M is for Mission (prep)

These two celebrated their 13th wedding anniversary on Monday.  Congratulations to them.

I spent literally the whole day moving items out of this booth.  I am letting the booth space go as part of our preparation for our mission.  I red-lined everything I left in the booth and moved some items into the booth in anticipation of marking the booth half price.  

I had had a locked case in this position, but with the changes moved it out of the booth with Dad's help.  I actually didn't add the green half-price sale tags until I worked in the booth for another couple of hours on Tuesday, after my visit with Alysa.

By the time I worked my regular day on Wednesday, I had sold one of three big display pieces that I'd marked low.

Here's our Alysa, a little down, but I told her she had been doing so good for so long, that there are always going to be setbacks, and now she is moving forward again.  Her Grandfather Harry passed away later in the week, and in our texting, I could tell it hit her hard.  Harry would have been 100 in September, and what a good man.  I am so glad that we got to see him a couple of years ago, when we went to see Julie near the end of her life.  Looking at this picture of Alysa, it really reminded me of Julie, probably mostly because Julie used to dye her hair this color.

In other sad news not only has Alysa's mom been in the hospital for a couple of weeks, yesterday (Saturday) her Dad went to the hospital in SLC, because he had quit breathing.  He is stabilizing some, but it would be good if you could remember him in your prayers.

Tuesday evening Dad and I went to work with the Bishop on our papers.  Dad's been hard at work, and he is so excited about this mission, I almost feel guilty that I didn't give in sooner.

This is the picture that he chose to be our official mission picture.

Meanwhile, I have been busy getting lots of stuff out of my craft room and to the mall.  Here I am rolling red lace onto a spool that Dad made me.  He estimates that he has made me something around 40 spools.  Yep, no one could ask for a more supportive spouse.  I know I am spoiled.

We missed putting in this picture of the Stake Presidency last week during Stake Conference, so I thought I would put it here.  Dad, 1st Counselor Alan Davis, President Kenton Phillips, 2nd counselor Thayne Kennedy and Stake Clerk Micheal Bridenbaugh. 

and this week on the Grandkid front we have Kai still hiking the Pacific Crest trail, where he is something like 650 miles into the trail.

You can see how much he loves it all.

Kimmy being her normal cute self. (E)

Penny at the Hope of American extravaganza!

And Eva, of course is seeing her adventure teaching in a preschool in the Dominican Republic coming to an end this week. 

She has come to love this small people so much.

The Talleys in Texas used the Zoo pass they bought with their Christmas cash from us, to celebrate Benny's birthday.  That always makes for some happy kids.  What a great Zoo.

On Friday we hopped to, getting our mission physicals out of the way. 

Then Dad and I met up with Kimbery and Clark, as well as John for Mexican food in American Fork.  John, whose wife passed a couple of years ago, is now living with his daughter in Eagle Mountain, so the Sevys, who are headed out on another mission, this time to New Zealand, thought we should all get together. The three of them were all besties starting in fifth grade and were chumming around through high school. 

While Dad took John home, after lunch, he dropped me at the AF DI, where I found Sue Grafton's book, P is for Peril.  I laughed because I just finished reading it, and it is the last of her 25 books for me.  I have been reading them for over 15 years, I'm a little sad to be done with Kinsey Milhone.  But I hear they will be making her novels into a new series. Sounds fun to me.  

That night I picked up Barb's Sister-in-law Bev to serve as an extra at our Salem Library, Lit quiz night.  It was super fun to get to visit with Bev, as it has been literally years, maybe 10 years since we've seen her. We had a blast but managed to still come in in last place. Alas.

And then there is this book ... which lead us to our new mission opportunity, but it seems it is the book that keeps on giving.  Because, someone ordered one of these books, but they are all gone.  Darwin the author called Dad to say the daughter of a Finn in SLC, wanted a copy to give her mom for mother's day.  Dad had given the last copy to the BYU professor, as he had been directed, but he had written nothing in his own copy.  He ordered a new one for us, as they are printed on demand, and made arrangements to deliver it when he went to SLC on Saturday.  He found out the buyer was the daughter of our good friends (we bonded in Finland during covid when seniors were not allowed to leave their houses, and we played Zilch and card games on face time for entertainment.)  They were the first people we saw when seniors were allowed to have visitors too.  Anyway, Eliisa and Richard Smith's daughter, lives two doors down from Bruce's son Jared and Jordan his wife and are good friends.  Except, unknown to us, J and J have now moved into The Pines, so they are no longer neighbors (Phil and his family now live in Jared and Jordan's old place) but they are still great friends.  Oh, how Dad loves making these connections.

On Saturday Dad and his chorus participated in the Wasatch Choral Summit, along with choruses of other types for some specialized coaching.  He did get a change for a visit with Spencer family afterwards, so he came home a happy camper.

I received this lovely surprise while he was gone, from Darby who remembers the days when I often wore one to church on Mother's Day, thanks sweetheart.

Here is Dad's post honoring me on FB for mother's day.  I was very touched.

Then he surprised me with breakfast in 'bed', this morning for Mother's Day.  Since the roof comes down to within a foot of the head of our bed, there is no actual eating of breakfast in bed, but eating it in my recliner is every bit as good.

Look what a stellar job he did.

After breakfast Emily facetimed as her kids went to church, telling me happy mother's day, and sharing their favorite part of the week we spent with them in Texas.

This week we also got the top picture of portraits hung, shown here, in the parlor.  I had to frame her myself after buying her a couple of weeks ago at the Acorn Antique show.

I also added the small mushroom painting that Trevor and Nell brought us after we watched their kids while they did a quick trip to Europe last month.

Then this afternoon, Nell and Trevor came by with this electronic photo frame that we are going to love on our mission.  Trevor also made me a bracelet out of old English 5 Pence coins from coins he brought home from his mission.  You can't imagine how delighted I am with that. Brittany, Ashley and Emily also went in on the frame.  Thanks to all for a wonderful mother's day.

I also received a nice phone call from Brittany catching me up on their lives. 

Here I am wearing the corsage from Darby, Dad thought it would be the perfect spot, with almost all my kiddos.

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.

Here we are at Wiseguys.

This morning we had the first stake conference for the Arrowhead Stake.  Here is President Phillips.

I have a bad coughy cold and didn't dare go to the conference in person, so it was easy to do screen shots on my phone.  Here's the presidency.

There was a primary choir.

The little girl in black in the middle is in my Primary Class, so that was fun.

So that was our week, lots of travel, antiques, books, grandkids, art and church stuff included.  Hope your week was memorable as well.