Yes, we have 12 granddaughters, how lucky are we ... On Monday Granddaughter number 7, Charlie celebrated her 13th birthday. We just happened to spend the weekend with her family in McCall Idaho, which we posted about last week.
Here she is with her 13 balloons.
Opening presents...
and 'fencing' with Alex with her birthday balloons. One thing we found out about Charlie over the weekend, is that she loves to play games. We played four games with her, introducing her to 3 new ones. She is such a good sport, and so fun to play with.
While at Brittany's house we had a chance to watch my cousin Brent's funeral. I also nabbed pictures that my siblings took while at the funeral. Here is part of his display table. He worked at the U stadium in his retirement helping host sporting events. Such a friendly and fun man.
Here he is as a young man.
In his seniorhood with his wife Dar, who passed 5 years ago, and who is so happy to be reunited.
Bruce, Ross and Doug and their wives were at the funeral, as well as Clark and Jo, who went off to the cemetery before this picture was taken.
Here is my cousin Brenda and her two brothers as she reads the obituary. Brenda was Brent and Dar's oldest, she is the same age as Ross. It also happens that Brent lived in a neighboring ward to Dad's, so not surprisingly Brenda worked her whole career at THE STORE, where Dad got his start in the grocery business, so we have known her better than her brothers.
Here's our fancy-dancy set up.
On Tuesday I priced goodies for the shops, ending up at The Grove, where I got so see a new vendor's booth. She imports much of her stuff from Europe, so not cheap, but a great selection.
Then I got a message from Trevor saying they were going to be coming to Payson, to borrow items for Penny, my 10th granddaughter's presentation later in the week as Eleanor Roosevelt.
Not long after getting home, we had these amazing visitors. Trevor, Penny and Nell. Lu happened to be there too, but was out of the room at the moment.
Here's Penny in the silver stole I have in my costume closet.
And she presented me with the felted mushroom picture I had commissioned her to do at Christmas time. I just love it! Penny is a talented felter, and believe me, I have done some felting myself. It was seeing a felted gift for her Dad for Christmas. which so impressed with her fine workmanship I knew I'd love this.
I framed it that night, and Dad hung it at the top on the left the next day.
Here's a closer view.
And here she is all ready for her presentation on Thursday.
The week before this week, I babysat for Spencer and Britt.
And I forgot to share the cute comment that Cam, my 12th granddaughter, made when I came in to take over for the evening. She said "Mimi, you have animals on your sweater, and they are cats, which are of particular interest to me!" I thought that was some pretty big words for a five-year-old.
I worked on Wednesday, and Dad came in and put up some racks for my Ephemera, which has been scattered all over the store. There were things like old magazines, prints of classic paintings from a subscription service, maps, sheet music, old photos and the like.
This cute couple came in the afternoon, I was talking to the wife for a while, and she mentioned that her husband was a famous sculptor. It turns out he is Gary Price a well-known LDS sculptor who has had a foundry in Springville, for years, and who has his sculptures all over town. When I talked to him he said that he had been at BYU with Rick, my cousin Debbie's sculptor husband. He had not heard that Rick had passed away.
On Wednesday morning I finally got out all my vintage and antique ephemera to make kits to put in the racks Dad put up for me on Wednesday.
I must have been pretty well organized because I also made Runeberg cakes for Finnish Poets Day, named for the premier Finnish Poet, Johan Lundbig Runeberg. When we lived in Finland we heard the store of his frugal wife, and how she saved all her crumbs from bread and cakes, and cookies over the holiday to make these torts for his birthday. They are now available on Poet's Day at grocery stores. I even made them when we lived there. I super admired such an inventive woman. They are made with almond flour, the crumbs of course, and rum flavoring. With a ring of frosting (I used cream cheese) with jam inside the ring.
I actually made the cake in the morning, then decorated them after work.
And since I was thinking of Valentines, I saw this picture on the Calendar Emily made, and sent an email to Kimberly, my 1st granddaughter to find out how things are going with her since she moved to St. George with her boyfriend. I'll share the news next week when I know.
It was also fun to get all the bright colored, cheerful pictures from Eva, granddaughter number 2, as she had her first week teaching school in the Dominican Republic.
She's loving the littles.
Trevor said, due to their time at Christmas in Mexico the last several years, she really hasn't suffered any culture shock.
I love how she has taken it in stride and has taken advantage of all the good things about the charming island and people.
so fun.
On Friday Dad and I had a chance to take our fifth granddaughter to lunch. She doesn't have school on Fridays, and both her folks work that day, so it opens things up so we get a chance to spend time with her. Lucky us. Did you know she loves vintage band t-shirts. She said she bought a lot of them at a clearance at her favorite thrift store, UpTown Cheapskate. I told her about having made all of Trevor's race t-shirts into a quilt, and thought when she gets done wearing them all, it would make a fun memory quilt for her.
A funny thing is that when I was about her age, I stacked soda can empties against my wall forming a pyramid that was 12 feet wide and 8 feet tall ... all I can say is that 'great minds ....
Then, about 6 weeks ago we saw that this community theater in SLC was doing The Importance of Being Ernest, one of my favorite plays. We had loved seeing our 3rd granddaughter, Eleanor, playing one of the lead roles, that of Lady Bracknell, last year, and she did it perfectly. We loved it so much. I asked her if she'd seen the play performed and she said no, so we thought she'd enjoy it.
We took her to dinner, then headed for the theater, which is in Junior High on 9400 So. I loved this very Victorian surround.
Here is Lady Bracknell, in a huff.
One of the two couples in the farse.
The main cast.
Here we see all three of us with the sign.
A picture from Crown Burger. Eleanor was just delightful company.
On Saturday these three girls, Adi (#5), Nenna (#8) and Reagan (#6) all got to go Kitty shopping with Dave. They finished off the fun with some pizza, so I know it must have been the puurrrrfecct pretties pizza party.
Meanwhile we took Madi, our number 11 granddaughter and her brother Mac to Mc Donalds playplace, for some Mac Magic, and finished off the fun buying toys at Mimi's favorite DI in American Fork. Papa got in on the fun too!
Then today, we had 6 of our 8 classmates, look at them all with their scriptures. These kids are just amazing, we worked on memorizing a scripture, Moses 7:18, "And the Lord called his people Zion, because they were of one heart and one mind and dwelt in righteousness, and there was no poor among them." We also watched a video about Enoch and how his city was taken up into Heaven. The kids were just amazed.
After church Melia asked me to give her a ride home and told me to tell Trevor he is a donkey. I guess it's an inside joke from when she was his assistant for a while when he taught singing time here, during our first mission.
This afternoon we had our first book club discussion about the book; Project Hail Mary, which some of the family chose to do as part of a new family book club. Last year we tried a sisters book club, but it fizzled out. Yeah Ashley for putting the idea forward.
This one was a great success, as we all liked the book I chose after being strongly encouraged to read Project Hail Mary, by Barb and Robin. Thanks girls, it was a hit all around. And it was super fun to hear the insights from our family scientist, and lab manager, Hannah. Zoom makes it so easy to gather, it's a good thing that came out of covid, don't you think?
So that was our week, full of fun with grandkids, mostly Granddaughters. Its funny when things you've planned over months, end up landing in the same week, giving one an obvious theme for the blog.
