Saturday was the big day.  We decided the week before when we were all there that we might as well go ahead with the yard sale the next week....( we had been thinking about having it in the middle of May)  So when Kelley and KC and Dennis were there, we had them move some of the heavy stuff out onto the gazebo.  We had gone through everything that we wanted and had a good assortment of things left to sell.

Teina and Brenda went up there Tuesday and Thursday and worked hard on cleaning everything up and getting it  organized and ready to put out.  We were supposed to get a pretty good rain storm Thursday night, so they just covered up all the stuff that was out there with tarps.

I picked Teina up at 7:00 and we headed up there.   I stopped a few places there in Providence and hung up the yard sale signs I had made. The weather had turned really cold ( wouldn't you know it?) and there was frost all over the grass when we got there.

What was really crazy though was all the people wanting to come to the sale at 8:00!  There were cars lined up along the road in front of mums place when we got there.  Ha!  We were not ready and told them they would have to wait till we got the stuff put out. ( We had left a lot of stuff in the house that we didn't dare put out when no one was going to be there to watch)

The posters I made said it wasn't supposed to start till 9:00, but they were chomping at the bit to get in there.  Some people just  went ahead and started going through stuff even though we asked them to wait till 9:00.  I guess I'm not aware of what yard sale etiquette is!    ( Leslie had put an add in the paper, so that's how so many people knew about it.)

We hurried as fast as we could and got everything set out and tagged.

I was really surprised by how many people came! And even more surprised by what they thought was really cool. 

Julie came up and brought some neat stuff to sell and Leslie brought some things to sell too.

Brad and Amy came with their cute family.  It was good to see them.

 The rock garden looked pretty even though we haven't done anything at all with it. What flowers were left after the deer got done were trying to bloom and everything was green from the rain we had had.  

 One nice lady waiting patiently till we were ready...

For the amount of people that came through there, I thought we would see more of the folks that lived around the neighborhood that we knew.  There were several that Brenda knew from when she worked for Providence city.

I guess most of the old neighbors are gone now.  Mum was about the last one of her friends still kickin.  Kind of sad to think how much everything has changed.  What was cool though was to hear from so many people how they loved this place.  Several said that they had been driving by and looking in for years and had always loved to see how beautiful it looked.  Others said they had their wedding pictures taken there or had just taken pictures of the flowers and the buildings.  Many said they had loved our parents. 

I think we could have sold the place about 4 times over.  Everyone asked what we were doing with the place and when we said we had a buyer, they would say, " Oh if I had only known, or has the sale gone through?  One lady just kept going on about how she wanted a place just like this...she was tired of the city life in Salt Lake and just wanted the peace and quiet of a small town again...are you sure it's sold? 

There is a peaceful feeling in that yard.  I don't know what it is...kind of like stepping out of the world into our own paradise.  We heard a lot of that too..." Oh this place is magical" or "what was it like to grow up in this enchanted place?"  I had to fight back the tears talking to these people about what we were giving up.

We sold a lot of the stuff...some people came back several times and brought others with them.  People kept coming even after it was over and we had cleaned everything up.  We made a pile to go to the DI and moved a few things back in the old house that we are going to try to sell online.

When all was said and done and the money calculated and divied up, we came out pretty well. Many thanks to Brenda and Teina for all their hard work of getting everything ready to sell.  That was a dirty, hard job!  I think we all felt like it had gone well ... that it had been worth it and a success.