Newel Posts and Holiday Fun

It was a busy week, with lots of fun Christmas activities included.  I bought a bag of these stars with different names and titles for Christ on them, there were 11.  They were a sort of steel color, but I wanted them to be red and white so they could go on our tree.  Next year, because we are studying the New Testament in the Come Follow Me program at Church, and the church is focusing on his different titles and names, I thought they'd be perfect.  I also made 3 kinds of mushroom ornaments to add to my mushroom tree, I painted a sign to go over my angel collection that says 'Hark the Herald Angels Sing'.  And other crafty things.  I even helped Dad paint the entry hall one day.

Monday evening we got to go and see Titan and Reagan's school choral program's Christmas Concert.  Titan was one of the narrators.

Titan is in the approximate center here.

As is Reagan in this shot.

Look how cute she looks with the tree as a hat.

The choral program is an optional after-school program and these two love to sing.

We love them so much.

On Tuesday I left Dad home painting while I went with Ann and Sandy to do some Christmas activities in Salt Lake.  Here we are in front of the giant gingerbread house at the Grand America.

Here Sandy talks to Ann's son, who had told us about the gingerbread house.

There were also very fun windows along many of the halls.  I liked this one because it was Hanukkah. 

There were also wonderful works of art.

And seasonal displays.

Then it was time for the main event.  Ann had gotten tickets for us all to go and see the Governor's mansion in all its holiday glory.

This is Mr and Mrs Kearns and their family.  The house was started in 1899 and finished in 1902.

Such beautiful wood work.

and the family bought this lovely newel post lamp at the Paris Exhibition in 1900.  I just love it.

During the renovation of the house after the holiday fire (The live Christmas tree went up in flames) of 1993, they decided to have these carpets remade after interior photographs of the house early on.  I think they are stunning, and look somewhat modern.

Here is Ann and with two of her kids.

I was stunned to learn that what I thought was wallpaper was actually stenciled.  The pattern was found under wallpaper on the walls during the same renovation, though the green was the back ground and the gold was the swirly pattern. 

This wonderful mural is in the dining room and is a modern painting honoring Utah history.

This punch bowl is silver, and the school children of Utah, donated money for it and a set of candelabras that were used on the USS Utah ship, when she was commissioned in 1909.  The ship was decommissioned in 1925, and at that time the punch bowl and candelabras were sent back to Utah to be used in the Governor's Mansion.  (BTW, the ship was recommissioned in 1932 after refurbishment, and then sunk in the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, where she still rests.)

I just love the seagull head handles on the punch bowl.

Another Bright Spot in the mansion.

And these three dimensional boughs near the ceiling were actually done by an artist with a pallet knife and plaster.

We had two lovely guides on the tour, and here I am with the one whose name is also Paula.

Sandy, Ann and I in the ballroom, which is usually not shown on tours, lucky us.

Ann's cute family

I was off to work on Wednesday, and Dad worked on painting the entryway and stairs some more.  This young man came in wearing this outfit with home made patches he had made, all over them.  I loved it.  

It reminded me of the patches worn on graduation pants by Finns.  In this case the pants are covered with honors and interests of the student.

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And speaking of the interests of young men, though at 48 Andy might not quite be considered young, he is definitely young at heart.  This is Ashley post about his birthday.

and this is Dad's post. 

Here is my mushroom tree with even more mushrooms, 

and this is a side-by-side of my tree with Mary Engelbreit's tree, which was its inspiration.

On Thursday Ashley came into the antique mall with some friends.  That was fun.

Here she is leaving with some goodies she found.

Another dealer shared a picture of her new garden house.  It was made from a pre-made gazebo package. with old painted boards filling in what would have been the open areas of the gazebo.  I thought that was pretty clever.

Friday was Brittney's birthday, and this is Dad's posting on FB.

On Friday I made this sign, that I mentioned earlier.  I had bought the metal sign, which said Merry Christmas years ago, and its been knocking around my craft room since then.  Yep, its just what I needed for this sign.

I taped a paint brush to Dad's expandable roller handle so he could get into the corners, as he prepares to paint the ceiling. 

He took the pictures down in groups, then painted and replaced them using photos of the wall he had taken.

And here it all is put back together, starring our Newel Post Lamp. So when we bought the house, the newel post lacked a lamp.  We knew that Victorian newel posts often had lamps, so when we applied for a subsidy to fix up the house initially we put down putting a lamp on the newel post as one of our desires.  The Historic Society turned us down on that point saying, that if there wasn't one there, they didn't want us to put one there.

Several years later we decided to do it anyway, and found this lamp, with the lower hand broken for $50 at Treasures.  I was looking on line for a picture of the lamp, when I saw this claim, which is ridiculous.  I hope some poor person doesn't get sucked in here.  Anyway, Dad drilled out the middle bottom for the electrical work, the lamp is resin, and then added the switch. I sculpted a new hand without a light and actually like it better than the original.

The funny part of the story is that when Dad took the wood piece off the flat topped newel post, there were wires inside, which made it easier to finish the installation, but which made us wonder about the Historic Society refusing it in the first place.

Still later I met a woman who had lived in the house in the early 50's, when it was apartments.  She said she had seen the original newel post lamp in the basement, and it was the figure of a woman, holding up a single light, as she stepped out of a chariot. 

and while we're at it, I thought I would share this meme I saw on Insta a couple of weeks ago.  It still makes me giggle.

Loved this festive picture of  Charley from Insta.  She would be a great model for a newel post lamp, don't you think?

I also managed to get my porch decor out.

Dave and Bri's kids came to spend the night, and we decided we should go though the Festival of Lights that Spanish Fork does at their golf course every year.

The kids loved it.

We came home and had pizza and watched this Christmas Carol.  Elias had just read the book with his class at school, and had watch one version. We let him choose his favorite of the 8 that Dad has.  It was our third version of A Christmas Carol to watch this season. 

Doug and Shirley celebrated their 50th anniversary this week.  I was there when this picture was taken.  Don't they look adorable? 

On Saturday Sam walked for his graduation with a Masters in Education in San Antonio.  They drove down for the event and spent the night.  Emily made personalized shirts for each of the kids, with Sam's school logo and cute sayings.  The Baby's says 'My Dad the Grad', and there were references to his having 5 kids, and having had a 4.0, etc. on the other shirts.

Our ward party was a breakfast which we attended on Saturday morning.  Then 

we headed out to Magna to see a play with some of our Mosida friends at the Empress Theater.  

I was a little disappointed that it wasn't a Christmas play, but it was Tuck Everlasting, and having read  the book and seen the movie, I did enjoy it.  The book was a Newberry Award winner. Jeff and Judy McNeil are behind us here.

And this is the Munros and the Jordans who organized the activity.

a better picture of Judy and Jeff.

These two actresses were part of the Circus story line in the play.  What fun costumes.

I was delighted when they chose Cafe Rio for dinner afterwards.

Here we are with the Nielson's daughter in Law who is from Venezuela.  It was super fun to tell her about Marilena, and her name is Milena.  

Here is Francie Nielson with Denise Munro.

The Rices joined us after just for dinner.

This morning we drove to Bountiful for a farewell of one of the Wade era missionaries.  He and his wife joined us for dinner about a month ago.  Here is Dad with Sister Wade who was also there.  Still supporting her missionaries, after 50 years.

Here she is with Janet Williams.

It was also fun to find out that the couple who will be living in their house is Gabi Tanner and her soon to be husband.  Easton is in the the same ward with the Williams daughter, and mentioned that her folks were looking for a young couple to live in their house. Everyone was pleasantly surprised when they found out that Gabi had served in Finland as well.  Small world.

Here we are with Randy and Janet Williams.

On the way home we stopped to drop some aluminum cans at Ashley's and she was showing me around to see how she'd used the stuff she got at Treasures.  I just love her newel post figure, though it is not electrified like mine.  She says its one of his favorite spots.

Here are their 'Christmas Trees'

and how cute does she look? BTW, we found out that 14 year old Zach is now 5 ft. 9 inches.

Britt's family has also been doing some fun Holidays activities.  We're glad Charley's feeling better.  They attended the Nutcracker with family and 

friends.  

We hope you are all enjoying the holidays with your family and friends and we're super looking forward to you (our kids) coming to our Jewish Fusion meal next week.  Love you all.