Trees, Wood, Branches, Roots and Vines

So we'll start the week with this picture of my favorite vine, morning glory, that is.  Not bind weed, no, glorious morning glory.  It makes me smile.

And since we are talking about trees, etc, in the sense of Family Trees, I thought I would liken other relationships to Trees, in this case the Tree of our Butler 8th ward connections.  Here is Bishop Essen, who is the current Bishop of that ward.  We've known him for many many years, as he was in the ward when we moved in in 1977.  Roger grew up bilingual, speaking Swedish, so he was perfect to be sent to Finland on his mission.  Of course when we moved in Scott and Rogerhad an instant connection, because Roger grew up in a neighboring ward to Dad's (actually in Brent and Dar's ward).  So you see Roger is at the point where the 8th ward tree get tangled with the Finnish Mission tree.  I am sure you remember how much Dad loves these little tangles.  And we're going to tell you about a few of those this week. 

The reason that we were up at the old ward, was that we were attending Karen Larrabee's funeral. Here they are around the time they got engaged.  We so love this family.  

This is a more recent picture, Karen had had Alzheimer's for the last 8 or 9 years.  What a hard thing for such a great woman.  She was 78 when she died, which means she starting getting it about the time she was my age.  BTW she is Dad's 9th cousin and my 11th cousin.

On the way home we stopped out at the new DI in Saratoga Springs where I found an original painting of the man on the top of this collage.  I thought he looked like a founding father type, and for some reason, the name James Madison came to mind .... not sure how I knew that, but I am the proud owner of an original oil painting of James Madison!!  Our birthday girl, Madison, may get a kick out of that.  Now of course I know you are dying to know how we are related to the President.  Of course Dad is a fourth cousin and I am a 7th cousin.  Not sure why Dad is always more closely related to people than me.  But then we are both related to the same degree to our granddaughter, Madison.

My friend Lyn is doing the Holy Cow Halloween Boutique.  I was so thrilled to see that she is up to doing this.  She has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and has been on only mild treatments, as she has been widowed for something like 15 years, and isn't keen on going to extraordinary measures, at this point.  But how great is it that she back at it.  What an amazing girl.  (She lives in the same ward  with Lisa, Briahnna's mom, and also with my cousin Jessanne Allen) 

That night I headed over to choose a space for myself at the new antique store in Pleasant Grove that my friend Jenn Reed is opening.  I picked a closet space, just 4 by 6 feet, how fun will this be.  Then I helped the former owner in the loading up of her merchandise. 

Here comes Jenn with a bin.

And me with her cute mom Sheila.  Sheila will be clerking on Tuesday thorough Thursdays.  Nat will do Fridays, and Jenn, who still works full time will be taking on Saturday.  You may recall that Jenn was the one who suggested that I name my flea market.  What a great partner she was until she took off to open her own flea.  This will be her first storefront, and I think she will be amazing, which is why I wanted to join the fun.  And of course the name, The Grove, certainly ties in with all my tree talk this week, don't you think?

Here I am with Jenn, and Marci Henich and Nat, all of whom will be selling at the Grove. I made the collage to announce my new venture on line.

On Tuesday Dad went out to Mosida (Which was originally an Orchard) to work on the bearings in the handcart wheels.

When he got home, he painted the shutters to use up the end of the black paint. 

I finally got the pillow covers I ordered from China two months before my big Mad Hatter's event on Labor day ... yep, almost 3 months, but they were a good deal, and I got to do the final touches on the Madhatter's Hat and Tea Party Shoppe. The tie in here, of course, is all the vines that have happily invaded the garden house this year. 

That night we met Julie and Ross at Market Street to buy them dinner as a thank you for the wonderful, life changing gift of the Murphy bed last week.  We had a great time catching up.  I don't think I've actually had a conversation with Julie in more than 10 years.  It was a lovely time, and Dad and I got Creme Brulee. 

Ashley was Bar tending, so we didn't see much of her, but got to give her a hug anyway.

On Wednesday Dad put in the hydrangea that  I had bought last Saturday.  Hopefully it will grow big enough to cover the stump of the old cedar tree while it decomposes.

He also made a little pico de Gallo with tomatoes from our garden.  The only crop that did anything this year. I am so spoiled.

This gentleman came in and bought these 1910 motorcycle googles.  He's a docent at the Hill Air Force base museum and was getting them for the mannequin who is displayed in uniform with the first military plane ever flown.  He said as aeronautics were so young, there were no googles made for pilots at that time, so this is what they would have worn.  I thought he was nice to model them for me.  And strangely they were less than $20.  

When I went to Lexie's house that night for a Relief Society Activity planning meeting, I saw this cute decor item, and loved it.  How fun is that?  Dad was at his Elder Quorum Presidency meeting at the same time.  Great planning eh?

On Thursday, Dad was off to the temple, and I was back to work.  This gal had looked at the dragon desk I had for sale the day before and came in to buy it.  It was in the mall for less than 2 months, which is a quick sale for a big piece of furniture.  

They were going to drive it home standing in the truck, and I begged them to lay it down.  Thankfully they did and it arrived at its new home in Provo in good shape.  I got talking to her and found out that they are friends with the Parkers, the directors at Mosida.  We thought that tie in was very fun. They also had the former Mosida directors in their ward.  Maybe they will come out and serve with us.

As they were hauling it out I noticed the 17 on the back, and wondered if I was meant to keep it. 

 I moved this little red metal shelf to the place where the desk was so that I would have a place to display the items that had been in and on the desk.

That meant replacing the red metal shelf that had been in my red and white kitchen booth with this white cupboard.  I thought it turned out so cute.  Moving the white cupboard would allow me to replace my green drop leaf table that I wanted to take back to my craft room. But that wouldn't happen without Dad's help.

The funny thing is that the people who bought the dragon desk are named Branch, and Susan Branch happens to be the author of the book I was reading at the time.

Friday morning Dad and I headed down to Mosida to set up for leadership training on Saturday. I laid out the pioneer clothes.

Lavern helped me.

Isn't it so fun?

After set up, and enjoying a pot luck lunch together we headed home.  I asked Dad to come over to the mall to get the green craft room table back.  It was under this cabinet shelf top shown above.  We wiggled it out, as the top was attached to the wall. Then brought the white table over to put under it.  It was a few inches shorter, so I held it while Dad undid what was just one screw, and dropped in onto this table, before putting the screw back in to stabilize it.

Doing that made a space to bring in this cupboard, which I bought from Dad's cousin Cathie.  Phew ... it was like musical chairs with furniture, but it worked out perfectly.

When we got home, I noticed what is really at the end of the rainbow for me.  Ironstone pitchers.  Yes, I've been gathering them to do a display in the cupboard above.  I've been pretty lucky.  Just waiting for 3 more that I bought on Ebay to arrive.

Saturday was Madison's birthday and she is 7. It was also my Mom's birthday, she would have been 105.

And we were back at Mosida for the leadership training on Saturday morning.  Sister McNeil and Sister Smith work getting everyone registered.

Dad found this young lady from Bountiful.  She is the daughter of Paulette Russon who grew up in the Val Verda 2nd word with me.  How fun is that ... yep another ward family connection.

Here Dad and Brother Smith show the available pioneer games.

and Sisters Child, Jones and Smith portray different types of youth personalities on trek in a skit.

We had another Finnish Mission Family connection, when this couple found Dad and told him that he is Jane Shurtz first cousin.  Steve and Jane were mission secretaries in Finland in between us and ourselves.  So we trained them, then they trained us ... not really, we were not mission secretaries the first time, but we got to know them while the London's were training them for a couple of weeks, and got to know them even better when they trained us, 17 months later.

Then Dad ran into this gal who is the daughter of Doug James with whom he works in the temple.  So this is a temple family connection.

We've been laughing about the tree, wood, branch etc, connections, all week so when Darby brought Dad some black Red Vines ... yeah that is weird.  We both laughed spontaneously.

When we got home from Mosida, we changed out of our Pioneer clothes and headed to Spanish Fork for our renter Lilly's wood carving competition/display.  The first person we met there, as we paid our admission, is a man who told us he is a decedent of one of the Willey Handcart Pioneers.  That was just one more crazy connection to our Mosida work.

Of course Lily's been carving wood for a hobby for over a year now.  She won 5 blue ribbons in the beginners category, and will be moving up to the next.  She is so happy doing this and associating with a lot of old men, who make her feel young, even though she's almost 50.

This is not your typical word carving, but it is probably my favorite. 

These bolo ties were pretty well done.

We ran into this couple, and they had an amazing carving of a bird on a branch, as well as a bronze of the same.  I thought it looked very similar to a bronze the Kews have.  I ask if he had ever sold one to Steve and Terry Kew.  As it turns out there was a Friend Family connection.  He and Steve worked at a camera shop right out of college.  What are the chances.  He is also a wildlife photographer, but I liked his birds best when I looked up his Instagram account.  Aren't they stunning?

We had a bit of time still, before a birthday party we were to attend, so we stopped by The Grove in hopes of putting down some linoleum in my new space, but it was too small.  Still we did a couple of small chores and I will be moving in for real tomorrow night.

Next we went to Lindon to help my friend Joanne celebrate her 70th birthday.  She is a fabulous hostess, and it was fun to see my friends Jann and Kimi there too. 

Here we are.  Joanne has matching dinner plates to serve 70 people.  Whoa!  You may recall I ran into her at DI a couple of weeks ago searching for silver wire bread baskets.  She was one short at the time.  She is so fun.

Here are a few shots around her yard and house.  The central bottom one is a print I had in my house for a long time, that she purchased at fleaology a couple of weeks ago.  She and I do have very similar tastes.

Here Jan and I join the birthday girl for a picture.  Kimi had run off to, unbelievably, another 70th birthday party for another friend in SLC.  

Jann, who is suffering from terminal cancer as well, is very weak these day, and her husband Shultz took her home before the entertainment.  We sat by Jan's good friend Karen Robison.  We got chatting and she asked about our mission, how long we'd been home, etc.  I told her about our service mission, and it turns out that they had been on a temple trip this spring, through the Baltics with the Andreasons who serve with us at Mosida.  Usually when we tell people where we are serving they have not heard of it, so having this happen a second time in the same week was kind of crazy. 

Jann had met this daughter of a Southern Baptist minister at a Story Telling Festival back east.  And, as Joanne does, she made fast friends.  Joanne got her a gig with the Story Telling Festival here.  They became great friends, and I guess she has come out on other occasions and has entertained Joanne and her friends.  She sings folky tunes, belittling the religion in the south to a mild degree, which sort of bothered me, but I got to talk to her after and ask her questions.  One song she had written and sang was called Gallaxy 500 ... a baby blue car with a red interior that one of her Dad's parishioner had helped him  to get a good price on.  She loved that car and sang about all the fun things they did and trips etc.  Then right in the middle of the song she tells how her mom left her and her two young siblings in the car with the radio on while she ran into K-Mart.  The announcement came on the radio that Martin Luther King had been shot.  She had met other black evangelists, because he father loved to listen to them and had taken her to many of their sermons.  She was 7 and was devastated.  The juxtaposition of this sad news in the middle of a ballad about joy riding was very impactful.  

This morning we headed to Springville to listen to the Mottishaws as they gave their report on their mission to Finland.  It was fun to see just how many young missionaries came out to support them.

Nancy Mottishaw's sister is Cindy Walton, who lived in our ward in Orem.  In fact her daughter Gentry has a photo of her with Dad, as her bishop, at her baptism 23 years ago.  We also met Cindy's brother-in-law's son in Finland where he lives with his wife and children.  So here we see our Orem ward family, mixing with our Finnish family, on two levels.  And it gets even better, because Cindy told me there is a third sister who I also know.  She is in the antiquing business, evidently, however I couldn't place her, but have requested to be friend on Face Book, so I can figure it out.

And last of all, we ran into the Nielson's who used to live in our ward here in Payson.  They moved to Springville and belong to the ward that meets right after the ward we attended.  Janice was my first walking partner when we moved down here.  It was fun to catch up.

...and just to end with another tangle, Nancy has a friend, who is Kari Best's sister.  They are in a quilting group together, we saw her and talk to her at the homecoming.  We had  met her and her husband at the MTC when we were leaving for our second mission, and she introduced herself to us as Kari's sister.  They were headed to Hawaii.  It was fun to visit with her as well.

Last but not least, here is our Charley girl as she goes out and delivers Charley's Chews to a few of her customers.  Looks like fun!