San Antonio Catholic Church Annual Garage Sale

Our annual church garage sale was held on September 7th and 8th and as usual was a big success. Every year about 12 years I have participated with this event. This year was no exception. Our parishioners started donating their goods the 1st week of August. Immediately, we need volunteers to sort, clean, price and box up the donations. We don't get too many volunteers, mostly it's the same people year after year. This year, as in the past, the donations were very generious. Each day after work, I would arrive to volunteer at either 3:30pm or 6:30pm and work sometimes until after 9:00pm. We would also put in a full day on Saturday trying to keep ahead of the donations. The items filled up 2-large storage bins (each bin about the size of a single wide mobile home. Larger items such as furniture would fill up one of the classrooms at church and the classroom where we did most of our work was also full. Even the walkway outside the classrooms was full of boxes of shoes, baskets, purses, luggage, books and so many other misc. items. Our garage sale was such a success again this year. The first day of the garage sale we made $20,000 dollars. By the end of Saturday we were selling plastic grocery bags for $1.00 where customers could fill-up the bags for only $1.00. By the end of our garage sale we had earned approximately $27,000 dollars. It's a lot of work but so rewarding. Every year I enjoy the fellowship with some of the other volunteers and the rewards of earning so much money for the church that is used for the poor and homeless families. If you would like to see amazing picture of this event, please visit my picture site and click on the Church Garage Sale link. Here is the link to the picture site:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/SelectPhotos.jsp?collid=688221143503&fromBUM=true&UAUTOLOGIN_ID=14835830603&UAUTOLOGIN_ID=14835830603

Grandparents Day Riverdale Elementary School

What an honor it was for Jake, our little neighbor, to invite Jerry and I to his school for Grandparent's Day. Jake says "you're like my grandma and grandpa, my mom and dad, you are like family". So he wanted us to come. Of course Jerry and I did not hesitate to join Jake at his school on Friday from 11:15 - 12:45 for Grandparents Day. We met Jake and MaryAnn (his local grandma) at the school. Student's were handing out fresh carnations to all the grandmother's. Jake took us over to meet his teacher. His teacher said she had heard a lot about Jerry and Karen. Then Jake showed us where we needed to go to get our lunch. So we all stood in line to pick up our lunch. They served us barbecued hamburgers, corn-on-the-cob, cookies, milk, apple juice and an fruit juice ice treat. They also served cake for the celebration. Jake say's they only serve hamburger's for special occasions. Once we finished our lunch we went over to Jake's classroom to have our picture taken. Jake was so proud to have us there and we were so proud to be there in honor of grandparents day. Jake showed us around his school, introduced us to several of his friends... (mostly girls!). When the celebration was over Jake had to return to his class for the rest of the day. Jake stood in his class line waiting to walk back to his classroom. He kept waving good-bye to us. Oh BTW... Jake had a spelling test this morning and got 100%. Great Job Jake.

Oncology Appointment - September 12th

Jerry's appointment today was fairly routine. Unfortunately, Jerry's PSA is continuing to raise. Today the PSA is 6.06. The oncologist will be administering an additional shot (in the rear) to help (see link below).

http://www.sandostatin.com/index.html

MLS - Ranch View Properties

http:\\socallistings.marketlinx.com/SearchDetail/Scripts/PrtAgtFulEmail/PrtAgtFulEmail.asp?emailGUID=2c7ed26c-47ce-4dd8-b8bd-054080beca14&AgentId=EMCKASTE

FOR SALE-Ranch View Circle Units 30, 31 & 32

After over 30years of owning, managing, and maintaining rental units we are finally in the process of RETIRING!!! Jerry and I started in the landlord business with our first property on Vermont street in Anaheim, CA. We traded (1031 exchange) our one little house on Vermont into two houses on Alberta street in Anaheim, CA. The Smith's lived on Alberta in the main house and a renter in the smaller house. The Smith's had lived in the home since they were first married and had decided to move into a brand new Mobile home. The Smith's knew Carl Karcher owner of the Carls Jr. Hamburger chain in Southern California. We eventually traded our Alberta property in for our 6 unit Apartment building on Park Lane in Anaheim, CA. After owning the Park Lane apartments for 18 years we traded those 6 units for our 3 condo's in Anaheim Hills. It was such a relief to get rid of the apartment building because the last 8 years owning them was shear torcher. We had a 50% vacancy and the neighborhood had turned into a gang infested community. But, now after owning the condos for over 10 year it's time for Jerry and I to retire! Once we get these condo's sold, we will put our Redwood house on the market. Once all the rentals are sold we will continue our journey re-locating up to Northern Idaho. We are not sure when or if we will sale our primary residence on Bluewater Circle... But, we still have plenty of time to decide on that.

Labor Day 2007

7320 Davenport Dalton Gardens, Idaho 83815

Tomorrow, Jerry and I have an appointment with our realtor, Bill Graves of Coldwell Banker, here in Coeur D'Alene, Id. We will be making an offer on this property. Jerry and I were here over the 4th of July and fell in love with this property. Unfortunately, the offer will be a back-up offer. Someone else already has an offer on the house but with a contingency to sell their house. We will not be putting a contingency on our offer. So they have 72 hours (from our offer) in which they need to either re-submit their offer without a contingency or back out of the deal.

If you would like to see some additional pictures of this home, double click on the link below for a sneak peak at what we hope will eventually be our new home in Northwest, ID.

http://www.coldwellbanker-idaho.com/property/property.asp?PRM_MLSNumber=079618&PRM_MlsName=coeurdalene&VAR_SearchType=#