Stars and Stripes Forever

It was yet another great week.  Brittney posted pics for Cam's 7th month, and then Brittany posted this old picture of Charlie at a similar age.  It gave me a chance to see just which of my grand daughters has the most luscious cheeks, and honestly, I still can't tell .... aren't they adorable?

And speaking of adorable, I love these shoes, though they would never work in Finland, they take forever to put on and off.

 Dad mowed the lawn and got some paper work stuff done Monday, and I spent a pretty low key day, I did some house work and tried a new recipe for goulash.  After dinner we walked up to get some zucchini from Nadine Evans, and we had a nice visit.  

on Tuesday I headed to Alpine to meet up with my crafting group to do a patriotic craft.  Here my friend Shirley arrives with her box of Americana craftiness.

Here we are in our patriotic best.

and with our crafty stars and stripes.

There were only the five of us, but we had a great time, getting our artistic patriotism on.

Dad stayed home and did some things around the house like touching up the paint on the van, doing another layer of mud on the ceiling of the apartment bathroom and he even watched a romantic comedy, all by himself, yes he did.

When I got home I added my fun patriotic geegaw to the stained glass window shelf, that required taking out some trophies, which led to redoing the mantel, which made me rethink the angel desk, which led to me hauling out all the red transferware and deciding it was time to kiss it all goodbye.

On Wednesday I took the day off because these book club ladies were meeting for lunch, and who wants to miss that?  I actually have more work days than I need to cover my rent at the antique mall, so I decided to let this one go.

However I did go into the antique mall in the afternoon, where I spent almost three hours pricing the red transferware dishes I had brought in from the parlor angel desk.  Its nice to go in when I am not working, because I can really work on projects like this one.

I left in time to stop and get some flowers for the flower boxes I had found at DI earlier in the week, as well as the dotted rug for our balcony.

This is the largest tree branch we have lost in three years, and it fell into the street, so Dad had to haul it into the driveway.

On Thursday, Dad stayed home so he could go to the temple for his normal shift, and I headed to work.  It was fun that Joyce came in. See we are black and red matchy, matchy.

This lady with a 7 carat diamond also came in.  Whoa.  She said her husband had gotten her 7 because she has seven kids.

I told Dad about that, and looked up this 10 carat diamond ring, really?  It is almost a 100 grand, I don't 

think so.

We sold this old toy truck that day.  I thought it was interesting, because it says thrift store, and has a Beehive.  Did someone intend to make a DI truck?

On Friday Dad was back at Darby's.  He got the entire ceiling in the smaller bedroom done, and was very proud of how nice it turned out.  As you can see it was not a flat ceiling.

I did some reading in a book about Lincoln and his cabinet.  Secretary of State, Seward was said to have had a very nice home, with many collectibles, and items from famous people.  The book mentioned that this fireplace, in his home, was built by Brigham Young, who went on to be the Mormon Prophet.  I thought that was interesting.

Besides being a bum and reading, during the day, I also cleaned up the house, went grocery shopping and made dinner for our friends the Shurtzes, who taught us how to be the secretaries in Finland.  

Here they are at dinner, we very much enjoyed our time together, and the delicious chocolate mousse, that was healthier than the norm because it was made with avocado, and maple syrup.  It was absolutely delicious, I'd have never known.

Here we are after the house tour, that included the garden house. We look forward to getting together with them in the future.

I was excited to go junking on Saturday because Jenn of  3-Dotters fame, who did fleaology with me, was having her annual yard sale.  She is the one in the white shirt who is pointing.

this view of a customer hauling her vintage goodies made me smile.

I went to a few other sales after Jenn's.  About 6 in all, 3 with the goods and 3 without.  I loved  the hollyhocks peaking through this unusual metal wheel fence.  I found a few goodies here.

This was the best of the six, this lady lives about a block above where Barb's folks lived.  I wished I had gone to her sale earlier, but then, you never know.

These folks had fencing swords .... just like the ones in the Princess Bride.  I got a couple of really nice carved wooden duck decoys from them.  

I stopped at Habitat for Humanity in Spanish, and saw what had become of the sign from the old Payson Race track.

When I got home, Dad had been fiddling with the thermostat for the air conditioner, pretty much all day.  He was pretty frustrated, and called CJ Weight, whose brother had installed the air conditioner, and who lives near us.  He stopped on his way home from work, together they called Dayton, and figured out the problem, finally.

We went to our favorite Sushi buffet to celebrate.

In other news, some people we love got to go to Hawaii.

and some other people we love got to go to WyHOMEing.  Van looks like a natural on the horse.

Look whose 7 months old? Is this just the cutest?

We were sorry to have missed my nephew Jeff's memorial service, but it was nice to see on line this picture of his family.

At church today Cheryl Phillips asked Dad if he would like to take over her registration to run in the Freedom Festival 5K tomorrow, as she had injured her foot.  We stopped by on the way home to get the goods.

They asked us to take of picture of them in front of their stars and stripes, so we asked if they would return the favor.

I made sushi for dinner.

Then I made Dad some shorts to use for the race, and no, I was not working, I was serving, right?  I normally would have waited, but he is being picked up at 6 AM... tomorrow.

Next we headed up to the park where stars and stripes were much in evidence.  The gentleman with the flag tie is Clark Clayson's nephew.  Of course The Stars and Stripes Forever was one of the offerings.

We then came home and went out on the balcony to watch the fireworks ... the trees were much in evidence, but we decided that for fireworks on New Years, the trees will be leafless, so we should have a better view.  However the weather could not have been more pleasant, it was lovely and cool with a breeze. 

We hope your celebrations of our country's birthday is full of fun, and a determination to appreciate the freedoms we have all been blessed with.