As do most weeks, its started with a walk for me, with Ginny, since LaVern has headed back to do the Pageant in upstate New York. We walked by our friend Kelly's house. How cute is this.
Then we walked by the library parking lot, where there is a new mural of life in early Payson, so amazing.
The mural covers two sides of a smallish building.
I painted the new sign for the garden house and thought you'd enjoy seeing the contrast before and after our painting.
I have loved sitting out there, and taking time to remember this wonderful son of mine. Let there be no mistaking though, I know I have three other wonderful sons, and I think about them too.
My clematis bloomed, but since I wanted pink blooms I was a little disappointed. Still, Dad put a tiny sprinkler in its planter against where the stair case juts out, so I expect it will live to bloom some more...
On Tuesday Dad worked on putting the potting bench together for me. I love how it turned out.
Here's a closeup.
Also on Tuesday we got the word that Eva had finished the small mural for the garden house. We face timed with her dad, her and Penny.
The cucumber lover.
Trevor sent me a picture of the mural, and the artist.
Also that day, we got a letter from Danny telling us of the birth of his daughter. That was fun.
In other Tuesday news, Brittany posted these pictures of Alex and his new doo.
And just for fun, we went to see Yesterday … We liked it a lot.
On Wednesday I was off to work for the day, getting a lot done. Dad ran some errands, including visiting the Spanish Fork Macey's, where he talked with some folks who are doing a reset there. Then he went over to visit with the Marvin family, as he had served with Curtis on the High Counsel. They recently lost their granddaughter, who they raised, in a sort of accidental murder/suicide. (the bullet her ex-boyfriend used to kill himself continued and killed her as well.) Such great people, and such a tragedy.
He picked me up after work, and we went to get the painting, and took Eva out for Sushi to celebrate.
Yeah us.
Here it is, and I love it. On Instagram, when I posted it, Mary Engelbreit said she loved the mural. Way to go Eva.
When I got home that night, I also put up this great ark that another dealer gave me when it didn't sell. How cool is that. They were so popular in the 80s and I wanted one so bad, but I had 10, children, so yeah … I still love them, and this shelf looks better than it did with a clock collection cluttering it up.
At work on Thursday I finally made myself re do this booth. Some game parts got spilled soon after I got home, and I just never wanted to pull out everything and take care of it. Well Wednesday and Thursday were the day, Yeah.
That night Darby hauled a horse trailer full of stuff for our upcoming yard sale down to the house. Dad was working on cementing the area of the front sidewalk, which was dug out when the sewer system failed while we were on our mission. See how good it is knowing we're heading out again, which creates a deadline?
Dad did cement, Darby unloaded and priced her stuff, and I sorted sea glass we'd been tumbling for days, to scatter on the garden path. It was super fun to spend a couple of hours chatting and working together.
Poor Dad was exhausted.
I cleaned out the gravel walks and scattered the glass the next morning. How fun is that?
We also had these guys for the day on Friday.
How cute is this?
Then the kids got acquainted with our chicken neighbors.
Elias was so calm the chickens just loved him.
Adi loved them too.
Dad and I managed to get the back patio area cleared out and swept in anticipation of our upcoming Farewell gathering on Sunday, because ...
I was having a garage sale the next day. Nikki, on the left, brought goodies and did the sale, so it was nice to have company. My friend Wendy dropped by to join in the fun. It was great to catch up.
Dad's cousin Kathy came, and bought a few things, including the mantel that used to be in the family room.
My Sassy friend Kimi came to show off my garden house, and house décor to her friend who was visiting from Texas.
A random customer noticed that one of our neighbors chickens was caught between the roll back gate and the fence, and rescued it. It added some excitement, and gave me a chance to meet my neighbor.
The Halds came to visit too. You may recall last summer that Flemming came and used a metal detector in our yard. Then we found out that his wife, Kaja, was best friends with Dad's cousin Mark's ex-wife in Denmark. We know one person in Denmark, and they were very close to her. Anyway, soon after meeting Flemming and starting to follow him on Facebook, we learned that his wife had been diagnosed with colon cancer. This was the first time we'd met her, and it was a lot of fun.
This is Pat Sitka … she lives in Provo in an old house and was widowed about 5 years ago. I've known her for about a year on Instagram. She has gone to several of Mary Engelbreit's art studio work shops, and I want to go with her when we get back from our mission. She came to the yard sale to see the garden house. That was fun.
Her mother's maiden name is also Perkins, so it was fun to see all these folks with a Perkins connection. We all fired up relative finder, and it looks like she's not related.
After the sale, Dad took a load to DI, while I got everything else put away … then we went to Café Rio in Spanish … lookity who we ran into.
We were up early Sunday finishing up our talks, and doing the last bit of pick up … then headed to the church, where we ran into the Hancocks and the Londons.
We felt like all went well, and it was so fun to see not only our wonderful friends and family, as they arrived, but also several young missionaries, and most of the senior couples we served with.
As soon as we got back to the house, Eva asked to decorate the chalk board … yep, she rocks.
One of the first guest to get to the house was Dad's cousin Rowene, who brought cookies, before she ran off to her own meetings.
And here's a chance for short Amy to be the tallest … Amy Mason, Robin Heuer, and Terry Quigg.
Here are Jerry Mason and Jeff Heuer.
Not all of the younger missionaries came back to the house, but it was so fun to see those who did.
Back row we have: Sister and Brother Hancock, the Londons, Kate Petersen, Nicole Nordine, Anika Quick, Kaitlin Atkinson, Lauri Kehr, Ian Haws, Phillip Sisco, Dennis and Carol Harris, Me and Dad.
Front row: Mica Dugger nee' Bradbury, Anna Brown, nee' Wilson, Cameron Fielding, Kai Gammet, Cameron Brown and Levi Madsen.
Here are two of our Finnish friends, who married an America and raised their families here.
Sirpa Jarvis, Stina Van Cott.
We had lots of lovely family members too.
Spencer and Van
Brady the rock star ...
Sarah and Aunt Nina
Eleanor, Titan and Reagan.
Scott and Darby
The Fairbanks from our Orem ward, and Darby, Eva, Scott and Brittney.
Darby and Hannah.
Van and Brittney.
The brunettes here are Hilary Kew Martell's daughters … and of course Penny and Eva.
These folks are the Middletons … He is Jack's (Jo and Clark's son) wife, Jane's brother, and they are the parents of a daughter currently in the MTC learning Finnish, who we will get to meet in a couple of weeks. How fun is that? It was great for Dad to get acquainted. It was kind of fun to hear that their daughter had a dream a few weeks before she got her call, that she would be going to Finland on her mission … in fact she'd grown up with a former Finnish mission president in her ward. How cool is that?
Here is Mathew Mason with Trevor and Spencer.
This is Sheralyn Watts Thompson, who is a member of our stake, with her cousin, Maija-Liisa Adams, who is the mother of the missionary, Katriina Adams, who will be living in our house with her new husband.
The Kews came a little bit later, as they stayed for the whole meeting schedule.
We still had an unopened tube of Sinappi from the six we brought home with us, and Dad gave it to Cameron Fielding and his soon to be wife, also a Finnish missionary, Kaitlyn Atkinson. Unfortunately we won't be here for their wedding. He was one of our favorite missionaries. He grew up in Texas and has a personality very similar to Sam's.
The Evans from our ward in SLC, heard at church that today was our farewell, so they got right in their car and got here after all had left, and we had a really lovely visit with them. You may recall that they both went to school with Dad.
Then Bruce and Dianne came down and we had another nice long visit.
Next I dashed off to Herriman to my friend Kimi's patriotic Tea party.
but was too late to see my other art group friends … fortunately Kimi will never see this picture of herself, and I do have the cute picture of her in the door of my garden house the day before.
I always love to see her cute holiday décor.
I love this girl. She said that Jann, who had been there earlier, was upset to have missed me... Jann has recently heard that her brain tumor is back, and I don't think they're doing surgery this time. She was told she was terminal, last fall when she had her previous surgery. She's knows I'll be gone when her time comes, and had wanted to see me again. Jann is one of the very most gentle, kind and decent people I know. Despite the fact she has always been beautiful and wealthy, she is generous and kind to all. I am so sad that she is leaving this earth, it will truly be a worse place for her absence.
So I called and asked if I could come by for a visit, on the way home. She lives in Alpine. I was embarrassed when I actually stayed for almost two hours … but she is so generous and kind, one just hates to leave her. (she is the one that headed up the art group building me the elf garden, that sits on one of the stumps by the front gate, as a memorial to Ben last summer.) I couldn't love her more.
So that was our busy week, we're sorry if we missed seeing you. We love you all.
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