Monday, July 21, 2008

The greatest garage sale ever!

What's the point of a garage sale? To have people pick up your stuff so you don't have to pay to get rid of it? How about that AND earn more than $1470! And to boot, that doesn't include the car we sold the following night less than 2 hours after posting it for sale. I guess our friends were supposed to leave and boy, did we have fun getting them out. We did have a second garage sale, after our first success, even in the pouring rain we sold most of the remaining goods and cashed in another $400. Truth be told, not only did we sell the Smith's household goods, but Scott and Janice's as well... we did sell some of our own stuff, but we learned the hard way - we don't have average American household belongings... most people aren't searching a garage sale for wireless headsets and P-touch machines! Luckily, they sell on eBay in a hurry. We did learn a valuable lesson that all should heed to - you sure lose a lot of money when you sell your stuff at a garage sale, unless you bought it at a garage sale in the first place! So we've found our new favorite store... someone else's garage.

We do have pictures... but they're packed in the Smith's pickup so will follow when they're found.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

The newest Hinkle addition


Our family got bigger - Al & Heidi had a baby girl, Alyssa Rose, on July 16th.

For more images - follow the "Al & Heidi" link, to the right, under Other Adventurers.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

July 4th Homer road trip


4th of July began on the side of the road behind a car wreck outside of Cooper Landing. We didn't arrive in Homer until 4 am.

But when we woke up and ventured out into the "backyard" we found Chocolate Lilies and Lupine.

Kat found dandelions!

Thursday, July 3, 2008

The Bucket List


No, Mom didn't come to Alaska to catch the ice cream man, although she said she doesn't see them around in Jersey. This was her first summer trip to Alaska and she came with an agenda, to take some things off her "bucket list" - things you wanta do before you kick the bucket! So we traveled by train from Anchorage to Seward and caught a boat for a tour of Kenai Fjords National Park, where there's seals, sea lions, whales, puffins, eagles, and several types of glaciers.

After the boat ride we spent the night in Seward and took the train home the following evening. We had Alaskan stew in a sourdough bread bowl in the dining car and rode the remaining 3 hours in the domed viewing car back to Anchorage.

We spent a few days camping with our friends in Wasilla and then our friend Dave helped take a third item off the list when he took her on a flightseeing tour of Knik Glacier. The neat thing is that the ice she saw by plane was connected to the ice we saw by train and by boat but it took days to see it - yes Alaska is a BIG place. Almost a two week long trip, no injuries and one ice cream truck!

For more images - follow the "Land, Sea & Air" link, to the right, under Photo Albums.