Fall Festivities and Funerals.

On Monday I got a picture of most of the missionaries in their work clothes for the history I am putting together for this year. 

Then the sisters went out to clean up the flower beds.  There were lots of trips to the dumpster with buckets of flowers.

Monday was a lot of fun.  Some of the flowers still looked good and it made it hard for me to dump them.  I did do some deadheading to harvest seeds for our house next year, so that was good.  Here is Sister Newman.

Sisters Lathrop and Hardman fill a garbage bag with flowers.

As do Sisters Marvin and Hardman with decorative grasses.

The fire brigade is back.  Sisters Crump, Smith and Pittman return from burning weeds at Bessemer Bend.  I told them that since Dad and I were going to a funeral immediately after, I had better forgo the fire duty.

Here I am with the flower gathers.

The guys, meanwhile, were working on this fence all day. 

Isn't it a beauty, and authentic to the period we represent.

Here's the entrance to Fort Laramie, pre sign.

Then we all gathered for a delicious lunch.  Sister Newman brought these perfect rolls.  Dad asked me to make potato salad.  Then it was up the back side of the lake, after changing of course, to attend the funeral of Aunt Wendi's Dad.

The death of Aunt Wendi's father, coming on the heels of her mother's in such a short time, was surprising to say the least.  I'm sure she is struggling having them both gone in amatter of less than 5 weeks.  It was interesting to run into this gal, though, she is an early fleaology dealer.  It turns out that her husband is a nephew of Bill Skordis.  Small world. We were related by a couple, or shall we say 3 marriages, and never knew it. (Her marriage, my marriage and Wendi's marriage.)

Here is a guy that Grandpa Carlo introduced to Barbershop back when he was in high school, he went to school with Wendi.  Small world again, and Dad actually got him to come the visitor's night two days hence.

Here we are with the other Perkins, save Wendi.

I thought Katie's little girl was adorable and so tuckered out.

Here is Rick's family.  Zach had missed the other funeral because of an untimely job change, it was nice to have him there, and he gave a great tribute to his grandfather. 

It was pretty funny though, as evidently Bill was a huge sports fan and supported four different teams, including BYU football, which no one understood, because he wasn't LDS, nevertheless, these are his sons and sons-in-law, all wearing a hat signifying one of those teams.  His oldest son-in-law, Dennis King, decidedly not a BYU fan, took on the task of putting on the BYU hat. Greg Skordas, Wendi's oldest brother, second to the left, next to Rick, is the famous SLC criminal attorney, you have probably heard of. 

It was nice that I was able to save some of the flowers from the dumpster, and will enjoy them on my table at home.

Happy birthday to our Hannah on Tuesday.  This, of course, is Dad's collage for her Facebook birthday greeting, 

Dad went out to Mosida again on Tuesday where they got the sign for Fort Laramie put up on the structure, they did last week.  Elder Newman has been making the signs. 

Then the guys at Mosida worked on finishing up the structure for the roof they had moved. 

And hoisted it into place.

My day was much easier and involved housework.  But the light was so nice outside that I took some more house pictures.  The color on the side was nice ...

But not much on the front.  I did try, though, taking all the jacks off the fence to line the walk.  Ah well.

Here's the beautiful sunset that night, tucked away between houses, we get very few that make it past the blocking power of West Mountain.  The light was lovely, and thus the shots of the house, but the leaves on the front of the house just are not colorful enough yet. 

On Tuesday, Wednesday and then again on Friday Dad got the wafer board sheeting attached to the outside of the old carport structure,

Here it is in various incarnations. 

Boy was that a lot of work. 

Of course, I worked Wednesday, as always.  It was fun when this couple came in wearing their Halloween duds ... so see I'm not the only one ... 

But even better they had fitted out their minivan as a hearse.

I found a set of more turkey dishes, as I hunt and gather to set our Thanksgiving table in the lodge in style.  No more different sets of dishes on every table as they were always in different rooms.  Now to supplement the brown and white transferware, I am gathering transferware turkey dishes.  These are in Fort Collins, though, so we will be driving a different route to Emily's next time.

Thursday it was time to celebrate Eleanor's 13th birthday. She is the middle of the 3 turning 13, as shown in the lower right hand corner photo of this collage.

My friend Shirley came in and brought me more fun Halloween decor to sell too. I've sold so much Halloween this year, it's been surprising. 

Dad went to a second funeral that day, made possible by the fact that the temple is closed for maintenance.  He worked with Bill at Associated, and he is a couple of year younger than Dad.  It feels so crazy when our contemporaries pass.  But we've been listening to After, by Dr. Bruce Greyson, which has made it all feel more right for us.

Afterwards he stopped by the mall to put together this industrial rack I bought in California.  It was very nice when a dealer with a shop in Provo came in the next morning and bought it.  Thanks Dad, you're a rockstar.

After work, it was my last time to act as a member of the RS Activity Committee.  It was bittersweet, because though I had wished for a more involved calling, I now have NO calling, which is definitely worse.  I guess I just need to focus on being a better Ministering Sister.

On Friday I called Aunt Shirley to check out a detail on our history together for something I was about to post on Instagram and Facebook.  The question was answered, and we had a lovely, long conversation with her and Doug, as they were on speaker phone together.  I loved it.  As it turns out they have visited this way with other of my siblings, what a great use of time.  Dad was with me, so he got to listen in and make comments too. 

I worked on cleaning my craft room for the better part of the day.  Some things went in the bins under this bed, so I was in and out of this room.  This quilt I have been trying to sell for literally years, was folded on the trunk, so I took the time to put it on the bed and take pictures to list it on Face Book Market Place. I did get the craft room mostly finished, before heading out to ...

pick up this painting I bought a few days before but had been waiting for the varnish to dry.  The gal, who I follow on Instagram was selling it, it was fun to watch the various posts as she painted it.  I loved it, the sort of Peter pan-ness of it, and the acorn necklace.  JoLyn Foreman also puts a textured relief pattern under her paintings that you catch at various angles in different lights.  Anyway, the one thing I adored the most is that it reminds me of Adi at that age.  She also did the boy blowing bubbles painting that I bought at my first 100-dollar show. JoLyn lives near the Riverwoods, so it was a pretty autumn drive as well.

Saturday morning Dad and I headed up to Pleasant Grove in separate cars for a completely crazy day. He waited at home for someone to drop off something for Becca, and I ended up getting completely set up by myself for the first time in many, many years. 

Here's the set up there.

Not having to put up a pop up made it doable.

I was thankful to be done in time to head with Dad to Becca and Brady's to view the eclipse.

It was fun to watch the 'ring of fire' eclipse, as Brady had picked up a bunch of the glasses to use next year for the full eclipse in Texas.  Yay Brady.

Madi loves this fun pumpkin she did at school.

Davin took his family down to Marysvale to see the near perfect ring, along with a nice telescope for some great pictures.

Including this one which was more like what we saw in Highland.

Here's our Brady.

We had our Halloween on that day!

And they are so ready for the big day!

Consulting  

and loves were also part of the event.

From the Summers' house Dad dropped me at the Grove and went to pick up sheet rock, in the now empty van.

Just when I was going to leave the Grove, Dad having gone to Home Depot for the sheet rock was ready for our next stop in a busy day, but I got to talk to this guy about his renovations of the house that has been in his family since the 1860's, whoa. His grandson, who lives here now is the 7th generation of their family to do so. The man who built the house back then was one of the rescuers of the Martin and Willie Handcart companies, that we teach about at Mosida. How cool is that?

and of course, I needed this picture of another neighbor's fun house.  Cutest archway ever.

Here's a shot of the whole house. 

Then it was off to DI for a half hour, before heading to the farmers market in Provo, to see a Finnish missionary, who Dad only knows online, as she served after our second mission. Her family does this fun crusty pizza in ovens on site.

Here she is on the far left with two other missionaries who served about the same time.  It was fun to meet them, and the pizza was yummy.

Next stop was picking up some sour dough bread that Davin and Bri introduced us to years ago. We stocked up, with all our freezer would hold, and bought some focaccia bread too. I have to admit that I wish Wandering Wheat had a store front, instead of having to go to all kinds of different places to find him.  At least I know he'll be at the German Festival at the Pioneer Village at This is the Place Monument next month, and hopefully I got enough to last until then.

With an hour to kill, before I needed to get back to the sale at the Grove to take down, we thought driving the Alpine Loop was the perfect way to fill up our schedule, while we ate the delicious focaccia bread we'd gotten at Wandering Wheat. We were afraid we had put off 'looking at the leaves' until it was too late. 

Some of the trees were bare, but many of the remainder of the trees were lovely.

Definitely worth the drive. 

Then Dad dropped me off at The Grove to take down the show, and headed to Payson in his car, where he attended the Murdoch's 50th wedding anniversary party.

Here he is with them.

You may recall we first met them when Trevor was their son Robert's companion on their mission in England.  Here Dad is with Robert at the party. 

After I took down and loaded everything on top of the lumber and sheet rock, I was able to join him for our Adult Session of Stake Conference, still dressed in my Halloween garb, but fear not, I sat in the back with another sister from our ward, and left before anyone else saw me.  We finished the day with yummy Chinese food at the New Oriental Garden, over by Walmart.

These sisters met up that night at Usana, to see a Country Western band that Alex likes.

So fun when your interests dovetail with your kids.

First thing on Sunday we headed to Highland early to give us plenty of time to visit with Brittany at Becca and Brady's.

We had over an hour to visit before we headed to her cousin Jon's son, CS' homecoming talk in SLC.

She shared this picture of one of the Islands in the thousand islands region of the St Lawrence River., one of the areas they visited on their recent anniversary trip.  She said that by definition an island has to have a tree year-round to be considered an island. I found that fascinating. How fun is this tiny house on a tiny island.

Then we headed to the homecoming in Millcreek. Here is CS with Dad and one of his companions too.  It was great to make contact with him, and his brothers, folks, grandparents, and uncles on his Dad's side and their families. I wish we could have stayed longer, but we were expected back at Becca's for the tail end of a family party.

Briahnna, against all odds, manages to get Mac under control, and he loved it.

Scott and Hannah visit with Bri.

Fun picture of Abish, their new nanny, evidently in portrait mod, so that makes the others behind blurry.  Still fun.

Me and some Mitkos ... we missed having Charley, as she was in Nevada supporting her dance team.

It was kind of crazy, but when I walked in after the homecoming, I saw Ashley and didn't recognize her.  Thought she was a friend of Becca's who had stopped by.  When I sat across from her it clicked.  How crazy is that?

Dave and Dad

Dave and Brady, they were talking across the prep area of the kitchen, so I asked them to come together as I couldn't take a picture of them with 10 feet between them.

Davin talks to Abish about living in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, when she was about 10.  She is now 27.  They even did some Spanish.

A blurry shot of Dad with a couple of couples.

And the computer hideout, starring Titan and Adi.

Here are the donut girls, yum ... Nenna, Adi and Reagan.

and after the donuts.  Reagans braces are full of powdered sugar.

and here's a cute one of our Madi.

The party's over.  We missed Trevor and Nell's family as they weren't feeling too well, but otherwise had a great time.

And I'll end the story with possibly the largest Swedish Dala Horse in the world, with Robin leaning on his leg, as she and Jeff continue their travels in Alaska, Canada and the northern Midwest states of the USA.