Per Perkins Perhe: Trekking to Texas

We start the week with something that happened the end of last week. Britt found a mom on the Trail Mom page who is also from Boise. Her son is hiking the trail Kai is traveling also solo. The moms worked their mom magic, and at least for now the two are traveling together. What a great mix of technology and old-time solo hiking.

We left on Sunday to drive to Texas to see our band of Texans one last time before our new mission. Near the end of the second day, we arrived at my favorite antique store in Texas. It's called Rustic Relics, and it's in Quanah, about 3 hours west of Emily's family. I managed to spend a bit more than $100.

Then before we knew it, we were in Savoy. We had brought some books and puzzles for the kids, Including a puzzle of the National Parks for William and the Payson puzzle with our house for Bekie.

Here's the whole adorable gang in their PJs .

Benny and Johnny got a whole Usborne set of easy readers, and we see Benny here reading one to us all. Emily says Benny reads to Johnny all the time so it will be perfect for both of them.

Here he is with the box

Here is Johnny doing some tumbling after the kids went to school on Tuesday.

and here he is at a musical park later.

Emily introduced me to this gal who works at a beauty college, because I needed a hair cut. She's a friend who is from Brazil, and is married to an American Jewish man. She was an administrator at the college. Emily had been to her house and had learned how to make the cheesy round rolls, that I enjoy at Aubergin. Emily had frozen some and we got to eat them one night. Yum.

This little gal did my haircut. She did a great job,

Here we are!!

I met up with Dad and Emily at Aldi's a store that is a lot like the Lidl store we shopped at in Finland. We always come home with lots of groceries from this great store. Maybe someday we'll have one in Utah. This is Johnny in the window of the store, silly boy.

When the girls got home Emily and I took them for pedicures.

Which has become a fun tradition for these trips.

The girls love it, and I really needed one.

Voila

And while we were in Texas, Trevor took the opportunity while on a business trip to rent a car with a coworker and hit his 50th state!

Your Awesome, Becca got her 50th last year when they went on the cruise to Alaska.

If Tuesday was beauty day, then Wednesday was junking day. We started at the Goodwill Bins, an outlet store with lots of good deals. We laughed when we saw the Utah beanie, but there were a lot of beanies. In fact Sam has a friend we ran into at the store. He has a hat shop online, and they are 25c here. Perfect. Emily ran into a licensed Dr. Who long striped scarf and called him. He was very excited, again 25c and it sells online for $100.

Then she and Dad dropped me off down town where I shopped a couple of antique stores, spending about $80. These Chatelains are the first I have ever seen in person. That was so fun. The owner said they had just come in, and he had called 2 interested customers. The one on the right is sterling, and he thought it would sell for $1800.

I took a picture of these pin cushions, thinking they'd be a nice addition to my sewing ribbons, laces and hat booth I am putting together at Treasures right now. I forgot to mention that I got about 20 old hats at the Bins for 25c each.

I thought the lace here was so charming I need to figure out a way to secure strips of antique lace to shelves in my sewing booth, so that they can be priced and sold. Lots of ideas percolating all week.

While I was shopping this boy and his mom and grandpa were shopping too. They found lego sets for the boys who missed out on the pedis. He also go to go to lunch at McD !

Back home we find boys that read together.

Then Papa oversaw them as they built their lego sets, or should I say while William built their lego sets.

Later it was time for art night.

Here is my offering.

Abby was amazed at this accidental bit of art when we lifted the paint brush off the plate.

Here's our art.

I brought Rebecca J Yokey's second book. You may recall that she is my cousin, the artist, Debbie's daughter, and she wrote a set of 12 books with two other gals that are sort of a magical world take off on the characters from Pride and Prejudice. I was explaining to Bekie that she would not be named Bekie if it were not for this cousin. Debbie's daughter Becca, is named for Debbie's Mom Becky, who was actually raised with my mother by Debbie's grandmother LaRie and who is also my Aunt LaRie, who raised her little sister, my Mom. I named our Rebecca after Debbie's daughter, because I thought Becca was such a cute name. Then gave our Becca the middle name of LaRie to honor this wonderful Aunt, so in a way Becca is named for both a mother and her daughter.

(Also, after Dad's grandmother LaRee, which lead to one spelling on her birth certificate and another on her Social Security card. Bad idea, I guess, as it gave my newborn daughter an Alias)I finished reading the book while I was there, and left it for Bekie and Abby to read as its for young teens.

Anyway, When I told Bekie that, she asked what the J in her cousin-author's name was. I got in touch with Debbie, and Yep, she is Rebecca Jane, so fun for our Rebekah Jane. Which all proves how much I love family history. Further marking this coming mission the perfect one for me.

Abigail is checking out the little chairs that Emily got for 25c each at the Bins.

On Thursday, early before we headed to Trade Days, we took the kids to breakfast at a neighborhood cafe. Benny is eating a pancake the same size as his head.

Here are the rest of us.

We entered the flea market from a different entrance and found a whole new quarter of the market we have never seen before. With impending rain, we rushed through row after row after row of long building filled with regular dealers, to get to the lawns where the prices are better.

We even found the Perkins Plaza there near the new to us entrance.

We had a great day and I managed to spend $175 on things, mostly that I had been looking for. A couple of old spools, for $5 each and some Crystal doorknobs sets that I thought would be attractive spools as well. I bought 5 sets of cyrstal knobs for a total of $40. Of course, I found some books too.

After the flea we got to go out and see Abby's softball game.

She has great form.

and a great cheer leader.

So, she is bound to be a winner.

Papa and Bekie rest towards the end.

The next morning I snapped a shot of kids who were ready to be gone .... "Oh Grandma"

Dad did a few handy things while there, like hanging these rods to replace the tension bars she had been using. The house is so cute, it was so fun to spend a few days there.

Emily and Johnny sit on the porch as we finish packing up the car.

I went around to the side to get a picture of this view of the house.

The front is largely obscured by the big tree.

We stopped and dropped Abby's lunch into her Dad's hand. Bye Sam!

We liked this triple painting in our hotel room in Albuquerque that night. And in the morning were greeted with hot air balloons aloft as we left for the last leg of our journey.

I brought Abby my Tomie De Paola collection, as she is a fellow fan of the children's book author and illustrator. How fun is that. She had another game Friday night as they finish up their regular season.

Then they hopped in the car to take a little trip of their own. They went to the Marvel Resort in Oklahoma.

Looks like they are having fun at the near by camp ground with lots of amenities.

Abbie is not really flying here, she is actually jumping on a trampoline. What a lot of fun.

So much fun stuff. I bet they'll be going back soon. Way to go Sam for finding it.

Dad and I drove straight to SLC to catch this comedian who is Finnish. Darby had gotten tickets for the 3 of us before she ever thought of buying a house. The darling girl drove down the night before and stayed with Becca's family before meeting us at the show Saturday night. The show went well, but he has gotten a lot more vulger than when we saw him a couple of years ago, and he wasn't clean then. But he's gone from potty humor to fairly explicit sexual humor. He said he's become more American in his humor, but as a Californian now, I think he misjudged this market. Still enjoyed a lot of it.