Fly Me to the Moon ....

... and let me play among the stars, let me see what life is like on Jupiter and Mars ... in other words ... 

And the day finally arrived, seemingly setting a theme for the rest of the week.  This is Davin and Bri's family at Emily's house.  What a great backdrop.

I love the cousin time aspect of them all getting together for the eclipse.

and how amazing is her eclipse crown?

Emily bought this wonderful eclipse cake.

Here it is as the centerpiece of the goodies table.

Outside there were lots of moon and star goodies for snacks.  There was moonshine (Root beer), Moon Pies (Thanks goodness it was Texas), starburst, star crunch, milky way, eclipse gum, and Capri Sun and Sunny D to drink.  How memorable is that?

Emily face timed me and let me say hi to lots of them, but my screen shots were all blurry. 

Davin brought his telescope along, and here helps Benny to see through it.

I loved this eclipse shot, though Dave said it was just a glitch of his telescope that caused the cool rays. 

They are numbers 6,7 and 8 ... how fun is that?

There were activities. 

And a futuristic viewing structure ...

I know it's just their jungle gym.

Here's Becca's family.

and at the photo spot.

And a cousins gymnastics moment.  Regan, Adi and Nenna.

Madison

Here are Jeff and Robin's family along with Jeff's brother Mike and his family.  Robin and her girls made t-shirts for the event.  WOW!  They did not have as good a luck with the sky as Emily et al just 30 miles away.

But they definitely had just as much fun.  And a nod to the Moms, Robin and Briget for hosting this huge crowd. 

I spent the eclipse time with my cousin Debbie at her house. This is a painting done by her husband's mother.

And this one is of  his mother by her husband, Rick's Dad..

This is another painting done by Rick's mother. They were both professional painters.  His father did paintings that became the covers of paperback novels in the 30's and 40's. I ended up buying two of Debbie's paintings from her, which I will show you next week, after I get them hung.

But I did come home and put together this display of mini art, on the inside door of our TV cabinet in out room.  Most of which I brought back from Finland.  We received a package from Trevor and Nell's family containing many of these pictures, including the copies of their wonderful family color portraits they did during covid.  The three bottom ones on the left were given to me last year from their family mini art wall. The copy of Van Gogh's chair was one I did on the little canvases that Trevor and Nell sent, as is the small watercolor beneath it which is a portrait of my great grandmother, Ida Alice Dorris Frisbey. 

Receiving this tiny pencil portrait of Debbie by her husband was the reason I finally got them all hung.  It had been made into a bookmark and when I admired it, Debbie said I could just have it.  How sweet.  I do need to polish the tiny sterling silver frame though. 

I even added this sweet little painting I bought at J. Kirk Richard's business card size art show.

Here are four of the 11 color prints I love so much.

Dad and I played scrabble after dinner that night. 

Hahaha

On Tuesday Dad worked on installing the can lights in the basement gym room.  I took some things up to the Grove in Pleasant Grove, and then junked my way home.  After dinner we watched this movie, the first that Reese Witherspoon ever did.  She was 14.  It was one of those slice of life movies from the 80's that Dad I typically dislike, though this was better than most of those. 

Wednesday was Abbie's birthday, here's the collage Dad used on Facebook. 

She got to go to Build a Bear to celebrate. 

Dad managed to install something like a switch for the sauna lights,

and our sauna thermometer came.  Dad even took down the sauna bucket and scoop we brought home from Finland.

I spent the day at work. 

Thursday was Mike's birthday, and here we see the pictures Dad chose for his FB collage. 

Kai is still making progress as he moves into Virginia. 

and his cousin Scott shows off his project at the U, as he gets closer to graduation next month ... he said it was like a science fair on steroids. 

At work on Thursday I put together this floral gift for Rosemary.  She had her appendix out three weeks ago, then two weeks ago they took a foot of colon out because her appendix had been cancerous.  She's home for a couple of weeks, but will not even need chemo or radiation, so that's fortunate.  We're looking forward to seeing her back at work in a couple of weeks. 

I delivered it next door as her son will take it home to her, someone else made her some bread.

It was fun to see Meta Coleman to my right, who has been coming into the mall since she was a teenager.  She's a pretty well-known influencer, as is her friend, who I also follow on Instagram as MerMag.  Both brilliant women, and I was excited that they both bought items from me.  So fun to meet people you admire. 

I bought some more turquoise blue transferware for my collection that day. 

I knew I wanted the platter, but wasn't sure that the bowl would match the pitcher I bought in Texas last year.  I was thrilled when not only the color matched, but the motif as well.  Weirdly this color was popular in Europe in the 1800's but was never made in the USA until they started doing restaurant ware in the 20's, but I'm not a fan of restaurant ware.  One of the other dealers, who is also in The Grove with me, is evidently thinning her collection, and she is always reasonably priced. Lucky me. 

I asked Emily for pictures of Bekie receiving an award for some art she entered in this contest.  She took first place. 

I loved it.  Nicely done Bekie. 

On Friday I got my 70 Riisipiirakkas done in time to go up to a popup sale in Heber.  This gal buys in Europe, but is only open a few weekends a year.  I bought the green plaid box on the bottom shelf for the carriage house. 

The owner is on the right, and the gal in the middle has a shop in Midway that we also went to. 

One of the employees there said we needed to stop at this place.  

Which was great because look what I found there for our Moon week. 

At Haven, the other shop, there was this cute ribbon display that I want to copy for my new sewing booth at Treasures. 

That night Dad and I met up with Darby and Dallas at Redemption, a night club in Herriman.  Here is Dallas's brother Zach and their folks, with the man himself to the right. 

Here are the brothers on stage.

and Dallas with his cool retro look guitar, and the lead singer as they sing about space...

There was a screen for each of their songs, and this one was playing right into my hand. 

Here are Dallas' folks with some light on their faces.

Here we are with Dallas.

This shot was perfect because besides Darby and Dallas the screen of the band name, Groovy Mule is showing behind them.

On Saturday I put together my 120 rissipiirakkas and we headed to the reunion we have been planning with the young missionaries for the Kervinens.  Here I am with Leena.  She was so much fun to work with for the last 7 months of our last mission.  She is also a crafter, though more of a sewer than I am. 

Here we are in the event center one of our missionaries has in her back yard.  They had just finished it up and I think our event was the first. 

Her family even provided the fancy cookies. 

It was fun to see some of our favorite missionaries.  Here is Brett Andersen, who lived in Trevor and Nell's first ward in PG.  He and his folks came to dinner at our house before his mission.  He then served as an AP, which means we got to know him even better.  What a great young man. 

I loved how his son is checking out this cute baby girl.  How cool would it be if they later met and married.  I hope I live to hear about it, so I can share this picture. 

Another AP is Eli Staggs, who married another of our favorite missionaries, Dessi Anderson. 

Unfortunately, I missed getting a picture of Pete Vawdry, another favorite, but we talked about architecture, and I told him about the Coconut Grove where my folks met back in 1933.  I told him about the college project I did on the buildings on this block of Salt Lake.  At the time the New House hotel had already been torn down, but it wasn't until after he and I talked about it that I realize the Coconut Grove, or Terrace, as it was being called by then was the largest ballroom in the United States at the time my parents met there.  I also learned that the year after I did the project, it too was torn down.  Anyway, we were talking about this because he is studying to be an architect.  

Here are more missionaries, Alex Jimenez, Aubrey Jensen, who lived in Texas in a ward that bordered Emily's.  The tall blonde is her Utah husband, then there's Amy Gilliat with her husband. 

Here is Dad with McKenna Field, who was one of the four missionaries in the Documentary that was made about Mormon Missionaries in Finland while we were on our second mission, and her fiancé, Ben Wilson. 

Here is Dad with Kenji Noftle, and a missionary he trained after we left.

This is Jennifer Randle, who married Oliver Harlow, and Dad. Her father and Uncle Guy are friends of of the Kews.  Dad actually met Guy when they were both running down Provo Canyon while he was training for a half marathon.

Here are Elders Logan Perkins, Will Stitcher, Eli Staggs, Jace (Handsome) Kimball, Alex Jimenez and Brett Andersen holding Nico.

Eli and Brett were companions and Assistants who we got to know well. 

Grace Armstrong Krueger, Amy Gilliat and Karli Moss. 

This is most of the 230 in attendance taken by drone by Vern Parmley who served as half of a senior couple who took over for us when we left. 

And now we get into the flying part of the title this week.  We were ready to head out when we ran into Savanna Allred who was heading out to take her private pilot license test at the Spanish Fork Airport .... 

She posted that she had been successful on facebook later that day ... which made her the second lady pilot I know of, because ...

The day before my grandneice Samantha (Sam) Douglass had gotten her license at Corpus Christie.  We're so proud to be related to her.  Now I just hope that when we got to Maryland/Virgina/West Virginia in June that we'll get to meet her.  Though, as you see, she's in the service, and may not be at her leisure to be at home then.  But we can hope.  We came very close to going down for her graduation, and the eclipse, but it was not to be. 

Trevor and Penny stopped by Ben's grave that day, as they had other business in Springville. 

Dad and I drove directly from the reunion (via DI)  to Moon's Rare Books in Provo and got to see one of the original Gutenberg bibles.  180 copies were printed in 1455, of these there 145 were done in paper and 35 in vellum.  49 survived into the 20th century, only 21 of these are complete, this is one of the complete ones. He also has a Guttenberg bible that is incomplete that you can buy by the page and they will frame for you. 

And Dad even got to hold it. 

We saw lots of goodies from the vault, but he shared the history of one of these Books of Mormon that were owned by Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith and Samuel.  The one owned by Hyrum was sold for $1.25 to Reynolds Calhoun.  He bought it to give it to a Calhoun relative who was not a member. The family never did join but always treasured the book.  A generation later they gave it to a family of their Slaves, along with dishes and other precious items.  The book was then passed down in that family.  The last member of the family gathered the provenance and sold it to someone in Arizona. Reid Moon said that it is unusual to have an uninterrupted provenance of a book.  The lady gave them old cabinet cards of members of her family who owned it and asked that they stay with it. 

This is a book from Marie Antonette's personal library on the left, and her personal prayer book on the right.  You see her personal crest on both. 

We saw other items like the shooting script for Star Wars and the original story script which was heavily edited before it became the shooting script.  He randomly read a page, and it was so fun to see a pre-existent version of the movie we know and love.  For one thing Luke's original last name was Starkiller. 

We stopped by Dave and Bri's on the way home, as they had picked up our Indian food for us, and how perfect is Nenna's shirt for our theme of the week?

It was also fun to remember that they have a picture of the moon over their stairs to the first basement. 

I asked Davin to hold up this slate that belonged to Bri's Dad.  It's a beautiful painting, very well done.  What a treasure. 

A fun thing that was going on all week, is that someone posted on the Payson FB page, asking what the deal was about the vultures in the trees in front of that scary looking house on Mainstreet.

So, this one refers to the murder of the neighbor by the Hill's son. 

After Brent York dissed on us Sue Stringham stood up for us. 

Trevor even got in on the conversation. 

So, when we saw Brent and Jane leaving church as we arrived, (They were divided out of our ward before our first mission) we stopped them so we could give them a bad time.  He said he was surprised that we didn't reply online.  As if.

and last, but I hope not least, is this man in the moon I made from an older design that's been kicking around forever.  I've been purposely buying round objects to do this treatment, for over a year, but have not actually done one. All the focus on the moon has really made me feel like its about time. This guy is going to Treasures this week, after. he gets a waterproof top coat, that is, I hope others like this face as well as I do. 

We had a lovely and memorable week.  Our Fast and Testimony meeting was amazing.  I was particularly touched by Gustavo Ramerez testimony. You kids will recall that both he and Nancy joined the church as teenagers.  He is the only member of his family, but well remembers what it was like to grow up without the Spirit being present in his home.  He said how grateful he was that he had found the gospel, and that he feels sorry for people who have never known the warmth of the having the Spirit dwell with them.  

We hope you all had an amazing week as well.