Brad & Noelle Koosmann & Family: The Annual Garage Sale Week with the Nelson's

For the past couple of years, Brad's mom, the kids, and I head to the cities to spend some time with Jill and the kids while Chuck is up in Canada fishing for the week. We hit the garage sales, eat some Chinese, and try to come up with fun (yet semi-sane) things to do with the kids. The first evening we were there, we were hit with a massive storm that cut out the power for what ended up to be only a few hours, although they had told us it would be days. This year, with two kids, it was a little more challenging for me, so I called up my mom and she took Brendan for a day so I could do some garage saleing. Mom and Brendan went to Feed My Starving Children, where my dad is Executive Director, and Brendan got to hang out with his Papa and learn all about "feeding the starving kids." Mom and Brendan had lunch with my youngest sister, Cathy, they visited Target and a playground, and finally the whole family met me for supper at Olive Garden. Yum!

We had a great couple of days playing and garage saleing, and we can't wait until next year!

Brendan jamming out on Marci's Barbie electric guitar. He would play it and march around...he thought it was the greatest thing. I'm a little sheepish to admit that his favorite song on the guitar (pretty much the only one he would play) was Girls Just Want To Have Fun.

Playing with the trains down in the basement. (l->r: Brendan, Alyssa, Megan)

We ended the evening by candlelight after the power went out due to a big thunderstorm. It was interesting getting the kids to go to sleep with no power...but everyone had flashlights and that seemed to work just fine.

My mom took Brendan for the day, and they headed to Maple Grove to Feed My Starving Children, where my dad works. This is Brendan inside a real-to-scale African family hut.

Brendan and his Papa, all geared up to pack some food.

Brendan got to lend a helping hand during a packing session. Here he is, adding rice to the meal pack.

My dad took Brendan all through the warehouse and explained everything to him. My mom said Brendan was completely engrossed in all that my dad said (so cute!) Here, my dad is showing Brendan the large bags of rice they purchase to be used in the meals.

Brendan's highlight from FMSC? Driving the forklift, of course. He was delighted to tell me, over and over, that he beeped the horn at Nona and made her jump.