highlights.

Someday, I will actually remember to blog when I visit my family. As that didn't happen on this trip, I have lots of things to say all at once:

• My parents are selling their house and moving to an apartment or condo, so we did lots of cleaning out and organizing. We stuffed Mom's CRV with things to be donated to Goodwill and I lost count of the number of trash bags we filled. And I came home with a few (very few!) nice things, including a brand-new, still-in-the-box, really nice pan that someone will be getting as a wedding or shower present.


• Vince and Katie are trying to buy a house, probably a fixer-upper. Vince wants to flip houses someday - I told him (jokingly) that we should go into business together. Kelli wants in on the action, and they somehow decided that they should make the decisions while I put up the cash. Right. Because I typically have no opinions. Especially about how people spend my money.


• Dad is donating an old pizza oven to Summit Grove Camp, so we needed to load it into Dad's truck to be transported up there. It looks kind of like this, only half that size and with just one drawer. It weighs a ton. And I helped Vince lift it from the ground to the bed of Dad's truck. Its because I've been working out. And I now understand why people grunt while lifting weights, because did I mention that thing weighed a ton?


• I bought a Dyson, and I think I just fell in love with a vacuum. After 30 seconds of using it, I knew I would have paid $400 for it - I liked it that much. Except I only paid $200 for mine.