Here it is, 11:30 p.m. on a Friday night, and Christine and I just got done getting ready for a garage sale we’re having tomorrow.

Having a garage sale when you have a 19 month old is tough work. We really couldn’t work on getting stuff ready for it until 8:30 p.m. every night, and by 10:00 we were exhausted and frustrated… We pretty much worked on getting ready for the garage sale every night this week. Maybe took one night off.

I was supposed to come home early from the office today, but, I got stuck there until 5:30… ugh…

So I got home, and poor Christine had been pricing stuff since about 2:00, and then when I got home, we started cleaning out the garage. At dinner time, we took a break from that and then gave Jack a bath. After putting him down, we worked hard again until just now.

And we’ve probably got $500 worth of stuff for sale in the garage, all priced between $0.50 and $20…

We start at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow… I’ll report back the earnings tomorrow night. Hope we make some money! If we do, it’s all thanks for Christine’s hard work this week.

update: It’s almost noon, been out here since 7 a.m. I’ve got about $140 in my pocket… that’s about what, $25/hour? Not bad so far.

another update: It’s 1:15, 94° F and I have $206 in my pocket. Traffic has really dropped off, and I’ve got a lot of shit to take to Goodwill now… hope someone comes by before 5:00 and buys some of this crap. Ugh, it’s hot out here in the garage!

last update: It’s 2:45, and just started sprinkling… I’ve pulled all of our stuff inside the garage, and am heading inside to eat lunch. It’s still freakin’ hot. We’re up to about $230 or so if I had to guess.

really, the last update: We stopped selling everything at 3:40. Packed up all the leftovers and took them to Goodwill. We probably sold 1/4 of all the crap we had for sale this morning. At the end of it all, I had $240 in my pocket. Take out $40 that I started with (for change-making) and the $45 that we collected for Heidi and Lee (neighbors) and we earned roughtly $155 and some change. Was it worth it? Well, Jack just got some more money for college… Last time we do a damned garage sale in July though… ugh, it was hot!

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On the evening of the 4th, we drove out to Lakeway. Josh, Elise and Maly met us out there. Debbie and Raymond cooked dinner (mmmm, porkchops). We went to watch the Lakeway fireworks at the Lakeway City Park, but stayed in the car, because it was raining. Jack said “Gow, Gow!” a lot. Oh, and Josh almost ate his daughter:

Christine and I spent the night out in Lakeway, and I got up around 7:00 to head to work. The commute was about 45 minutes… which is about 40 minutes longer than my standard morning commute.

Since it was a short week at work, I ended up trying to get to work pretty early each day, and stayed until 6:00 or 6:30 each evening.

I got home on Friday afternoon to Christine and Jack out in the front yard:

Jack sure loves those sunglasses 😉

After playing outside for a while, we ate dinner (Christine cooked for us) and then we played with Jack’s cars inside before bed.

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Since July 4th was on a Tuesday, I decided to take Monday off. Which was cool, because on Mondays, Jack goes to swimming lessons in the morning.

Christine and I headed to the Emler Swimming School at 9:00, and while Christine and Jack got ready to go swimming, I introduced myself to the other Dad there, and got my camera out. He had his camera too.

Jack had so much fun learning to swim, and interacting with the other kids. He’s supposed to be learning to hold his breath underwater, so that by the time he’s done with lessons this year, he should be able to swim independantly for 4-5 seconds, and should be able to jump into the pool from the side feet first. Totally cool to think that a two year old will know how to swim (maybe).

See all of the photos here.

Then, on Monday afternoon, we met the family (Greg, Cheri, Debbie, Raymond, Lisa, Gerry and kids) at Zilker Park, and caught a few photos of them on the train, before heading over to Guerro’s for dinner. Mmmmm, Guerro’s.

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Jack started wearing his sunglasses this week without tearing them off his face as soon as we put them on. In fact, now, if the sun is too bright, he starts asking for them:

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On Saturday, July 1st, Christine, Jack and I got up and drove to Round Rock to paint a room for Marc and Cyndi. Cyndi’s baby girl is due in two weeks, and Marc was out in Johnson City building Cyndi’s mom a deck, so we decided to go help them get the nursery painted. I hate painting, and am no good at it…

So we talked Josh and Elise to driving out, so Josh could help me.

Josh and I painted, pretty much all day (my fault that we had to repaint a few parts) and it was fun… Actually, the painting wasn’t fun… hanging out with Josh all day was fun. We closed the door to the room, and enjoyed the paint fumes, kept the girls out and bonded for a good 4 or 5 hours.

After getting high painting all day, Marc got home, and the girls cooked us dinner… it was a fun day, even though I hate painting.

At the same time, we had a lot of family was in Austin for the Fourth of July weekend.

Lisa and Gerry from Arkansas, plus their kids Taylor, Chase and Aubrey, drove down to spend the long weekend with Debbie and Raymond, and Cheri, Greg, Paige, Patrick, and Matthew drove up from Houston.

We drove out to Lakeway to see them on Sunday. I got on a boat with Lisa, Gerry and their boys pretty much as soon as we arrived, and we took the boys out tubing. Then Greg joined us with the little kids, and Lisa and Greg headed back to the house. We had a lot of fun taking the kids out on the boat and throwing them in the water repeatedly from the tube. I even built up my courage enough (thanks to the beer) to try a round at tubing. Greg threw me off pretty quickly. Taylor and Chase were really good at helping the little kids, and teaching them how to ride the tube the right way. I was impressed.

Dinner was left-over barbque and shrimp. Mmmmm, good.

After diner, the boys played poker, and Christine and I got on the road with Jack… he was exhausted from all the swimming he did in the pool that day.

It was great to finally meet Aubrey and see Taylor now that he’s turning into a young man.

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