This week included a variety of activities, to say the least. Dad worked on Monday finishing up at the Centerville store. I spent the day working on finishing up my craft room. I also got funeral potatoes made for Uncle Blaine's funeral on Tuesday, because I had a buying appointment Tuesday Morning in Saratoga Springs.
I met Dad at the funeral (Thanks Emily for running him up there, as his air conditioning on his car was being repaired to the tune of $800, ouch.) The funeral was very nice, and I know Dad enjoyed visiting with his relatives. He dedicated the grave and did a very nice job of it. At the lunched we sat with his cousin Karen, shown on his right in this photo. The other woman is Blaine's daughter Jerry. Jerry and Karen, first cousins of Grandma Connie's were both born in the two weeks following Dad's birth. These are his cousins that he hung out with at all the Mapleton family events growing up.
After the funeral, Dad dropped me off at home and ran to get the kids at Ashley's, where he met up with Britt and her kids as well as Trevor and Nell's oldest two. In the mean time, I was doing the craft shown above, so I could do my blog for the next day, as we were taking the grand kids to camp out at Payson Lakes. When he got back, we all went to Payson Market to get groceries for the camp out. We ran into Emily there buying worms as she and Sam were going fishing, also at Payson Lakes, though in the day area, so we didn't see them. See how much the boys like the worms?
We stayed in the same site we used last year, but this year we found these cool little tunnelish trails through the trees and tall grass. The kids loved it and kept going out on wanders, as it was rather like a rabbit warren of interwoven trails, just above ground.
Of course roasting hot dogs and making smores was a hit. One funny story is that after Dad had put up the two tents, and built the fire, we had fewer roasting sticks than people, so I asked the kids with double pronged sticks to roast for others. When I asked Eva if I could put Grandpa's hot dog on her stick, she kindly said, "OK, I will do it, because he is so old." I laughed and laughed, since he was the one doing all the work while she was playing with her cousins.
The next morning we cleaned up camp and headed to hike the grotto. The kids had fun, though the water was very cold, and Zach walked the entire half mile up and back, with his brother and sister distracting him by playing a game of jumping the rocks.
I think the kids all liked the hike, and crossing the stream on flattened log bridges. Kim said she loves coming here and wants to come back every year.
Zach even let me hold him, after I told him that Grandma was warm and could make him warm, after he had waded in the cold water and was shivering. That was a bonus.
Here is the booth I shared with Nell, above. Joyce came down, which was extra nice, since she came down last Saturday too. Britt came with Nell, so it was fun to get a picture of our two 'Joyce's' The she-bot above was my treat to myself. We had the 'MissFits', three sisters (maiden name Fit) and their mother join flea.o.logy for the first time. I met them over a year ago at the Hale Center Theater's costume sale. The mother is the scene painter for Hale (and the robot artist) and one of the daughters is the costumer for Hale ... (Have I mentioned I sometimes like the costumes, better than the play?)
I took this pic of our girls and one of the new vendors, because they all had their hair is a smart and cool style, which was nice because it was 94 degrees at some points in the day.
Spencer dropped by with Seth for a minute to picked up something, so several of us got to wish him a happy birthday. Unfortunately the whole flea.o.logy thing sort of took away from his special day, but we will be celebrating it, belatedly, next Sunday.
The sale was great, aside from our crazy shop lifter who came, and we had to watch her super close, though I think I saw her steal a clock, and there were four other incidents, where dealers who had been warned, caught her and made her put stuff back. She finally left, but came back during take down and was eyeing dealers loads in their trucks. Its an easy time to steal, since dealers are packing and loading, so Cathie asked her to leave, she caused a scene and the police were called. Very ugly, and this morning, Dad's car had been egged. Hmmm.
Dad also worked on the garden house during the sale before helping me load up lots of stuff to take to DI. I am determined to get the garage cleaned out and make the storage there accessible and organized.
Today Dad spoke in our ward in his capacity as a High Councilor. He used Elder Holland's talk from the last conference, which was an amazing talk. He joked that another High Councilman had told him that they either get 5 minutes or 30 minutes ... well today it was 30. He said he panicked a bit, but the talk is on being accepting of others, and not being jealous of their accomplishments, so he told the whole ward about Alan Hurst's recent devotion to running, and how he ran a marathon and placed first in his age group, and qualified for the Boston marathon. (This was to say he was tempted to be jealous of Alan.) He then talked about Trevor's running back in the day, and how he, Dad, got to run with three of his boys in the Provo Freedom Festival 5K.
Sam taught Sunday School, and did a great job. He is really such a good teacher. Then in Relief Society we had Jane Johnson, our other outspoken Texas ward member, also use Elder Holland's talk for her text. The talk focuses on the parable of the laborers from the New Testament. The vineyard master goes to the labor market and gets laborers at 6 AM, then 9 AM, then Noon, then 3 PM then
again at 5 PM. At the end of the day he gives them all the same pay. Of course some feel misused because they worked all day. (This is where the begrudging jealousy comes in.)
I loved this quote from his talk. "I do not know who in this audience today may need to hear the message of forgiveness inherent in this parable, but however late you think you are, however many chances you think you have missed ... or however far from home and family and God you feel you have traveled, I testify that you have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. ... Even if you feel you are the lost and last laborer of the eleventh hour, the Lord of the vineyard still stands beckoning. "Come boldly to the throne of grace" and fall at the feet of the Holy One of Israel."
I guess the important message is that the reward is the same for all who come unto the Savior, no matter when it is that they come. I love that.
After church Dad and I worked on eating the leftovers in the fridge, and also eating the zucchini that Sister Peery brought over from her garden ... you will laugh when I tell you that I made zumato stew with steak. Who woulda thunk.
We finished up the day by going to the concert in the park and reading our books, while chatting with neighbors and friends. I sat in wonder at the diversity of our community. I saw the autistic lady running around again. Then a girl rode up on a bike, with her sister riding up behind her in a wheel chair. Then I got to see a group of children playing hide and go seek around us. In this group there were three Caucasian Children, two Asian children, and two African American children. I loved it!!
So that is our diverse week, we managed to keep busy and are looking forward to more of the same (sans the funeral) next week.
and though our plans for a family picture this summer fell through, I did get this picture (Actually Nell's pic was better and will get printed off, but was too large to download here) of all my grandchildren in one place at one time ... also a pic of all my sons. 
