Monday, July 29, 2013

Let Them Eat Cake ... and Party Hardy!

This is the way our week went  ... on Monday Dad was off early to work, taking Grandpa to Trevor and Nell's, while I stayed home.  He then headed to the southern stores. 
 
I ran to the store to get some baby pain meds for Beckie, who was not feeling well, then took it to her house and spent a half hour or so visiting, and enjoying lunch, thanks Emily. Then I stopped by the library and picked up the book club book we would be reviewing three days hence ... and spent the balance of the day reading.
 
Nell sent me the picture above, saying that grandpa was having a good day.  LuLu loves her great grandpa, and likes to climb up next to him on the couch. He's not always patient with her, sometimes scooting her off the couch, but that day he accepted her offer of company and was thumbing through a book and showing her pictures.

Next I met a potential seller at Macey's in Spanish, where I bought one and a half sets of silver plate flat ware .... surprisingly, the one set was complete, something that rarely happens.

Then I bought all the goodies for that night and headed home and got things ready for the BBQ to celebrate Pioneer Day ... Here are Trevor and Eleanor, before the flies drove us inside... so annoying.

In the house we all sat around ... the girls dividing up Nell's cute hand-me-downs .... Her closet bar had fallen while we were all in Palm Springs, so she decided to lighten her load ... to every one's delight!!
There was some serious baby holding, as always ... with Eva getting big enough to share in the fun. To the left she holds Reagan, below she is in charge of Liam.



Still waiting for it to get dark ... why did we start at 7:00, we should have started at 8:00 ... but alas it was finally time to throw some poppers ... including at Trevor's head, at his invitation ...
 
Then the real fun began with homemade root beer, Nell's white chocolate popcorn and the fireworks Dad got from work ... a much more extensive grouping than we would have ever purchased. hurray!

Of course my pyro boys had fun settting everything off.
On Tuesday my visiting teachers came, which is always nice, and Denise even helped me pull weeds in my garden until Rebecca came ... how nice is she?
 
I did more reading, trying to finish up the book in time. That night, I made the burlap and muslin lamp shade above, and put it in a grouping of 'English Memorabilia', to include on my blog for Wednesday morning, which I posted before going to bed ....  yawn!


On Wednesday Dad had a day off for the real Pioneer Day, but I did not.  Emily and the kids dropped by in the morning for a bit.  I took this cute picture before heading to work myself. 

Dad had gotten a message from Aunt Karen about the neighbors complaining about the lawn at Grandpa's house, so Dad ran Grandpa up to Becca's to be watched, then came back to the store and helped me unload all the left overs from flea.o.logy that I was moving into the store, so he could used the van and then drove it home to pick up the lawn mower, before heading to Salt Lake to get the lawn mowed there.  The grass hadn't been watered,  but was out of control anyway, and Dad spent three hours there mowing ... so much for his day off! 
 
 
I did manage to get all the stuff stuffed into my booths that day, which I was pretty happy about.
 
On Thursday Dad was back to work, as was I.  I spent much of the day upholstering the double chair above that Dad and I worked on together.  Love the mannequin in this booth, which Kathy put together, and which I thought was a great idea.  I used the bench and the mannequin for my blog post that night, which would show up on the Pollyanna blog Friday morning.
My friend Wendy and I headed to Salt Lake at 6:00 A.M. on Friday morning to hit this Barn Sale hosted by Jennine at 7:00 A.M., she is one of my best selling flea.o.logy dealers.  We also hit a few estate sales before getting Wendy back in time to go to work.
 
Then I got home in time to help Katrina, a single mother in our ward, get packed up to move, along with my friend Ginny.  Katrina was my visiting teaching partner for a year and a half, and we got pretty close, so it felt good to be able to help her get ready to go.
That night, Dad and I dropped Grandpa off at Becca's and ran to a wedding reception that was also in Highland, in the country club area, for my cousin Debbie Avati's daughter Sara's wedding reception.  I got there in time to put the flowers on the cake, which was a lot of fun.

 My brother Bruce and his wife Dianne, who is Debbie's best friend, were there as well.  Here I am shown with them, as well as with Debbie's Dad Charles, for whom my brother Douglas Charles Larsen is named.

Dad found out something I didn't know in chatting with 'Chuck', as I always heard him called.  Chuck is actually the one that drew up the plans for the Bountiful house ... by enlarging the dimensions of a rambler that my parents like the looks of, making the three bedroom and den house large enough for our large family.

Chuck also laid the foundation, who knew?  Not me.
 Here are the lovely bride and groom ... it was so fun to meet them.  I follow Sara on facebook, along with her sisters, and its always nice to get to know them better still.
 
We sat at the table with Bruce, Dianne and a man named Noel who used to live in Debbie and Jim's ward in the Brickyard neighborhood of Salt Lake ... His wife is from Payson, so he was familiar with our house and flea.o.logy, saying his kids had shopped there before.  Then when he said he had moved to Olympus cove, we asked if he knew Clark Sevy, Dad's best friend growing up, and he said that Margaret Sevy, Clark's wife, way their realtor when they bought in OC and that they are now in the same ward ...  Talk about having a lot in common with a total stranger, eh?
 
 We stopped at Maui Chill before heading back to Becca's to pick up Grandpa.  We had a chance to visit for about a half an hour too, which is always fun.  Titan was just too cute, and when it was time for us to go, he got Becca's flip flops on so he could go out with us .... How cute is that?
 On Saturday morning I ran around Payson and did some garaging.  While at one sale I noticed this barn, and was told that the owners would be happy to have me enquire about it.  They were, the husband was outside, but the wife, who is 85, was doing her hair.  Since its her family home, he went in and got her and she came out with a shower cap over her wet hair and told me all about the cabin.  That was so fun.  It is about 12 by 12, and the family that lived there had an addition the same size, plus a leanto that was half the size ... in this house of about 400 square feet, they raised 5 children ... whoa.  That made me laugh, because our basement apartment here is about the same square footage.

Of course the people later built a house about the size of the one we live in, on the same lot, about 10 years before ours was built. 
 That afternoon, unable to get day care for Grandpa, we took him with us and picked up a couch at Treasures that my sister Joyce had bought and took it out to her house in Tooelle.  Then we all rushed to Uncle Clark's house in Holladay for a family meeting to discuss the publishing of my mom's third book.

  It is a brain child that Joyce has been pursuing for quite a while.  Of course it was fun to visit with four of my five brothers and their good wives, who I adore. 


Joyce has decided to set up the book with an e-publishing company, where you can down load it for a few dollars, or buy a hard copy, on demand for 10 or 12 dollars.  Sounds like a good idea. She is shown above with Nina, Emory's wife.


And here are most of my brothers, Bruce, Doug, Emory and Clark.  Clark and Jo, who hosted us,  were also nice enough to feed us all.

We took off a bit early to drive up to East Canyon, near Hennifer for my friend Debbie Donaldson Lieniger's son Paul's Wedding reception at the lodge of the East Canyon Resort.

The bride and groom both love riding motor cycles and there were fancy helmets as centerpieces on the tables ... there was line dancing too, and a chocolate fountain.  I had a chance to visit not only with Debbie L.  but with our common high school friend Debbie Koew ... that was fun too.

Guess it was kind of a Debbie weekend.
It was a typical Sunday with Dad and I attending our sacrament meeting and Sunday School together, before he headed off to the ward counsel for his other ward.  Then he brought me home, where I napped, blogged and started dinner, while he attend his other ward's block of meetings.

 After dinner we loaded up grandpa and headed to Highland again, where we got to help celebrate Jake and Ryan's birthdays, as shown above. 

Craig Moe is shown talking to Dad, with Grandpa happily joining in, to the left.
Then we played The Great Dalmuti, a game that Ryan had taught us on the cruise, which is similar to Kings, Queens, Peasant, Peons.  I am shown here as The Great Dalmuti, with Jake as the Lesser Dalmuti, and Randy as the first peasant.  I started the game as the last Peon, but didn't have to give up my best cards, the first round only, and made the leap in that one hand!!
 
It was great to visit with Craig Moe and his 15 year old daughter who played with us, as well as  with Terri and Gary Quigg, Ryan and Jake, Barb and Randy and Jeff ... It was a lovely evening, so like the many, many Sundays we have spent together playing games over the years ... they just don't happen often enough anymore, as we all go on with our busier lives. Thanks for hosting Robin and Jeff, we had a great time.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

After Palm Springs

 So this is the rest of the story.  After Dad went to take his nap, I got started on the set up of my own booth.  I visited with dealers as they came, and checked out their goodies.

To the left is the very beginnings of my booth.

Dad got up around 5 and headed to Orem to meet up with Darby and the Heuers and Moes for dinner before attending Guys and Dolls at the Hale Center Theater.  Everyone enjoyed the play, including Darby, who said she loved visiting with our old friends .... its amazing, we have been friends with them since Darby was 12.

Meanwhile back at the 'Salt Mine' I was getting my stuff priced and ready to go.  Trevor and Nell got here around 10:00 P.M., and got their kids into bed in the library.  Then they worked on setting up Nell's booth.

They kindly took over the watch for the rest of the night around 12 and I got to sleep.  Since I had just slept for about 3 hours on our overnight drive home, I was very, very grateful to them.  I know they had just finished the same drive, and were very tired too, which makes it even more amazing that they were willing to do that.  Thanks you guys!
 One of two dealers that we donated a booth to, was Andrea, my visiting teaching partner, who is a blogger and crafter too.  She made some pennant banners to sell, doesn't the one above look custom made for me?  When I bought a different one, silly me.  She is trying to pay off their recent adoption, and wanted to try her hand at the sale.  The other couple, who are also fund raising to adopt a baby, were able to collect 25c admits, which gave us our first entry count for flea.o.logy.  They collected $300, which indicates that there were 1200 visitors to flea.o.logy.

 Quite the crowd, eh?  Well Dad went off on his normal Saturday morning run, then worked on projects.

Nell's friend Liz came and did face painting again.  Here she is with Eva and her adorable face.
 We were thrilled when Becca and Brady and the kids showed up later in the day.  Here is Titan with his painted face.  He was so cute, he kept seeking out mirrors and saying "I a tiger, Mom!"

 

That morning, I had showed Dad that I noticed that we had had water running down the wall of the newly remodeled bathroom on the main floor while we were gone.  A bit discouraging for him I am sure.  Thus he spent a large part of the day tearing up the tile in the upstairs bathroom, where a slow leak around the toilet had slowly eroded the subfloor.

That night he and I walked over to the new Mexican restaurant in town, and lets just say its will probably be my third choice of the three we now have in Payson.


On Sunday we went to church as always, me to one set of meeting, and Dad to two.  Dad was the High Council speaker in our ward, and did a really great job, especially since he was speaking on chastity.  Lets just say, he does have a testimony of the concept, and gave a very moving sermon.

Of course we missed being able to be with Spencer on his 23rd birthday, but expect to be able to celebrate it a month late, when they get back from Cambodia.  What a wonderful experience they are having, I doubt he will ever forget how he spent his 23rd birthday.

After dinner I spent the evening doing our eternal Palm Springs blog post for three hours, while he took Grandpa up to the concert in the park.  Grandpa seemed to enjoy himself as always, what a good son he has.

So that was the end of our week.  This coming week we should be back to normal Monday to Sunday blog posts.  Y'all come back now, hear?

Sunday, July 21, 2013

The Perkins Tri-yearly Palm Springs Vacation Etc.

 Yep, another week plus more has gone by.  Monday, July 8th, I got a couple of things painted for fleaology, which was coming up quickly.

I also got the post and planter around the bird house painted.  It felt a little selfish to take time out to do something for me, but I had the paint out, and it seemed like a good time.

 Dad worked at the Ogden store opening up things to make the pharmacy more visible, since Macey's now owns it.  When he got home we put our heads and skills together and made a bench from an antique bed that I had bought for that purpose.

On Tuesday I finished up the bench doing some jig sawing and attaching a skirt to the front of it.  Then I spent hours and hours feeding paint to the hundred year old dried pine.  Fortunately it was hot and it was drying fast and continuously.  The bench turned out really cute, and then I blogged about it.  Dad meanwhile was finishing up the project in Ogden.  That night I started feeling sick ... and headed to bed early.  Sigh.
 
On Wednesday I was off to work, still a bit under the weather, but managed to pull off a full shift, though I did offend Kathy when I didn't feel good enough to come up with creative ideas for a project she was doing ...
 
Dad's day started at the office, as they were supposed to have a meeting that got cancelled, he tried to salvage the day by running around to the Salt Lake stores he supervises to make sure their seed returns had taken place, so they could get their credits.
 
That night Dad made dinner, while I lay down.  Then he brought me some medicine for what ailed me, and we spent the evening watching a docudrama about Abraham Lincoln.
 
Thursday Dad started his day getting his teeth cleaned at the dentist.  Then he went in for the meeting that was supposed to have happened the day before.
 
For me it was a much more productive day, as I felt so much better. I did have a crown come off while at work, and tucked it away to be reapplied the next day.
 
 I had book club that night, thanks to Dad for doing a quick house straightening and being the chef.  I stopped on the way home and got goodies for refreshments.  Above are shown Shanna Weight, our leader, and Emily, with Liam, who still comes to our ward book club, which we appreciate.

On Friday Dad headed back to Ogden to work on redesigning their profit panels, which are the sides of end caps. Then he picked up his computer at the office and tied up loose ends before heading out of town.
 
After having my crown reattached at the dentist that day, I hurried home to finish up projects for fleaology, then I took pictures of them to post of KSL.com along with pictures others had of their items for a flea.o.logy add.

 
Scott picked up Ashley's kids on the way home from work, they were spending the night to get an early start on Saturday for our extended family trip to California. 

 I actually stayed up all night finishing up projects like the faux enameled pot above, then writing blogs to be scheduled to post while we were gone.  I also spent some time working on my flea.o.logy dealer list.   When Dad's alarm went off at 3:30, I started packing my bags.

Trevor had brought over Nell's goodies for flea.o.logy too, so my living rooms looked fun and colorful when we left town.

 Here we are dropping Grandpa off at Uncle Rick's house in St. George before heading to California. Left to right are Darby, Dad, Ben, Zach, Katie, Grandpa, Rick and Wendi.
Loved this picture of Aunt Brittany with Ian at the condos in Palm Springs.

Emily commented on how many of us still had to do work, even on vacation.  Mike, of course, as a store manager had to stay in touch, as did Dad.  Emily did some translation work, and I spent time doing the final flea.o.logy map.  Awe how the Internet makes that all possible.



                  Then we all got in our swimming suits and got out to the pool for our first swim.





 

 On Sunday the church goers among us, got ready and headed to church.

 
 
That evening, Spencer and Brittney facetimed us on my Ipad to wish Eva a happy birthday.  Since it was already Monday morning there, it was July 15th ... Eva's birthday.  I think it was tricky for Eva to realize that, but she had fun talking to them.

 Early Monday we split up, with the Trevor Perkins family, the Summers, the Mitkos, the Halls, Dad and Me and Anna Rose (Kim's friend) all going to Disneyland.  The Davin Perkins' family, the Talleys, Ben and his friend Hanna and Darby headed to San Diego to go to Sea World and other good stuff there.







 
 

Trevor Elenor, J. Scott, Anna Rose, Kim, Eva, Nell, and Grandpa await the main street parade.
 
 

 So that was our day at Disneyland.  A couple of families had park hopper passes and we didn't see as much of them.  Kim and AnnaRose were off by themselves most of the day, so we rarely saw them either.

It was a great day and Trevor rode an amazing 31 rides.  Dad rode 9 and I rode 10 .... only because one could ride the Winnie the Pooh ride twice in the time it took to ride Splash Mountain.

My favorite ride was Star Tours, an oldie but a goody, Dad wouldn't let me ride it a third time, silly boy.
 That night we drove to San Diego where Briahnna had found friendly priced rooms.  On Tuesday morning Trevor and Nell went to the beautiful San Diego temple, while their kids hung out in our room.  Then we all met at the Beach.



















 
Ben brought some little kites, and Brady managed to get it flying so high that the life guards came and told him to reel it in, as the Air Force base nearby doesn't allow kites on the beach!  Yeah Brady!!
 



The kids all managed to get pretty sandy and yucky and seemed to enjoy every minute of it.  Davin asked me to watch Elias for a bit, and I followed, often having to run, as he chased sea gulls for almost a half an hour ... what attention span, but he had a ball!
 After a fun day at the beach ...  We went to Old Town in San Diego, where finding a parking space, even on a Tuesday evening, is an adventure ... I can't imagine what its like on the weekend.

 Above are Hanna and Ben, who sat across the table from Dad and me.  To the right is Hanna with Reagan and Kai.
In the upper left of this picture you can see Beckie dancing.  There was a roaming guitarist, and the music moved her.  In the lower right of the picture is Kim Larsen, my nephew Chris' wife.  We met them at the restaurant, as Britt keeps in touch with her and they live in San Diego. It was my first time to meet her, as Britt and Becca met her at her baby shower years ago, when I was out of town.  So glad they are keeping in touch!

Then we headed back to the condo in Palm Springs .... a long and late drive ....

But look how refreshed Dad is the first thing the next morning! Becca is all cleaned up and ready to head home.  Sam had only been able to get three days off work and had to be back at it on Thursday morning.  We were sorry to see them go.



 Wednesday was our night for dinner, so after a morning of junking in Palm Springs with some of the kids, then an afternoon of antiqueing  in Beaumont, we stopped and got Pizza, and Nell made up a nice salad, and we had everyone to dinner at our place.  Above Trevor shares a parody of a movie/cartoon, which everyone seemed to enjoy.
That night Brittany and family, Becca and family, Ben and Hanna, Darby and Dad and I all went and the Croods at the dollar theater.  Other than trouble finding it, ala a goof on google maps, we had a great evening and got a clear view of the wild fire on the mountain on our way home.

On Thursday Trevor and Nell were nice enough to cram Dad and me in their mini van and we went touristing around Palm Springs.  Did you know that the house that Elvis lived in for the first year and a half of his marriage to Priscilla is in Palm Springs?  It was $30 a person to tour, so we just took a picture of our biggest Elvis fan in front of the house.  She was so cute, when it was time to go she kept crying; "I want my Elvis house ..."  What a doll.
 
You may not know the back story, but, when she was a baby, they found that Trevor crooning 'Blue Christmas' Elvis style would always calm her down.  In fact once when Nell was flying to  South Carolina, Elle, was very unhappy and crying, so Nell called Trevor, while they were actually on the plane on the ground, and put the phone on speaker so he could sing it to her.  All the people on boards were so amazed.  What a funny baby ...  we all adore her!

Next I asked if we could have our picture taken with the huge Marilyn Monroe statue in town.  While we were there, a news crew from LA stopped Trevor and asked if they could film him for the news.  They wanted to know how a wild fire nearby had effected our vacation.

Good advertising for Hatchets, as the film they showed on the afternoon news was a close up of Trevor's head, and the emblem showed clearly, if only for a few seconds.

That evening we all met at the street fair held every Thursday evening in Palm Springs, just a few miles up the street from out condo.  Elias is shown here after feeding a carrot to the horse.  The smell right by the horses was horrendous, so I couldn't stay to get a better shot.

About 9:30, we gathered up the crew who had ridden in with us, Ben, Hanna, Darby, Kim, Ian and AnnaRose ... and headed home.  Dad drove all night with just an hour break while I drove through the canyons between Nevada and Utah, and later Ben drove for a half an hour when Dad was wilting.  We picked up a disoriented Grandpa in St. George, and thanked Rick for his kindness is caring for him for the week.   Darby was nice enough to take Kim, Ian and Anna Rose home to Orem on her way home.

 We got home about 10:30 A.M., just in time for Dad to mow the lawn before crashing, and for me to sweep up drive ways and fork leaves into the garbage cans before drawing out the flea.o.logy map on the grass with spray paint, and start to welcome dealers for set up .... but flea.o.logy is going to be its own blog post.  So thanks for coming along!