GROUP SHOTS

    Oh, Monday, Monday ...  What a day.  

There was laundry to fold, book titles from my old book journals to put into the spread sheet Dad set up for me so I can do more efficient searches of questions I have about books I've read over the last 27 years, like "have I already read this book?" 

I also, finally got around to finishing up this group of trunks by doing the last one on the bottom.  I started on the stack in January, and now it's done.

Here is what they looked like in January

Halfway there ...

Me working on the last one on Monday.

Then Dad headed to Barbershop Practice, and I headed to Salt Lake to see how Aunt Joyce was doing.  Dianne and Bruce had been visiting with her but had to leave when she received another visitor because she was in intensive care. I was just glad I got to see them before they left so I had a chance to visit for a minute.

She was in intensive care because when they were putting in a port for dialysis she threw up, and aspirated.  They worked on her so intensively that Joyce, who was conscious, had a sense of watching a TV medical drama emergency on TV, and then realized it was her emergency.  When I went in, it was to meet Darby who was visiting with Joyce, talking about ideas of what to do with Joyce's horses.

On Tuesday two guys from BYU came to make specific choices of places to shoot for the student movie that the gal previewed last week.

Later I headed up to St. Marks to find Clark and Jo visiting.  One or both of them were there every day this past week.

Joyce looked so much better.

On Wednesday I was off to work.  Here I am with Joette nee' Harmon from the Payson ward, who was  friends with Emily.  That was fun.

and Speaking of Emily, who also loves fairy tales, like her Mom, I loved this C.S. Lewis quote. How about you Emily?

When I got home that night, Dad had cleared off the chipping paint from the roof of the van and applied some spray paint.  It has not done well in the weather since being replaced in the garage by Dad's new jeep. Didn't he do a great job, and for only $7.50 ... 

That night Dad joined others in the stake to spread these wood chips

around this play area up at Peteetneet. He really is the energizer bunny.

    On Thursday morning I walked at the cemetery with Tina, in the red, and ran into Bobette Bridenbaugh.  That was fun, and I realized that she reminds me of my friend Kim. It not just the glasses, blonde hair, and short stature, she is also fun and bouncy. 

At work on Thursday, Nell and Trevor came in to say hi, as they were in south county doing the parade of homes.  So fun to see them, and I encouraged them to choose a book to take home ... yep, I'm that book lady.

How cute are we?

After work we met up with Bri and Dave who were taking us to dinner for Father's day.  Not sure how I got included, but we went to Kay's Kitchen and got to see Rui's family too.  Always a good time.

I wanted to show you this picture of Becca and girls from her office out getting some exercise, golfing as it happens ... don't they look great?

Because here I am with my girlfriends out getting some exercise on Friday morning, kayaking as it happens, on Salem Pond.  This is Kathy and Ann .... and weirdly, I had the same impression about Kathy, as I had had about Bobette the day before ... she also reminds me of Kimi and for the same reasons.

What do you think?

Well, Dad wanted to share this shot of Tim and Emily DeWitt as they get a gift basket from their realtor as they get a new house.  Not sure why Becca has a square halo, I've only noticed a round one before.

On Friday we had hoped to stop and see Joyce on our way up to Bountiful to Aunt Shirley's sister Debbie's funeral services. Unfortunately, she was in dialysis at the time and was not allowed visitors.  Here Dad is talking to Hannah, my friend Arlene's daughter.

Thie is Doug and Shirley with Andrew and his wife and one of their daughters.

Here they are with Megan and her youngest son.

Again, Lady pallbearers, my friend Arlene, and her daughter just to the right of her, and Uncle Doug too. There is also Cousin Andrew second to the right.

Here are Debbie's 5 surviving siblings, with my brother Doug just behind. Debbie was the oldest, then my Sister-in-Law Shirley, then my college bestie Arlene, next came Carol, David and Lon.  Not shown in order. (in photo order,  Arlene, David, Carol, Shirley and Lon)

Arlene and me.

Dad, me, Doug and Shirley. Then it was off to Morgan, Utah, Because ...

 

Friday was also midsummer in Finland .... so of course, true faux Finns will want to celebrate it here ...

Fortunately, the darling London's are still hosting this event in Morgan.  This group is of the Watson's, Dad's and my first mission Presidents, us and then Jace and Hannah Jordan who we served with in Finland when they were singetons, and the Harrises who we served with as a couple.

This darling girl is the Smith daughter.  Her name is Eliisa Smith, just like her mom.  I was soooo confused.  You can see her Dad over her left shoulder here.  The Smith's saved us by being our only senior couple friends during covid after the other senior couples went home.  We started going out to their home an hour away as soon as we were allowed to visit those over 70, as had been the restiction initially in Finland, in the meantime we played zilch on face time. Oh, how we came to love them.

Here we are with Burke and Toni Rees, Dad and he were in the big LTM 

group of 24 who arrived in Finland in August of 72.

This is me with Eliisa's daughter Eliisa and with Berti, who was in Finland before Dad and whose mission overlapped just a few months with him.

These are all missionaries who served with the Watsons.

These are the missionaries that served with Sister Wade when her husband was the mission President, plus 3 wives, 2 of whom served with her on her later mission to Finland.

It was such a blowsie  day, but nice because that made it cooler.  Still, it was murder on our hair.

On Saturday I did the decorative painting on the fun antique cupboard I bought a month ago.  We are trying to get the room cleaned up and organized as Nadine will be coming over for dinner and a movie here in a few weeks and it's the only place in the house we can see a movie with others.  It seems the family room has become sort of a stopping point for stuff going to the antique mall, so it's good to try to figure out a better system.

Today we got a sub for our primary class and went to Ron and LaVern's farewell!  Here we are with some of the former Mosida missionaries. The Gurrs, the Hays, Sister Pittman, the Marvins, the Crumps, the Smiths, the Lathrops, the Perkins, the Brimhalls and the current directors the Newmans.

These folks went to the Crumps house.  Perkins, Crumps, Hays, Newmans and Brimhalls.

And some DeJa'Vu, selfie-ing with another

of Emily's buddies, Jennifer Nee' Crump.

We headed home where I did Joyce's laundry and made her some nut bread, before we headed back to Salt Lake for a visit.  Bruce and Dianne were there, and this time we could all be in the room, for a lovely visit, that included some fun old Larsen Stories, so old that they dealt with Grandpa Charles missionary journals, and Aunt LaRee's letters to mom. 

Here are half of our parents' surviving children.

And in the mood to snoop around the internet concerning other relatives, I came up with this dandy ... probably at the Larsen Brothers Shell Station because two of the brothers are wearing service station garb ...  Left to right ... My Dad, Monte, Grandfather Charles Larsen, Tenny and Gene. 

or Rudolph, DerMonte Roosevelt, Charles Oscar, Tennis and Eugene. (We had talked about the brothers' fighting names at the hospital.)  

Bruce said that when Dad was young he got teased about Rudolph Valentino, and just about the time that cooled down .... along came Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. 

And on that happy thought I will bid you adieu. 

15 Finnish Connections and a Sea Captain.

See if you can find the 15 Finns/Finnish Missionaries ... the correct attributions are at the bottom.

Hello to a new week.  These cuties are getting some wonderful Okada time in,

I love this picture of Van and Cam with their Aunt Angela.

What Joy!

and just for fun here is a 20-year-old memory.  One of my favorite incarnations of our kitchen.  Pink and white striped wallpaper, roses on black border and antique black floral tole trays.

but I can beat that one, this one is 43 years ago and was taken in Harmony House in Cottonwood Heights.  Trevor is the baby here, and I hope you can see that my taste in Home Decor got better over time.

Dad says that the name of the house is indicated in our family song, where it says "In our house of Harmony"

On Tuesday we got to meet with these world travelers, they are Mae and Kai, originally from Malasia, they've been in Finland for 12 years, where they joined the church and we met them, and hung out with them on both of our mission.

Scott has them sign our guest book.

The two older kids are theirs, the little one is the daughter of Katie Cooper, the blond on the end was one of our missions with us and knew the family too. (Katie is from Payson and is a member of the family that bordered our horses here 27 years ago.)

Checking out the library.

Here we are outside as they're ready to go,

This one shows Katie instead of me.

That night we headed to Nadines for dinner and a movie.  We watched the second of the Wedding Veil series.

I was looking at this painting in her living room, and it turns out it was painted by Rebecca Peery who lives in our neighborhood.  Later when looking at Rebecca's page I saw it and screen shotted it.

Nadine grew up Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and said she saw these sweet moms totting their babies this way all the time.

I also saw this one that I love, which reminds me of  Kristen Tyes poppy painting.  I love it, and now I am thinking I need to go over and see what Rebecca has for sale.

I had three fun customers at work on Wednesday and Thursday.  This gal bought this basket from me, and said she'd been looking for one for over a year.  She said she had another like it and that she had used that one to carry the things she was able to save when her house burned. last year. What?! Yep, her home is in Lahaina, and we got to hear all about the fire, and the recovery. Very interesting.a 

This guy is a UVU theater student.  He came in looking for theater related antiques, costumes, or books, etc.  I happened to have this early 1900s edition of a theater costuming tome that came from the library I just bought, and I thought he'd be thrilled, which he was.

This gal came in and bought this wide brim straw hat, similar to one that Scarlet Ohara wears in Gone With the Wind ... and it was perfect with the outfit she was wearing.

When Ann and I went kayaking on Friday morning we found that an extended family of Canadian geese had set up a camp site on the beach where we launch.

But as soon as we hauled out the kayaks they scattered, what a beautiful place to start the day.

Then Dad and I started our film career under the able handling of our script writer and camera lady, Becca. Here we play the part of annoyed senior citizens whose yard has been invaded by neighbor kids.

Here I am a destressed senior climbing the stairs, that didn't really take any acting for me.

In this one the old man's back aches as he does yard work.

Ah here we are happy with our single level living.

In my beautiful new kitchen.

the old man is probably daydreaming about singing barbershop.

Yep! I was right, here he is singing with his chorus in the summer show that night.

a close up of his dramatic face.

This quartet, 3 1/2 men, won international last year.  They were so entertaining.

Here's an artsy self-portrait back stage.

Here are Dad's supporters, me, our friend Nadine, Dallas and Darby.

Nadine took this one.

Just for fun here's another blast from the past, Emily and Becca at fleaology, back in the day.

Here's my friend Garna, who used to do fleaology.  I thought I would do a new blog post on my fleaology blog about 'where are they now' a post about where all the dealers who used to do my shows at my house had gone.  I saw this one and wondered what had happened to her.  

Then on the way home from Becca's filming fun, we stopped at Winco, and who should I run into, even wearing the same shirt.  What are the chances?

I put in the hollyhock on the left, as the one I planted there last year had died.  The one on the right survived, I had transplanted it last year too, now I have hollyhocks on both sides of the garden house door.

Ashley and Andy were taking it easy in Vermont this week.  Yeah, love birds.

Here are some more love birds. Friday was Trevor and Nell's 22nd anniversary

On Saturday Dad ran to SLC to hit the first hour of their all-day coaching practice.

Meanwhile Nadine and I went to judge a neighborhood art show.  That was super fun

Here we are with some of the art.

Then Dad and I met in Spanish Fork for Rich Kotter's funeral.   He was one of Dad's companions in Finland. During the funeral I got a text from Aunt Shirley saying that JoLyn had called her to say that she and Clark had just gone with Aunt Joyce to St. Mark's from the emergency room in Tooele, with apparent kidney failure, following her in an ambulance.  So here I am listening to a great soprano singing How Great Thou Art, the part at the end that goes, "When Christ shall come, with shouts of acclamation, and take me home, what joy will fill my heart.  Then I shall bow, in humble adoration and then proclaim, my God how great thou art."  And I had a sudden thought that Joyce was going home and would get to see Mom and Dad before me.  I had such sorrowful pangs, and then felt so ashamed at begrudging her the joy. Bad sister.

 As it turns out she's not as far gone as I had let myself imagine, and she is now in the hospital there having tests done, etc, to see what can be done.  I'll keep you posted.

We sat with Sister Wade at the funeral.  It's hard to believe that this woman is 86, don't you think?  She said that it's come down to just her and "Scott", who are attending the missionary funerals now. Dad had another companion pass away about 6 months ago. She drove down from Bountiful, for the funeral, and was going to lunch with her grandson in Provo afterward.  What a gal.

Then I dropped Dad off at their coaching session and headed up to Willowcreek to pick up a few more items from the gal I bought from a couple of weeks ago.  She was having her garage sale, and it was about to end, so I bought even more from her.

Dad and I had planned to hit the 1.3.5 show at the Cottonwood Country Club after I picked him up, but due to the news about Joyce, I was so worried, I didn't care about the art show at the country club... is that the most amazing thing?

When we got to the hospital we had a nice visit with Joyce, then Clark came back.  He and Jo had been with her in the emergency room for hours, then had gone home for lunch after getting her admitted.  It was great that he came back and caught us up on things.  I think Joyce's blood sugar was so wanky, from all the throwing up she'd been doing over the last four days, that she was not entirely lucid.  

Later Bruce came by and the two of them with Scott gave her a priesthood blessing.  Do you realize that this subgroup of our family represents more than half of the living children of Norma and Rudy?  We left Joyce in good spirits, and her apparent positive attitude brought me out of my funk so ....

We headed to the art show after all.  Dad ran into this former Finnish missionary on the right, with his grandson who has just received a call to Finland.  They are respectively Kristen Tye's nephew and father, her mother, a Finn was also there to lend support.

Here we are with Rick Shorten, and the painting we bought from him.  I think the boy with the 'curiosities' of thought looks like Van. do you see it?  I love that.  Rick is one of the artists that Trevor and Nell have purchased from.  This is our second of his.

Dad and I laughed when we saw this one.

It's of the Cotton Bottom, a bar that was in the hollows in Cottonwood, and Dad used to collect fast offerings at the little cottage next door to it. And we were, after all, at the Cottonwood Country Club.

Here's Dad with our mountain, Olympus.  It's where we went on our first date, and had our first kiss, and really, over the 8 or 9 hours it took to hike up and down it, we managed to fall in love. (So, remember if you go on four dates that last 2 hours each, and the fact that we didn't kiss until the very end, it was more like kissing on the fourth date .... hahahaha)

Here are the paintings ... the small one is Kristen Tye's, our half Finnish artist friend.

Here they are top and bottom, joining two other paintings by the same artists.

With all our Finnish Connections this week, we laughed our heads off when Robin sent us this picture of their current Cruise Ship Captain, who happens to be, you guessed it, Finnish.

In Primary we played, "I Mustach You a Question" during singing time with questions about famous fathers in the Scriptures, church history and current culture. this is our Deden.

This is Owen.

Rhea ...

and Ember.

This little guy from the just younger class knocked on our door at the end of class, and says to me "I need a mustache."  I laughed and said we don't have any extras, sorry. and he gave me such a look that Dad donated his mustache to be nice. this child is extraordinary.  A couple of weeks ago in the middle of singing time he raised his hand and said ..." Teacher, I can feel the spirit right now!"

this is us

After church we worked on the blog for a few hours, then headed north to go to Shriver and Ashlyn Christian's baby's blessing.  They were missionaries on our first mission, and President Watson and his wife were our mission leaders then, they are shown on the left, as they too were invited.  They named her Talvi, which is Finnish for Winter.  She was born in February.

so cute.

Here they are with their best friends, I thought they should work out an arranged marriage ... he's obviously attracted to her already.

After the blessing we went into SLC to have another visit with Joyce.  She told us that last night Bruce ran into our nephew Todd, when he was smoking in the parking lot.  Todd was there visiting his partner who was also a patient.  Then this morning, after Janielle, was released they went to visit Joyce, which she highly enjoyed.  The funny thing is that all three of them live in the Tooele area.  I guess this is the closest full-service hospital for them.

We are feeling hopeful about Joyce and hope you will pray for her comfort and healing. Thank You,

Here they are, 4 Finns visited us

with 1 former Finnish Missionary

The funeral was for 1 former Finnish Missionary

and we saw Dad's Finnish Mission Mom there

the art show netted one Half Finnish artist

Her two Finnish parents,

and her 1/4 Finnish soon to be missionary.

The baby lessing included two former Finnish Missioinaries

and their Mission President and wife. 

Our last Finn we did not see, but Robin and Jeff saw him on their cruise, as their sea captain.