Art, Soup and Mushers

... and another week flies by ... I got the third of the chests done on Monday.

Here it is in context.

I worked on Tuesday, and then we had pizza with Nadine and watched this fun Halmark movie.

and more importantly it was Darby's birthday.

Dad did some shopping that made him happy on Wednesday while I was at work ...

Then he picked me up from work and took me to Art and Soup in Sandy.  Its been going for 36 years, and its a fund raiser for Community Nursing Services.

This portrait was done by Heather Olsen

Here I am with her.

This is by Kristen Tye, our half-Finn friend and niece of the current Finnish Misson President.

Here she is with Dad.  This painting is of a place in Finland.

This painting is by Kate Jarvik Birch ...

I saw it when she was painting it and liked it better than the others she had for sale.

Here we are.

Joan Ellsworth painted this lovely scene.  It looked like an illustration for a Hamish McBeth book I had just read.  I asked if she was related to Pat Alder Ellsworth, one of the 8 girls I ran around with in High School.  It turns out she and Pat married brothers.  How fun is that?

Here I am with Joan.

This is a limited print by Brekke Sjoblom.

This Uintahs painting is by Katheryn Stott Buxton.

These two limited edition block prints were by Tamia Wardle.  The red one is one she carved to print on a piece of clothing she made herself, and then for fun made a couple of paper prints.  We thought they both had a Finnish/Scandinavian look.

Here we are well fed both body and soul.

Thursday was Williams Birthday, its hard to believe he is 12.

I worked on Thursday too, and Dad made himself handy by cleaning out the freezer in our bedroom fridge.

Look at Dad's squeeze pops frozen in the ice.  More than half the capacity of the little freezer was filled with ice.  Thank goodness our side by side in the kitchen is frost free.

Spoiler alert: Defrosting proved fatal for our little fridge. On Sunday we discovered its demise.

I'd been working on the house and decor for my book club meeting all week.  I painted this bear to look like a polar bear and hooked him up to a sleigh. It was all to honor the book we had read, The Cruelest Miles. The story of the dog sled race to deliver diphtheria antitoxin to Nome Alaska, 100 years ago this year, in 1925.

The table with the food added and included things eaten by the early Alaskan settlers.  There were seaweed/salmon tarts, northern berries with whipped cream and famous Alaskan no bake chocolate/oatmeal snowball cookies. (shown on the sled)

Here are the girls in place ... Sandy, Heather, Carolyn, KD, Lilly, Judy and Melinda.

I told them how my Aunt LaRee came to marry a judge in Alaska, who died after 25 years of marriage. He had written to the Church Patriarch Eldrege G Smith, asking if he knew any nice women.  They corresponded and then he came to SLC and they were married in the temple there.

I found a 20 minute talk he gave to a community group, and found that he had once passed a law in a town where he was established that kept the mushers (Dog sledders with their dogs) off the sidewalks in town.  

On Friday I went to an estate sale early and then went to work at the Grove later, for a four day work week for me.  They had 'papered this bathroom wall', with prints of Norman Rockwell paintings.  I thought it looked very nice. 

After I left the sale, I went by the temple site and got this picture.  

While I was at work, Dad went to Merrill Carter's funeral.  He had worked at the temple with him in both Provo and Payson.  I also know Merrill's son Jeff Carter who did the glass work in our Payson house, excepting the stained glass, and was a dealer in Treasures for many years. 

That day was the 7 year anniversary of arriving hoe from our first mission. 

On Saturday we cleaned out the car, and loaded outdoor items into the van to be taken to the antique mall next week.

We rewarded ourselves by going to see Little Women at the Hale in SLC.  It was a musical, and we mostly enjoyed it.

Here's Dad, far left as we watch the play in the steeply stepped theater. 

Of course, we taught Primary this morning and got to say hi to Davin when he brought by our Indian Food, that we forgot to pick up the day before. 

Ethnic Ethos

Can I just start off by saying I love this all-AmericaA picture. Yep, that's Eva at MORP last weekend with her friend Josh. 

This is our St. Patrick's day eating our corned beef and cabbage, Rueben style.

so yummy with air fries.

There it is open faced.

It was a fun surprise for Papa.

It took more than two hours to make this pair of Seitan loaves with 'corning spices', but it's enough for several meals, so win-win.

Here's our green table setting, with the leprechaun I made years ago.

I thought I'd share Riah, from our Primary class that day.  Her mom is an amazing seamstress.

On Tuesday we changed to royal costuming to attend the Ruth Theater to see Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, which is based on the French version.

Then it was off to work on Wednesday, where I did a booth inventory of sales, and ended up changing out the booth that brought in the least money. I'm surprised I didn't get pictures!

After work that night we grabbed the lasagna I had made, and the salad and garlic bread Dad made and headed out to Nadine's for another Hallmark movie night.  Someday I'll remember to get a picture of us there. This was another fun story of love in an imaginary European tiny country, styled after Luxemburg.

Meanwhile on the other side of the planet, Peter and Kathy were visiting the kids in India and seeing all the wonderful sights there.  Loved this one of Peter, Spencer and Cambell traveling through a city, old style. 

It was back to work on Thursday for me, but super fun when Shirley came in with her sister.  She is just back from traveling in Egypt.  

On Friday I managed, with Dad's help, to put up the Scotsmen in antique frames in carriage house. I found a book a year ago with huge prints of paintings of Scotsmen in their clan tartans. These four big ones went over the windows here. I'm loving this homage to my 25% Scottishness.

While these three smaller frames make a grouping by the antique green door.

Beneath the painting Grandpa Milt did hangs another large one in a frame I found on our trip back from Julie's house.

And while stemming on all things Scottish this week, I managed to listen to 3 completer Hamish McBeth books, which are a guilty pleasure of mine.

Now it's back to focus on true American fun as Reagan managed to pass ranks in her gymnastics tumbling class.  Go to Becca's page to see the post I stole these photos from, it includes a video of her demonstrating her skills.

There was a celebratory meal involved.  Reagan has been tumbling for years and loves it.

And since I have been feeling my inner Norwegian, I thought I'd share this picture I saw online this week, no wonder I love mountains, with my 49% Scandinavianness. 

It was also fun to see Ashley sharing pictures of people we love, like herself.

Zach

Kim

Andy and friend.

And Ian

And here is my Norwegian project.  I've gathered dozens of pictures of antique painted Scandinavian trunks and even ordered some stencils.

I looked on Family Search to find out just when Grandma Edvarda took her sea trip from Norway to the USA, via Liverpool, England.  Because I plan to paint the small wood trunk that I found at Julie's house to make a faux heirloom.  Can you see the ship left Liverpool in April of 1904?

This is the ship's manifest, but I can't make out which is her name, it was just in her 'memories' section on her page on Family Search.

The green trunk was raw wood when I got it from Julie's. It will be painted to look antiquish, and have her name and her travel date.

I used the stencils I ordered to do these two trunks; not just sure how crafty vs antique Julie's trunk will turn out.  I plan to fill it with my few family heirlooms from the Larsen side of the family.  

While I was involved in all that craftiness, Dad was finishing up his homage to Finland.

Bathrobe hooks

towel bar

Plastering

More plaster

and stripping the plaster off the stone wall between the door to the closet (Formerly to a staircase) and a former window.  Not sure what I'm going to do to decorate the window area ....

Thermostat showing at 136 degrees when Dad took his sauna Saturday night to relax his muscles after all his hard work.

And Trevor took Eva and her friend Avery to see this band, who are up and coming!

and last of all, more royals at the end of our Primary class in our paper crowns.