Thanksgiving Week and Festival of Trees Prep

 This week my house was a mess, every surface covered with Festival of Trees items, every minute filled with Festival of Trees projects ... F of T was on my mind every minute this week ... it drove my activities...  So to begin:

I walked with LaVern on Monday, telling her about my F of T plans, on the way home I dropped by Walmart to pick up paint for projects I had yet to finish for it.  I dropped by the dollar store, just in case, and came up with this brain child for a larger tree topper for the F of T tree.

I paid a dollar each for the plastic bucket and plastic tray.

I started the paper mache when I got home, but didn't finish the hat until Sunday, but here's the finished product anyway.  Other F of T painting, and projects were done as well.  I ran to DI to try to find more solid colored dishes in the tree colors, and luckily found an set of old quilting frame boards, which meant I had enough for ...

that night when Dad put together the Mad Hatter's Tea table from the old boards I had collected over the previous six month.

This picture shows the finished product and chairs, the end of the week.

The paint I got at Walmart that day was to finish up the chairs for the Mad Hatter's tea table.

On Tuesday I got out to have lunch at Thanksgiving point with some of the vintage sellers that I work with on line ... The girl next to me is one of the directors of the Reclaimologist group I belong too, and the other girl in turquoise is one of my flea.o.logy dealers.  Though I had seen the other ladies on line, it was my first time to meet them ... oh, and lunch was good too.

Of course Tuesday is Dad's Temple day, which freed me up to work on F of T projects until late.

On Wednesday, I had taken the day off and had a chance to go on a southern Utah run with Dad.  He would pull into a town with one of the stores he oversees, drop me at the local second hand store or antique store ... and head to the store to do his thing.  This funky store was in Hurricane.  I even managed to pick up a couple more dishes for the tea table at F of T at one of the DIs.

When we were almost to Hurricane, I remembed it was posting day for ROCC.  Oops ... fortunately I had this cute wash stand in the back of the van from the previous weekend's junking, so Dad and I hauled it out of the van, and set it up by chippy brick wall outside the antique store ... and voila, mission accomplished.

It was a long trip and it was midnight before we got home ... but 

This crazy guy was up early and ready to run!!  He did the half marathon at Thanksgiving Point on Thanksgiving morning, his first since he developed the blood clot last summer.  Davin and the kids came out to cheer him on, which he found to be a very nice surprise!!

Then when he got home, the turkey was almost done, and I was working on making the rolls.  Around noon he took the turkey and then headed to pick up Grandpa at the care center in Spanish, and I headed to get Eszie in Lehi, and we met up at Trevor and Nell's for Thanksgiving dinner.  On the couch we see Eszie, Becca, Hanna, Eleanor, Nell and McKenna.

 on this couch are Ashley, Scott and Ian.

This is the turkey pinata that Trevor and the kids made for post dinner fun.

and it was fun to see that 13 year old Ian is now taller than his sister, almost 16 year old Kim!

 So let the thanksgiving dinner begin ... this is the kids table in the kitchen ...

... and this is the adult tables in the living room, there was also another adult table in the adjoining family room.

Then it was time to hit the 'Toyota' (as Elias would call it)

... as the big kids keep watch!

Then its time to say good bye ... here Davin, Bri and McKenna get ready to leave.

While our own Princess Becca spends a few more minutes with Grandpa Perkins.

and Titan kisses his Great Grandfather good bye.

When we got home and then on Friday and Saturday I spent more time putting together different aspects of the tree and display.  You can see in this picture that I ended up spray painting a few plates blue, since I'd not been able to find many in the right color...

These cute little ornies were from the dollar store ... all I did was add the small tags and the hat bands ... too fun!

On Sunday Dad and I attended both of our ward meetings, and he some other meetings to boot.  We are loving this new ward, and look forward to our time with old friends and new.

 After church I got Dad to haul out our tree, since I was to have our Family Home Evening group the next day, after a full day of setting up the tree for F of T.    I did the same tree I had enjoyed last year, because it was so quick to set up.  That made it perfect for this year, with everything else I had to do, but I also had sold many of my Victorian figural ornaments at the antique mall, so I think this will be my tree from now on.