with clothing on one side of the building and different random household items at the other side of the building.....then comes the digging.
• Clothing is $1.45 a pound (Mom and Aunt Jill tried to find the lightest things, so that when they weighed it, they would get more for their money).
• You have to stand on the blue lines and wait for the next bin to come out and when it does, watch out! People will start to shove and try to get what they want. It's kind of scary, actually. But when people are satisfied with their loot, you get to dig through their leftovers!
• You DIG through the bins and you don't even look at what size it is, you grab it because it has cute fabric.
• Pretty soon you have a whole stack of clothing in your cart that you sort through after it gets too full.
• Most of it will go back in the bins depending if it's your size OR if it looks like it came from your Great-Grandma.
• Mom and Aunt Jill thought it would be wise if they brought plastic surgical gloves after their first couple of visits....it is not for the timid.
• Mom and Aunt Jill discovered Ann Taylor, Anthropology, Aeropostale and more!
• I have to admit, I did find some really cute stuff and I outfitted my whole wardrobe and then some!

Mom, Aunt Jill and Fiona going into the depths...:)

Knick-Knacks were on one side of the building and clothing was on the opposite side.

Digging through the bins....empty carts don't last for long (Mom is wearing Tilly on her back).

Lining up on the blue lines waiting for the next bin to arrive!

Aunt Jill and I digging through all the clothing....sometimes I got overwhelmed with how much clothing there was!! (Notice our gloves.)

Mom and Aunt Jill, digging!

The household items...

"Bargain" is our middle name!

Notice it says, "No Shoving". :/

The Bargain Barn.....Mom and Aunt Jill's new favorite store!

This is the REAL Goodwill store....too fancy for us!

A Sunday in Collierville

On March 18th after Church, we drove to Collierville to have a picnic lunch at the town square. Aunt Jill and I went to go grab lunch for everybody at Lenny's Sub Shop. The subs were so good...and huge. But we were all so hungry, that we ate every last crumb! It was a beautiful day for a picnic!

The town square.

Everybody eating lunch. :)

We walked across the street and Uncle Jeff treated us to ice cream!

Sierra, Fiona, Matilda and Dakota licking their ice cream!

There was an old cabin in the square.

The knock-out roses had started to bloom in Aunt Jill and Uncle Jeff's yard. They are awesome flowers, because you don't have to do anything to them and they bloom all summer long!!

Everything had started to turn green!

Harmony loved that someone had come to visit her!

The blossoms bloomed, too!

 Mom had started a new trend...a side braid. Her new nickname is "Katniss" from the Hunger Games. :) I tried it out too....

Donkey Sorting!

On March 17th, we all went to Mason, TN for Donkey Sorting. Uncle Jeff thought it would be fun to take all of us down there to watch him sort donkeys. I rode with Uncle Jeff and we pulled the horse trailer. When we got there Uncle Jeff started practicing in the arena and I sat on the bleachers. While I watched everyone get ready and warmed up, a man in the arena started to sprinkle "Great Value White Flour" through the middle to represent the line that you had to pass to get points for your team. It must have been really boring to one guy, because he had time to smoke and ride!

The Coyote Run Arena in Mason, TN.

Some of the riders discussing their evening.

This man sprinkled the white flour in the middle of the arena!

Uncle Jeff and his teammates.

The arena:

Aunt Jill and Sierra watching the contest.

Some of the kids hanging off the fence.

Uncle Jeff asked me to watch Scoot Dog while he took a break. :)

Dad and Tilly watching the donkeys.

Preston found a horse shoe!

Haircuts on the Lawn

On March 15th, Aunt Jill gave haircuts to anybody who wanted them. All the little kids thought it would be fun to drag lawn chairs out to the lawn and watched as each person got their haircut. It was like somebody put on a show just for them!

Aunt Jill, giving Dad a haircut.

There was a beautiful sunset that evening.

Dakota, Fiona and Sierra (notice her facial expression!).

Sierra with another facial expression!