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.