What Is That? – Part III

“What is that?” is the most common question the kids have asked while cleaning?  This is the third installment.  You can read the first two here and here.

This week we got a terrifying glimpse into the garage.  We also continue to find gems in the basement and ‘Great Room.’

What Is That?

The answers so far include:

a car wash coupon with no expiration date, but no indication for which car wash 🙁

7-10 empty paint cans

MORE Christmas lights!

Some sort of specialized router table

Noah’s Ark

a 6th Nativity set

a picture of the original Gerber baby

every paper to every house my parents have ever built (seriously!)

a quilt given to my parents as a wedding gift

a 1960’s (?) stove top oven

the Scepter of Dagobert

a glass door shot out by a neighbor kid with a BB gun

a filing cabinet full of work contracts

3 sets of jumper cables

a never-assembled children’s rocking chair

a Princess Leia action figure

the RMS Republic and the Tsar’s Treasure

a Chewbacca action figure inside of a Star Wars star fighter

a twirling baton

a 1990’s expired fishing license

enough weather liner (for doors or windows) to circle the globe

3 lawnmower carburetors

4 refrigerators

the Florentine Diamond

a pellet gun

life jackets from before there was life

a broken wooden oar

the REAL source location for the Spiders of Mirkwood

 

and finally….

the pool table my parents bought me when I was 15 – a gift to shut me up!   (For two years anytime I was asked “what do you want?” the answer was a “pool table.”  Eventually the persistence paid off.)

 

Stay tuned for next week, which will hopefully be a video/picture version of “What is that?”

What Is That? – The Saga Continues

Last week I posted about our glorious relics found while cleaning out my parents house.  You can read about it here.  This week is Part II of that story.  Last week was mostly from the “Great Room” above the garage.  This week is mostly from the basement.

“What is that?” is the most common question the kids have asked while cleaning?  So far, the answers have included the following:

What Is That?

tithing slips from 1993

4 decorative clocks

an old water heater

the Ark of the Covenant

cooking gadgets galore

the framed Christmas Card we gave my parents to announce our first pregnancy – Caitlin

a picture of my parents on their wedding day

a stuffed Tiger Fish

a tablet that nobody knew existed

Atlantis

enough MRE’s to feed the 101st Airborne

Christmas lights… again

coupon for .50cents off a 12 pack of Coke… expired 2002

the Kusanagi sword that was supposedly lost as sea

rocking chair my mother had as a child

2 unopened attic fans

a glass jar my mother says is older than she is

Llywelyn’s Coronet

3 unopened things of Dominos

a jar of Mango strips

a bouncy ball hidden under a floor for 30 years

spiderwebs… lots and lots of spiderwebs

Peking Man

a racquetball that I had thought was a pile of cobwebs until I picked it up

a big rock …x3000

4 (or more) drills that don’t work

an unused 125,000 BTU furnace

a large wooden turkey

The Jules Rimet Trophy missing from Brazil since the a970’s

30 year old fiberglass HVAC ducts (duct board) x 40

enough glass jars to make Ball and Kerr jealous

and finally…

Old Milk
Jars of old chocolate and dehydrated milk… apparently from April, 1978. Yummy!

 

What Is That? – Cleaning Out My Parents House

We have concluded the first full week of cleaning out my parents home in preparation for remodeling it.  Sometime later I’ll share some pictures to show what we’re doing.  In the meantime…

“What is that?” is the most common question the kids have asked while cleaning?  So far, the answers have included the following:

What is that?

a record player

hard foam insulation

every tax return my parents have ever filed (back to 1967!)

an entire case of unopened  Christmas lights

my Garbage Pail Kid collection

DB Cooper’s parachute

a slide projector

a dead mouse

a live hawk

a hand made Raggedy Ann doll

5 boxes up empty picture frames

my Yell Leader uniforms from high school

1990 World Book Encyclopedias (follow up question from the kids, “what’s an encyclopedia?”)

the watch my grandfather wore throughout WWII

the Amber Room panels

a gallon jar of  strike anywhere matches

another bag of unopened Christmas lights

a handmade foozle ball game

my handwriting papers from 1st grade/Kindergarten

20 years of my mom’s day planners

a 1960’s baby stroller

6 blocks of 22LR rounds

Amelia Earhart’s plane

30+ thimbles

my mothers Prom dress and my father’s Prom suit

grandma’s yearbook shirt (she embroidered over each signed name)

30 years worth of Ensign magazines

Another 2000 unopened boxes of Christmas lights

a dozen 72-hour kits

enough flashlights to signal Alpha Centauri

more antiques than the Smithsonian

Jimmy Hoffa

a Nintendo NES system

my youth sports trophies

the Treasures of Priam

the doll my mother was given as a newborn by a traveling salesman

the deer antlers that hung above my bed as a child

bugs… lots of bugs (Nikki supplied this answer)

two butter churn

a manual nut chopper (?)

and finally…

a wooden box that Kraft cheese used to be sold in

 

 

And The Hits Just Keep On Coming…

That kids have been fascinated by what we find.  Every item has its own history lesson attached, many of them about the family member who owned it.   We’ve enjoyed the stories we’d have never heard otherwise.  It’s even better when both Mom and Dad have drastically different stories about an items origin (“this came all the way from Egypt!” “No, we bought it at a store in Provo”)  Good time!

I wouldn’t say that we’re quite yet half way done with the house, and that doesn’t include the three car garage.  So I am sure that we will find some more absolute gems… maybe some religious relics and possibly a lost city or two.


I love you Mom…