That's right everybody:S-U-P-E-R S-O-A-K-E-R-S! Since we are on lowly teacher salaries, we unfortunately cannot afford a swimming pool. Our solution to beat the pre-summer roasting summer temps? We bought two Super Soaker water guns. Granted they aren't the ginormous ones; they are the old-fashioned pumping kind which gives them mega cool points. We have yet to try them out. They were actually on the agenda for today, the first official day of summer vacay; however, the temperature is on 79 degrees, and we are a little exhausted as life has been happening.
This is more our speed:
That's right L-I-F-E. An unexpected twist of events has occurred in the Summers' five year plan (it really exists by the way). We have decided to sale our house, and I have decided to go back to school. Selling a house is exhausting work. Who would've thought you can't just call somebody up, wave a wand, and POOF! The little nagging things that we live with on a daily basis, like the not-so-good looking outside windows and clutter collecting spots, have to vanish-immediately! While we are ok with these flaws, potential buyers are not. Therefore, we spent a good 15-20 hours refurbishing around the outside windows. Would anyone guess there are 17 of those suckers?
With the help of Sam's parents and my dad, we managed to scrape, wood putty, prime, and paint around all 17 windows as well as our front porch. We then started posting furniture on Craig's List because we had one room with all of our college furniture combined that needed clearing out, and there is no reason to move that stuff twice. On Craig's List we sold a bed, a futon, an entertainment center, coffee table and end tables, and our kitchen table all within a week. Our Moms cleaned our windows, and we organized and cleaned the house from top-to-bottom. We also packed away a lot of our belongings and filled up my parents' garage. We have WAY too much stuff! When I unpack it all, I am going to be very selective about what I REALLY want to put out around the house. On Saturday we are having a yard sale, so come buy your memorabilia. Needless to say, we are exhausted from all of this movin' and shakin'. If the house doesn't sell, at least it is the most organized and clean it has ever been. The photographer came today to take pictures of the house, and it should be on the market by the end of the week.
Where might we move you ask? My parents own my great grandmother's farm house. It is a cute three bedroom house not very far out in Leicester. We will rent the place from them. It is right next to our garden, which I know will make Sam happy.
(Above picture from Carl Sandburg garden,)While I think I have missed the boat on admission for the fall into the Speech Pathology program, we will live there until and while I am in school to save a little money.
Other news: We recently visited the Carl Sandburg house.
This was a spontaneous excursion, as much of our life has been lately. We just got up one morning and were drinking coffee on the porch and decided to take off. We stopped at Chic-Fil-A for a tasty egg and chicken bagel and arrived out there before even the early birds. We took a short hike, explored the premises, and petted some baby goats! Adorable.
We also have had a couple of animal sighting around our house here lately. One day, upon arriving home, we saw a bear running in front of our house! Apparently there have been a lot of bear sightings in Asheville recently. My immediate reaction is that it is cool to see a bear, but then, if you think about it, it is very unnerving to think about how wildlife is being forced out of their habitats.
Funny story: One day, when my mom was over here helping me clean, we spotted a snake across the driveway. My mom threw rocks at it, and I took a picture of it being careful not to get very close. We concluded that it was in fact dead, but we were a little curious as to its cause of death seeing how it had its head up off the ground. When my dad and Sam returned from delivering the kitchen table, they went in for a closer look discovering that it was a rubber snake. Boy did they laugh at us! How silly we are! Doesn't this look real?
The Summers have also decided to join the techy era. We bought a GPS. It is pretty dandy, and Sam is pretty excited about it. The day we got it, he ran down the driveway to see if it correctly calculated his speed. Her name: Gweneth Garmin, G-lo for short. We broke down and bought it for our upcoming trip to France which is in less than two weeks! We are going to drive as our major mode of transportation. Sam is a little nervous about this, but I just keep assuring him that everything is going to be fine. I just hope that the automatic I reserved comes through when we get there as neither of us knows how to drive a manuel. Yeah, I guess that is the next big thing next to moving. We are traveling over to France and have a lot of fun things planned. We are going to Paris for a few days to do the usual Paris-y things, then we are headed south to La Roque Gageac in Dordgone where we will see some prehistoric caves and canoe, then back up to the Loire Valley where we will partake is some wine action and bicycle to see chateaus!
Summer holds other things in store for us as well. We will be celebrating our two year anniversary this week. I am also going to visit my brother, Mark, in Idaho at the end of the summer which I am pretty stoked about. Other than that we are just cattin' it up, chillaxin' it up, and trying to see friends and family.
If you get hot this summer and want the Summers' soak down experience, or want to buy a house, or pet a cat, head on over to see us!
Au revoir
