Going once, going twice, SOLD!

Nothing too crazy going on here (surprise, surprise).  I'm shocked by how quickly the weeks go by here.  The highlight of last weekend was the auction of a house in Gackle, as well as all the belongings inside.  It was SO fun!  I loved it.  I'll talk more about it below.  

A couple more things I wanted to add about Gackle.

-Everyone leaves everything unlocked.  The other night we were walking by city hall and I was peaking in the windows and Jason says "Just try the door" so I did and it was unlocked.  So we walked around inside.  All the papers that seemed like they would be important just sitting out.  People also leave their keys in the ignition all the time.

-Everyone waves to everyone, whether you know them or not.  It is really weird at first because I rack my brain trying to figure out who people are, but then I realized everyone waves, even if they don't know you.  I'm totally on board now and wave to everyone. It is fun, it makes you feel like you have tons of friends :)

The newspaper didn't really have anything interesting in it this week :(  Word on the street is Jason's dad might be in it next week since he donated a truck to the City of Gackle.  We'll see.  

We visit the Tastee Freeze for ice cream a couple times a week.  The boys love it and it has been a great bribe to get them to eat their dinner every night.

 A few times a week John (Jason's dad) comes by and picks up Ollie and takes him to mow lawns on his riding lawn mower.  Ollie is convinced that he is "helping" and every time he see papa he asks "papa do you need my help".  Max is still a little young but I always feel bad for him being left out so a lot of times Jason or I will take him for a ride on the red scooter.  He LOVES it and just grins the whole time.

Sunday evening we walked to the Gackle cemetery.  Cemeteries are really depressing to me, but I have a strange fascination with them.  I don't know what is wrong with me.  Anyway, there is a little hill you have to go up to get there. Ollie was on his bike and asked me to give him a push up the hill.  I did and as I let go his bike skidded on the gravel and he ate it.  It was so sad.  He cried really hard for about 30 seconds and then after that he was so tough.  He was kind of dramatic about it afterwards though and would limp around :)  We got it all cleaned up and he is doing much better now.

We walked to the honey house this week.  This is the old sign on the road going into the honey house. 

Ok on to the auction.  We had seen signs in front of this house since we got to Gackle saying it was going to auction.  We have never been to one and so we were very interested.  I have been looking forward to it since we got here, and it did not disappoint.  First they auctioned of the house.  I put a video of that below.  It ended up selling for $38,000.  To most of us that seems REALLY cheap for a house, but here that is a kind of a lot.  We talked to one guy here who bought his house for $8,000 in 2009.  Crazy!  Granted the homes are much older and usually pretty small, but still!  This was the auctioneers truck.  

How it works is, you get a number to use for bidding.  You fill out your info attached to the number and turn it in.  Then you use that number to bid.  Mine was #53.  I wish I would have taken a pic with my number :)

The boys had fun running around, sitting on all the furniture etc.  They are wearing their shirts Aunt Letty got them in Turkey. 

After the house sold they started auctioning off the boxes covering three big trailers, one box at a time.  If no one would bid on a box they would throw in another.  One time I bid on a picture for our house and what I didn't know was that it included a box of junk with it.  But a lot of times you were buying the box for like $1.  I got two different big salad bowls with matching little salad bowls for $2.  I was having so much fun bidding and winning things.  It was a little addicting.  Jason took Max home for a nap and I ended up staying most of the day.  I had a good pile of stuff I accumulated.  When I got home I went through and kept what I wanted and took the rest to Goodwill.

Ollie found a nice spot in this tree.  

I guess they have auctions all the time and I can't wait to go to another!