Got to spend another wonderful day with my sisters on Saturday.

We got caught up on everything that's happened since our last get together...talking more about options with the house. Appraisal came in disappointingly low, but then we thought about it logicaly, instead of with our sentimental, full of memories, love of that place way of thinking, it made more sense.

The house is old....and falling apart. It was built by my dad who was from the use it over and over, never throw anything away, and make do with what you had generation. And he built that house out of whatever he could find. When we pulled up the floor in back bathroom to fix the plumbing, there were boards of every color and kind of wood under there...and when they were remodeling the main bathroom, they found the same thing...just random pieces of wood. (put together very well, I must add...my dad had amazing skills and actually could make something out of nothing!)

So anyway, when the appraiser went through the house, he found it to be kind of a hodge podge of add ons. ( The original house there was pretty small, ( considered a "summer home" by the man that owned the old house before) and daddy just kept adding on to it over the years as his family grew.

We found all the inventive architecture very endearing, but apparently the appraiser did not.

Oh, and apparently, they don't give a hoot about how beautiful the yard is and all the cute things there..(gazebo, dream house, cool fish pond with amazing lilys, perfect large garden space), hmmm, those things don't account for anything either. Only the size of the lot. Whatever.

The appraiser made comparables with other older homes on large lots, and he showed pictures of the homes he was comparing ours to...none of them were anything like mum and daddy's place. There's is one of a kind.

We are still hoping for Mardene to buy. Leslie is contacting her to let her know where we are with that....but the ideal would be if Teina could buy it. We all have a love for that place, but I think she has put more of her heart and soul and hard work into that place than any of the rest of us. It would be a whole lot of work ahead for them to get the place back in shape again, but if we could keep it in the family, I think we would all be willing to help.

We are not in any big rush to do anything drastic right now though, and are thoroughly enjoying these special days we get to spend together....don't really want it to ever end!

We tackled the cupboards in the back room behind the freezer. This was all of mum's crafty, sewing things.

It was so fun to go through box after box of old patterns. We were all kind of in awe at how many clothes she made! We all found patterns that we remembered her making for us. She sewed all of our dresses...and that was what we wore to school (back in the olden days when you had to wear a dress EVERY DAY!)

She was an amazing seamstress! There wasn't anything she wouldn't tackle. I never felt sad that I couldn't go buy a prom dress ...I knew that mom could make me whatever I wanted. She would look at a picture or I would draw a picture of what I wanted it to look like, and she would duplicate it beautifuly!

I remember one dress in particular that she sewed for me when I tried out for the dairy princess pageant. It was a creamy white fabric that was a soft crinkly crepe. It had a scoop neck with little puff sleeves...a high waist with a little pink ribbon to tie around there. Then she put a little bunch of tiny paper flowers that matched the ribbon in with the bow.

I just remembered feeling pretty when I wore it....which didn't happen a lot...I was tall and awkward and it took some doing to make me look pretty!

She spent countless hours there at the sewing machine...and many times would stay up late into the night to finish something special for us. How very lucky we were to have such an amazing, talented mom!

She even sewed me a cute swim suit that I loved and wore for years.

The patterns she sewed for us when we were little girls were real treasures to find....they were very intricate and detailed and so cute! Oh and the price...ones from my era...60 cents...and from Teina's 10 cents! Ha!

I want to try to make some of those cute dresses for Livvy!

I think my favorite part of the day was when we were going over some bills and letters of mums that we had gotten the past few weeks.

Brenda and Teina had both received letters from different people that had just recently heard about mom's death.

The both expressed their love for mom so sweetly and told about some special memories they had with her. I was in tears after hearing how her kindness had touched their lives. She did so many good things for people that I never knew anything about. But that was just like her...going about, serving others without wanting any notice.

Came home to a yummy Cafe Rio dinner Kelly had made himself! He even made the crunchy little strips on top! It was fabulous!

I'm so glad Kelley likes to cook! I'm sure it's partly out of desperation to have good food! I can bake rolls and desserts like a champ, but when it comes to actual meals,...not so much.

Anyway, I sure do appreciate all the effort he went to to have a nice dinner ready for me when I got home... even after working on the pond all day! (more pictures coming on that...)