Tuesday, June 17, 2014

My Lip Got Hurt By A Lion and a Giant Mouse at Grandpa's House.


Yep, another week slips through the hour glass ... and becomes history.  This one started with a visit from my visiting teachers, then I was off to a luncheon at a friend's house in Salt Lake.

I loved a lot of her amazing antiques, like the charming pink dresser and green side cabinet above!
Her daughter manages the local Restoration Hardware, so she received the big horn IPad dock as a gift.  It was the IPhone dock that Trevor saw and replicated, so I thought he would enjoy seeing this.
As you can see, my friend Lauri is the one that 'adopted' my parlor doll, for her parlor.  I asked her if her kids are as creeped out by it as mine were.  She said "Not at all."  Ha, I knew it!
I did love her stair case photo gallery of family photos and I am thinking of doing this in the third floor stair case, once the bed room up there is down.  What do you think?
.... and you may recognize this desk, as one I bought from Bruce Alison and painted ... She's actually been one of my best customers!

.... And look what a charming table she set.  The other guest was Jennine Ashley, who is one of my favorite 'off again on again' flea.o.logy dealers. 

Loved this sweet black and white striped French awning and flower box. 


After the luncheon I headed out to do a little junking before digging in at grandpa Carlo's house.  The house had been sold and the closing was to be Friday, which meant an insane week for Dad and me.  I found this sweet portrait of grandma Ida holding Aunt Karen as a baby, so I ran it over to Karen's house!

I was amazed by the boxes and boxes of photos, all mixed together, pictures of our children we had given grandma and grandpa over the years, and crumpled pictures of Dad's childhood all mixed in with pictures of grandpa Carlo as a child.  I sorted out crumpled garbage bits and put the boxes of photos, albums, histories etc, in the van to later stack in my library to await a time when my life slows down, so I can get them sorted.  

Of course there where boxes and boxes of books and other goodies for the Deseret Industries.  Thank Heavens Becca brought me lots of boxes when she came to unlock the house for me.


That girl has been a wonder ... She has spent so much time and energy researching solutions to a multitude of problems over the last year in the sale of this house, and she really did manage to pull it off!  I hope the mortgage company appreciates her, most people would have handed them the key a year ago.

Dad joined me around 6 and we kept at it.  When we got home around 9:00 we had a late dinner while watching an episode of the Big Bang Theory before crashing.  


On Tuesday I was off to Salt Lake again.  This time I had lunch with my friend Arlene, before heading back to Grandpa's for more fun and entertainment.  This time there was no Dad, as he was at the Provo temple doing his regular weekly shift.  



On Wednesday it was work as always, then I picked up Spencer at the MTC , where he was leaving their car for Brittney when she got off.  When we got to Salt Lake we met up with Trevor and Nell, Davin and Bri, Dad, Darby, and Becca, who were all hard at work!

Above we see Davin checking out a nice double knit sport coats of grandpa's, doesn't he look so very GQ?!


Everyone had a chance to hold this sweet bundle! 

 Becca and Darby had discovered the door to the crawl space in the laundry room  and between them they brought up 20 very heavy boxes of books, albums, photos and year books ... Thank heavens they thought to look.  Having never lived in a house with a crawl space, it never even occurred to me! ... And since the house is being bull dozed, all that family history would have been lost!!

... and Eva even pitched in to help me load things for the DI!

Davin and Trevor did the honors further back in the crawl space, deep under the living room, literally crawling through a shallow tunnel to reach it all.  They didn't find a thing worth saving, just as Davin had predicted, but at least I won't worry that we missed something of family significance ... Loved this old mouse mask, that Trevor came up wearing, tons are fun... But unfortunately it was too broken to salvage. 

Dad and I stopped for Slurpees and got home sometime after 10.  Yawn!

Dad's Thursday included getting to work early and getting off early to get back to Grandpa's house.  He called Ben and got him to come and help him as the dumpster had arrived and it was time to fill er up! Then the rest of the kids showed up later, and with the deadline looming, they all managed to get er done!!


My Thursday started with my normal walk, but Ginny and I walked down to Payson Market to pick up the stuff I needed for the Tea party I was hosting after work that night, instead of our normal route.  I got home in time for some general house keeping to get the house ready ...  Then it was off to a regular day at work.

When I got home, I got the table set up, and the food set out,  before ...


Shanna, our book club leader in the ward, arrived in her finest tea party attire!!  It was so fun, we had purposely chosen a book that would lend itself to a tea party!!  The book was Eden Brooke, and we all loved it!!
Ginny, Shanna and Lori!

... And Ginny even had her girly IPad available for research during our discussion! 

Then Dad got home from the marathon loading day at Grandpas. We both so appreciate all the hard work and hours the kids put in to help us, we would never have made it on our own!

Then Spencer and Brittney came up and gifted him a pair of 'Helsinki' hatchets, their newest line!  How fun is that?


On Friday, exhausted me slept in until 9:30.... Boy was that luxurious, unfortunately, Dad did not have the same privilege, as he and Becca got to go and do the signing on Grandpa's house.  

I cleaned up the tea party mess, I had abandoned the night before, then did my Pollyanna blog post spot lighting the tea party.


Dad got home about the same time the roofer brought his family by to clean up debris in the yard.  Pretty fun to see a family helping the family business, eh?  This is the same man, Pabloita, who will be doing our custom rain gutters! 

Then we headed up the canyon to meet up with ....
the Heuers, Moes, and Gearhearts at the condo in Park City where the Moes were doing a little get away ... We had dinner and played games, and laughed and laughed.  We basically had a great time!

On Saturday I was off to work again.  Dad worked on getting the lawn mowed for the first time in a month, then he went and picked up the kids in P.G., as Trevor and Nell had gone to San Francisco for their 11th anniversary.  Then Dad had errands to run and stopped and got Slurpees for the kids, and one for me!  How nice is he? Here he is with Eva after they delivered mine!  

Later he took the kids to Aunt Briahnna and Uncle Davin's house for the evening, before picking me up and heading to a wedding reception in Lyndon for the Brimhall's middle daughter, the Brimhalls lived up the street when we lived where Ashley and Andy do now!!  


After the wedding we headed to the Hale Center Theater, where we saw a Steam Punked version of Peter Pan, that I more than loved!!  Heuers, Moes and Gearhearts joined us there.  In fact I am thinking Gearheart is the perfect steampunk name ... You know like a robot must have gears for a heart!?!

 Here's a picture of part of the stage, and Barb too!

 I took the chance to meet the actors afterwards,which I rarely do, because I am too honest to be able to pull off telling them I loved the play when I didn't.  This time that wasn't an issue, I adored every minute!!

Turns out Mr Darling/Captain Hook was the director of a play that Daniel Heuer was in in high school ... very cool!

After the play Dad went to Davin and Bri's to retrieve the children we were watching for the weekend, and while there he delivered the lederhosen that I had found for Elias, about three months ago, and finally made the connection.  Look they fit, and Briahnna, who spent part of a school year in Austria during high school, can actually appreciate cute leather shorts for her son! Doe, Ray, Me, Fa ....


 Then it was home and time to tuck the munchkins into bed.  I set up our short camp cot for Eleanor, and it barely fit!  Scott slept in the library.

But clearly Eleanor and Grandpa did not get enough sleep, because here they are snoozing in church ...  Of course after Dad's week hauling and hauling and hauling stuff from Grandpa's house, that was to be expected.

 ... and here are my three men after church!

 We spent part of the afternoon watching Pollyanna in my room.

Eva and Eleanor also put furniture into the dollhouse.  More decorating is needed still, but I think they enjoyed it.  Kim played with the doll hosue when she was this age, but its been in storage pretty much ever since.

Scott was playing Risk with Brittney and Spencer, when Britt and Mike and their kids arrived for our Father's day Home Made Icecream evening.





 and here are cousins who rarely see each other eating home made icecream together in honor of their amazing grandfather.
 ... one last funny story for the week.  Not sure you can tell, but this is supposed to show Eva's sore lip.  When they were all playing at Elias' house the night before, Elias did something, not sure what, that hurt her lip.  She had a big sore, and later a blister ... when Emily called to wish Dad a happy Father's day, Eva was talking to her on the phone and said ..."My lip got hurt by Elias" ... and Emily thought she said, "My lip got hurt by a lion!"  We all got plenty of giggles about that.
.. and last of all is my poor blurry picture of Britt Squared!!


Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Texans Kissing Hippos and Fishes, Bachelor Weds and Flea Marketing too!.

Wow, what a week.  The first day of the week found us still visiting with Emily and Sam in Texas.  We started out on Monday going to the Alamo. 





Then we were off to the river walk, which is beautiful.  Look how strong Emily is, she just hauled the stroller and baby up and down stairs whenever they threatened to get in the way of our stroll.
These color umbrellas spot light the restaurant where we stopped for Mexican food, delicious!! Casa Rio!

One parting shot of Becki and grandpa in the window of the Alamo wall ... can you see the secret picture of Becki's Mom?
Back home it was time for family home evening ... one of the gold fish had died so we got to hear Sam explain death to a one year old and a two year old.  Good times!!

 On Tuesday we just took it easy, we watched several episodes of Downton Abbey, season 4.  Emily had watched the first three on Net Flix, and I figured that since I would be buying it anyway, I might as well do it while we were there.

Then that night I read a notice on Face Book that Jean Larsen was picking Tomm up at the airport (they have been living in San Antonio something like 15 years!!  You may recall that Sam lived with them for a couple of months when he first came to SA before he and Emily bought the house there!) and they would be driving to their new home in Las Vegas the same day we were to head out.  Scott called and offered to help them load their moving van, but since it was all loaded he offered to come over and help Tomm add some sheet rock behind where the washer normally sites.  As it turns out on Wednesday morning that is just what he did.

You may recall that Jean Larson is my cousin on my Dad's side.  She is actually a niece of my Dad's cousin, Ruby Haight.

When he was done we all headed to the sunken gardens and to the zoo ... here are some pictures at the gardens ...




... and then at the zoo ....
brushing the giant pigs.
There's a got at the petting zoo that nibbles shirts ....
... and if you have a cup of nectar, these birds will fly down and sit on your hand while they eat it.
This animal was not known to exist until 1902 ... a head like a giraffe, a body like a horse and the hind quarters are like a zebra .... very cool.

In the hippo house, William was just happy with the fish ... he loved watching them and even kissing them ...
... then the hippo came over and Becki gave him a kiss!!

When we got back home Becki had fun looking at the zoo pictures on my phone.
Then on Thursday morning we got up early and loaded the van and headed west ... we spent the night in Albuquerque, then headed to Santa Fe, where we saw this church.  The story of the miraculous stair case was in the Norman Rockwell book of Christmas stories we read to the kids when they were young, so when Scott's cousin Karen mentioned it several weeks ago, we decided to do it!!
The chapel was really lovely ... if you want to know the story, google, Sante Fe, Miraculous Staircase.

We got home Friday night, and got to see our new dormer and roof in progress ... That was pretty exciting.
On Saturday we were off early and stopped in Springville, as Treasures was having their big flea market ...  Next it was to Salt Lake for our nephew Jack's wedding.

Leaving downtown Salt Lake, I dropped Dad off in Taylorsville for an inventory, then headed to Utah County where I got to see my favorite ballerina in performance!!
Didn't Nell do a cute job with her hair?

Then it was back to the Market Street Grill in Cottonwood Heights for Jack and Jane's wedding dinner.

This is my niece Kristin, and my brother Bruce and his wife Dianne.
This is my youngest brother Ross, with Kristin's husband, Ray.
This is my brother Emory and his wife Nina, not Nina Lou!
Since I matched Doug and Shirley, I snuck into their photo.
... and here are the happy parents of the groom, JoLyn, with my brother Clark. It was so fun to be with all my living brothers, and most of their darling wives!!

On Sunday I finished up my lesson before heading to church to sit with Spencer, as Brittney was playing a musical number in the nursing home branch.  ... and since Dad is the high councilor over that branch he was there too.

I was really happy with my lesson, and the more I teach, the more I can see the inspiration behind the preparation of these lessons.  I felt the spirit so strongly this week, as I taught, that it felt like an amazing privilege to get to teach!
That night we had most of the kids over for Navajo tacos and general hanging out with the family fun!






... and that was our fun and busy week!! Love you all!!