Parking Available Soon

I want to park in the garage! That's a perk of not renting an apartment that I haven't had the joy of yet, because our garage was PACKED with boxes. Even reshuffling wouldn't allow us to park one car. So...

Friday and Saturday we held our biennial garage sale. I opened space to ward members who may want to bring stuff, because I knew I didn't have as much as in the past. People knocked on the door at 6:45 a.m. and we didn't have a break to sit down until 1:00. All told, by the end of Friday we had sold $400 worth of stuff (Ben sold $65, I sold $150). People were buying plants out of my garden and waiting for me to open another box from the garage. (in between sales, I would go into the garage and start to clear out space). I think I could have sold almost anything on Friday.

Word spread around the ward and more people came and set up tables, but Saturday was stormy and alot fewer people came out. We put tarps up over everything during the rain, and de-tarped when it stopped.

Finally gave up at 1:00.

Total sales for the Ottosens....$300 and change.
Total sales for other ward members...275 or so (not everyone would brag).
Parking in the garage...Priceless

I think one more day's work will do it!

Father's Day Fun

We took a long weekend to San Antonio for Father's Day. Nate really needed a break and we took advantage of one of those timeshare sales scams to get a hotel room for the weekend. We have seen the Alamo and Sea World and other common attractions in the past, so we focused on the smaller, lesser known attractions.

On Friday, we visited Natural Bridge Cavern. It was a really great cave! Lots and lots of formations in many different rooms. We only went .5 mile of the 2 miles they have, but will definitely return for more.

On Saturday, we went to the Institute of Texan Cultures museum. It was fascinating to see all the collections they have for the 21 different cultures that settled Texas. Ben went through the dragon exhibit (focusing on how dragons are viewed in different cultures), Nate spent a lot of time in the Danish section, and I learned how to spin cotton and wool into thread...and how to share that with my students.

Sunday was set aside for flyfishing. We drove to 1.5 hours west of SA to source of the Guadalupe river and Nate and Ben fished while I tried to catch all the fry that were swarming the river...as usual with no luck. Ben caught a small Guadalupe Bass for the first catch of the day and Nate caught several perch and a bass.

First week of "real" summer...

Ben spent the week at Lanier Middle School in a reading/math camp. He had a great time despite his reservations about going to school during the summer. He has found a new love for "quzzles" (logic problems)and wrote a really great story. Everyday showed him more confident about starting middle school until Friday, when he found out that the boys have a group shower in the gym locker room. That was very disturbing to him.

Kim has been working out everyday and using the FlyLady system to get back on top of things at home. I still need Mary Poppins to come and help me in the garage, though!

Nate has been under enormous stress from work. He is restoring a flintlock rifle from the 1700's and is finding it quite challenging. He is looking forward to our weekend trip to San Antonio.

We ended the work week by going to see Pirates of the Caribbean 3 and having Ben beat both of us at chess.

Fossil Wood Hunt

Ben and Kim went on a fossil wood hunt with HGMS on Saturday. (Where was Nate? Camping with the scouts, of course!) We drove 2.5 hours to Sam Rayburn Dam and met up with 25 other rockhounds. Then we traveled onto Temple-Inland property (with permission) to "hunt" for fossil wood. Only, the wood wasn't hard to find..



...every log you see was petrified. The hard part was hauling it up out of the creekbed that was 10-12 feet deep and then up the steep hill another 100 yards to the trucks. Of course, we're in SE Texas so it was in the mid-80's for temperature & humidity.



Once everyone was spread out along the mile of creekbed, it was really peaceful. We saw all kinds of forest invertebrates like centipedes, millipedes, weird blue&black dragonflies and these
neon orange mushrooms. Reportedly these had ridges underneath and were edible. If they have paperthin sections then don't even touch them!


We didn't try them.




After hauling out two buckets full of small pieces and two backpacks/arms full of large pieces, we were beat. It was a great workout and a beautiful spot. Too bad the company is selling that property - we won't be able to go back.


But we did get enough to do some polishing and to make great accents in our garden.