The Week the Balcony Railing Got Done!

It was another slow week for us.  We took it easy on Monday.  Dad spent a lot of the day organizing his shed.  He found that he had four sets of those little drawers for screws and the like and was able to fill all of them.  This is a picture of the little drawer that he used to gather all his brackets, pretty amazing.

That night we drove to SLC to take this kid to dinner for his birthday, which was last week.  Of course we loved that.

Literally read all day Tuesday.  I for one reason or another have four books out from our library, that are due this week.  I was also behind on my Book of Mormon reading schedule, which meant I need to be to page 90 by the end of July, and was only on page 50.  Then Carolyn brought me the book for our book club to be held Thursday, and I tried to read it quickly (500 pages) to get it to another member.  arrggg.  I did end up finishing The Shell Seekers, which I loved, by that night.  I love Rosamund Piltcher.  She tucks in such cool details of life in England.  You should look up what a 'Wendy House' is, I did.

I did take out time to watch Dan in Real Life, with Dad, one of our favorites, that evening.

 On Wednesday I posted a couple of left overs from the garage sale last week, and then I

 took several other things into work, like this tree surround.

and while in the yard, I took pictures of red and rusty stuff, to do a collage for #fjnine on Instagram.  One of my favorite nines.

After work I hurried to our ward pioneer day party at the Benjamin Park.  We had a great time getting to know more members of the ward, and are definitely feeling more connected.

On Thursday I got up and made myself a Finnish breakfast.  The meal was introduced to us at a Young Single Adult dinner.  A poached egg, and avacado and tomatoes on toast.  I did WW toast, but otherwise it was pretty authentic.  I ground on lots of Finnish lemon-pepper, and was a little sad, because its almost gone, and the Ground Lemon-pepper from Trader Joe's isn't as yummy.

I attended a ward book club that day, (Dad was at the temple) and got to meet a few more ward members.  It was fun.  I invited one sister, who said she loves to read, to my Elk Ridge Book Club that night, that I was hosting.

 Here she is on the left,

We had a ball, as always.

On Friday, I watered my flowers and garden, as always, but thought my Squash box looked great and snapped a pic.  The vines going up the structure are morning glory, I can't wait for them to bloom.

On Friday, Dad did the impossible by repairing my fancy mail box.  He was about to toss it in the garbage, and thought of a way to fix it.  It had a fancy cast iron post before, but after being hit by a car one too many times, it no longer held together.  Dad used a great black PVC pipe here, Isn's he a smarty pants?

While I was at work on Saturday, he got sod and filled in the grass areas out on the park strips on both streets.  Don't they look good?

He also worked with our neighbor Bryan in getting the fencing and posts up to the balcony off our room, that he is installing.

This had happened some earlier in the week too, but I caught the second to the last of the fence sections going up here.

 We are so excited.  This shows it with three of the four fence sections Saturday night.

On Sunday I went to church and got a calling.  I am so excited.  I'm now the secretary to the Young Women.

When we got home we knew that Bryan, whose not active in the church, would want to finish the railing off.  We talked about it and decided that we shouldn't dictate our values to him.

 So here it is, signed, sealed and delivered.

Thanks Bryan, you did a fabulous job.  We love it!!

Sprinklers, A Garage Sale and Meeting Up with Old Friends.

Monday was a slow day for me, I pretty much stayed in my room and read all day.  Dad meanwhile was out working on getting ready to add sixth valve to the sprinkling system, since one of them had way to many sprinklers on it, which lead to low pressure and the entire area not getting enough water.

In the evening we took goodies to a couple of members of the ward, which included a nice walk.

 On Monday, I was sick and still recovering from Cousin Camp, so I spent my day reading ... Dad was a champ and spent a lot of his day getting ready for sprinkler work he had planned.

On Tuesday we had Zach join us for a few hours.  We walked up to the library to pick up a book they had on hold and stopped at Goofy Guys so he could find a treasure.  He got some tiny, cheap Pokemon figures.  When Ashley got back we had a nice long visit, which was a real treat.

This huge tree limb had broken off the night before and Dad hauled it over to the garbage can area.

 But the best time he had was helping our former Bishop Greg Madson as he trenches the Payson Cottage for a sprinkling system.  

 Then they came over here and did the trenching work for the additional valve Dad is doing.

After that he cut up the huge branch and took it to the dump.

 On Wednesday, while I was at work, Dad finished up with the sprinklers,

and got them all buried.

 He also put up my new yard sale sign on the fence.

A gal I follow on Instagram posted this while I was at work on Thursday.  I loved the neat floor plans,  and was wondering if we could build this house for our retirement home.  Then when I was looking at the one on the right, I realized that it is actually a flipped version of the Payson Cottage floor plan, other than the placement of the stairs to the basement by the kitchen being different.  How funny is that? Does that mean we will retire to Payson Cottage some day?

On Friday we were busy, busy, busy, hauling stuff out of the garage and setting up for our yard sale. There was quite a bit of refurbishing too.

For instance this sleigh bed has been in our garage in pieces for years, we weren't even sure we had all the parts, but Dad dug it all out and reconstituted it.

 Here we are ready to go on Saturday morning.  It was a long and exhausting day.  My friend Nikki came and sold with me, so that made it easier.

 Its amazing what all she can cram in her Prius.  She brought about 8 card tables, and tons of straw mats, and at least 10 totes and card board boxes the size of orange crates.  Not sure how she works her magic, but she does.

After the sale I DI'ed about 15 small furniture pieces, and 8 fruit boxes too.  Then I packed up 5 large plastic totes with the better stuff for next time.  I'm thinking September or October. 

Then it was off to the Springville DI to unload.

Bye bye stuff.

Then we were off to a wedding reception for one of the missionaries.  He was an AP and lives in Salem.  As it turns out one of his good friends grew up in our ward, and we know his parents well.

 We thought this place, Wadley Farms in Lindon was amazing.  This castle is one huge hall and is rented for events.

 We ran into a few missionaries, and got a picture of these three.

 We found out today that two of them got engaged over the weekend.  How fun is that?

 Dad also ran into two different people that he knows from the grocery business.  He managed to get in some serious chatting, and even when it rained and everyone ran into the building we sat out on the lawn visiting.

Today we got ready early enough to walk to church.  Its about a mile and was very hot.  While we were getting dinner ready Dad got call from his childhood friend Clark Sevy saying he was in Provo and would we mind a visit.

He came and we all had dinner together and they had a nice long visit, while I did prep and clean up.  Dad is talking about getting a season ski past for this year, so he and Clark can swoop down the slopes just like in days of yore.  I think its a grand idea.

Last of all Becca came to pick up her moving truck, so we got a short visit with the kids.  

So that was a lot less pictures than last week, don't you think?

The Perkins Family First Cousin Camp 2018

 What a week, but it could have been even harder on us old folks than it was.  This is how it played out.

 On Monday and Tuesday we were frantically trying to get everything done in the yard that we could because my art group was having a garden tour the following Tuesday.  We've been working on things like adding the fence next to the garden house, shown here, as well as the removal of the planter that was around the base of the bird house.

This picture shows the tree stump that was cut down to match the other, when we had the guys take down the dying cedar tree by the front of the house.  Dad also trimmed back the trumpet vine over the front gate arbor.  Anyway, this Tuesday was the deadline, because we'd hoped to redo the gravel walks in the garden area the Saturday of this week, because we forgot we had to take Charlie home after cousin camp on the same Saturday.  Opps, we were stressed.  That meant running Charlie home Saturday, coming home Sunday and putting in new gravel on Monday to host the garden tour and tea on Tuesday ....  Yeah that.

In the end Britt didn't sent Charlie to cousin camp, and the garden tour was delayed until September.  Deep Breath.

We spent Monday and Tuesday gardening, and getting ready for cousin camp.  Here Dad shows off the t shirt.

On Tuesday we took Samuel to Tadka for Indian food for lunch, then we took him to the airport, as he was to rent a car and drive back to Minnesota, his mission area to spend the rest of his two months in the US with a family he converted while on his mission 8 years ago.

We had enjoyed having him use our house as his base, while he hiked and partied and met friends new and old.  We really spent very little time with him, but it was fun to see him come and go.

 On Wednesday morning we gathered all the cousins for cousin camp. Eva served as our camp counselor and was invaluable!  We're not sure we'd have made it without her.

 We loaded them up in the van and headed up to Payson Lakes, because the first activity of Animal day was to go fishing.

 Uncle Sam met us there to help the kids fish.  He has fished this lake many times and has learned it's quirks and specialties from ward members and neighbors.  The result is that between him and Dad every child was able to bag a fish.  It was the perfect fishing memory day.  We threw back most of what we caught, and took home four fish, which the kids got to see being cleaned and which I then fried up to add to our lunch. Everyone who caught a fish was required to take at least one bite.

 This is my favorite picture from our fishing.  Nenna was so thrilled with her fish.  Its a good thing it was the largest fish we caught, I'm fearful of what would have happened had we tried to throw it back.

We headed home for lunch which included dinosaur shaped chicken nuggets, trout, tots, and foods we tend to pair with animals.  Lets see how well you do coming up with the animal that goes with each food:

bananas

apples

cheese

honey

peanuts

carrots

crackers

Then we spent the afternoon doing crafts, singing animal songs, playing games and watching a movie that centered on animals.  The kids loved the Farmer in the Dell, and every time we played it, whomever was the wife chose Nenna to be the 'child'.  It was pretty cute.

Our craft for the day was to make a paper animal chain with a sticker picture and the name of each animal we saw, talked about, sang about, or heard a story about that day.

Then it was time to meet Aunt Darby at her barn for everyone to have a turn riding her horse Dallas.  Above are William and Nenna, our two four year olds, taking their turns.

 Thursday was pioneer day.  Titan later told his Mom that it had been his favorite.  Here he shows off a loaf of the homemade whole wheat bread we made.  We also shook a jar of cream until it turned into butter, and the girls sewed the tie onto their aprons.  The boys wore matching kerchiefs on our hike.

 Here they all are at the pinnacle of our hike to the grotto.  

 We had a movie that when with the theme of each day, and the kids had their own popcorn cups.

 That afternoon we went to Provo to the SUP pioneer village.  It was pretty great, and we had our own tour guide, shown here in the yellow bonnet.  (She learned to knit and crochet so she could make samples using the yarn that they card and spin in one of the demos.)

Are these the cutest cousins ever?

I think the kids had a ball, even though both our four year olds got stung, when we all walked over a porch with a hidden nest. 

 They got to see the school house, and learn about children learning the 'Deseret Alphabet'.  They also saw the blacksmiths shop, the general store and small cabins that housed large families, and the spinning wheel demo.

They played pioneer games like learning to toss a ring with two sticks.

The volunteers at the village said it had been the hottest day they'd seen so far this summer.  We felt it, and headed to the Provo Maceys for ice cream cones and supplies for s'mores, which are in no way a pioneer food, but they were made over a fire that night.

 Friday was our cousin camp finale.  It was circus day, and though it involved no field trips, it was the favorite day of most of the cousins.

We spent the day do all the things the circus workers do.  We swept the back patio, made and hung circus decorations, we made circus food, and planned costumes and games for the big event.

Bekie and William had to leave at three, but William had been talking non stop about being the bear trainer in the parade, so we had a practice parade just before their parents came to get them.

In all this is what each child was in the parade.

Elias was the greatest showman,

Eva did stunts with the ring of fire

Grandpa was a gorilla

William was the lion trainer,

later Titan was the lion trainer,

Adi was a mermaid, and rode with the bear,

Nenna made a charming vampire

and Eleanor did doing hula hoop moves.

 Here we see several family members gathered after the parade for water balloon games.

Eva, Titan and Elias has filled over 200 water balloons, though lets just say, not all of them were used in the water balloon toss game, which Eva and Elias ran.

 Adi and Titan were in charge of the bowling concession. (That was Trevor's fast pitch and he was holding Mac.)

 Eleanor was in charge of the pyramid toss.

Darby tries out the game.

 There was circus food including, cotton candy, candy circus peanuts, peanuts in the shell, pixie sticks, corn dogs, more tots, orange punch, donuts and chocolate milk, which had been a staple of the whole cousin camp.

 Trevor invents the Cousin Circus Mushroom.

... and just as would have been expected, because you always see the buff guy who won his adorable girl a huge animal walking around the fair, right?

We had all had a great time, but all good things come to an end.  Dad and I were exhausted, and were so grateful that Hannah headed up the pick up of zillions of tiny balloon parts out of the grass before the final disbursement.

On Saturday  I swore I would sleep in and stay in PJs all day.  Then Dad, who was working on adding an extra sprinkler head, by searching for where the former owners had run the pipe under the front side walk ... and who then he got a call from Davin who was having issues with sprinklers at one of his rentals.  We all know that Dad loves sprinkler maintenance (He actually, weirdly does) so he ran over there.

Meanwhile I was still hanging out in PJs, reading, mostly, when Dad messaged me and tempted me out of PJ's by reminding me that it was Scottish Days at the park.

Yep, that did it.  Here is Dad as we walk up to the park along main.  This is his regular barbershop now.  How cool and old timey is that?

 We stopped at the library to drop off our books and movies, and saw this cute family checking out the stacks.

At the festival we wandered around eating cold pickles and checking out all the clan booths and merchandise.  At the events we saw our old neighbor (Payson Cottage days) Steve Hardman participating, and got a chance to catch up.

Look who else we saw .... well, yeah, even Santa needs a vacation, right?

Last of all I ran into a customer from the store who was there in her Renaissance costume.

On the way home we stopped at a new authentic Latino place on main street.  The food was quite different from 'Mexican Food' fare, but we really liked it a lot.  I had a shrimp tostada.

 

On Sunday evening we went to Trevor and Nell's for Eva's 11th birthday party.  Above she is shown reading her acceptance letter to Hogwarts.  We also gave her a Harry Potter wand, an

owl, a Hogwarts necklace and a 'Hogwarts Primer' I had made for her. I am going to being doing a page by page Pollyanna-reinvents blog of her book later, if you're that interested.

Grandpa snuggles Penny.

... and Eva receives her best gift from her parents!!

It was an amazing week, and we have included just a small sampling of the 150 pictures we took of cousin camp.  There will also be a Pollyanna-reinvents blog post about that, as well, you will find it here, later in the week.

Thanks for joining us by reading the blog.  We love you all, and hope your week was amazing.