Another week, one of the last of summer, in fact it was the last week on the trail for Kai. He was getting into wildfire infected trail sections, and knew that the last 25 miles of the trail are closed because of an 0% contained fire.
Eva, of course is in California, which means that last week, we had grandchildren in all the west coast states, with Kai in Oregon and J. Scott in Washington.
Looks like Eva found a soul mate in her companion.
Dad was working on the Great Western Wall (of the secret garden) He was blocking access to the garden itself, and I saw lovely ripe Thompson Seedless Grapes just beyond him ... So, I hustled to the other entrance to the garden, spent ten minutes ripping vines off the gate there so I could open it, and then had to pull down vines, and breaking off dead branches to work my way to Dad, all of which took a good 20 minutes, where I said (this view) "Dr. Livingston, I presume!" The grapes were yummy. The hot hot, summer has made all my vines go crazy. I've got Virginia Creeper smothering my Wysteria on the Graden arch, and the wisteria on the north side of the carriage house has almost covered those walls. Even the Trumpet Vine has had to be cut back twice.
Dad is incorporating the vines, in this case, grape vines, periwinkle and Virginia Creeper, into the footings of the great wall.
That afternoon I picked up Alysa for her birthday celebration. We started by going to the movies and seeing spider man. Finishing off the evening at Burger King. Dad, of course was doing Stake business.
She woke up to Breakfast in bed.
Including, pancakes, an egg, bacon, OJ and tots.
Then she headed to the parlor to open gifts on the morning of her 23rd birthday.
She was very happy, but her favorite gift of all was the hearing aids her Uncle Scott Douglass got her for her mild hearing loss. She told him what to order, and is tickled pink. Thanks Uncle Scott.
Her Great Uncle Scott then took her back to the hill, and I headed to work.
When I got there I found this basket of all the spools of lace and trim, that one customer had had pieces cut from the day before. She spent more than a hundred bucks of cuts of my trims. I was thrilled to reshelve them all.
Dad, meanwhile, was in Sugar House helping Spencer tweak the loads in his two pods.
My handsome baby boy.
"Push it in there, Papa"
All ready to go and
Gone. Dad loved this surprise task before saying goodbye for a while.
On Thursday I worked again, and Dad went to the temple, but our boring day didn't stop some Perkins People from having a good time at the Muse Concert at Usana!! Yeah, you all! Nothing better than kids who are friends with each other.
On Friday we needed to meet with the folks from the British Consulate in SLC, so we went early enough to open my favorite DI. I thought it was funny that these books were all on the same cart coming out. Girls, and Women ... I bought a couple because I have a Women's Studies shelf in by book booth at the Mall.
But I forgot to take a picture of us in front of the ordinary office building that rents out offices on a day by day basis. The Consulate in LA sends out a couple of workers to do the finger printing, etc, a few days every month ... But I found some pics of British Consulates and a picture of us wearing approximately what we were wearing that day ...
And spent some time with my friend Chat, and Voila!!
On the way home we stopped by the UCCU where Ben worked back in the day and tried to undo the trouble cause by someone out Phishing. Dang their hide, I'll never get that 90 minutes back. We walked out with spankin new accounts, and more passwords to manage.
On Saturday I got up and did a bit of decorating, including making a table cloth, while Dad ran around and got stuff to make Root Beer. Here he is with a Barbershopping buddy carrying the nectar of the gods, into a chorus picnic.
I found out that the chorus was hosting a Harmony Brigade. That means that people who want a Barbershop Quartet singing weekend sign on and spend three days in a foreign city singing four-part harmony with strangers. This gentleman was born in Boston, and I planned to have a conversation about our kids who are living there. But no, he's lived all over the world, and settled down about ten years ago on an island that is part of Panama. He and his wife have a large farm, where they dabble in growing exotic foods. His favorite is Abiu fruit which is a cousin of Star fruit and is delicious. He pronounced it Abbie-you, so I thought it was perfect, because our Abbie is certainly the sweetest.
Here's a mixture of guys from the chorus, and former members of the chorus. The tall man to the left, was 6'9" back in the day and sang regularly with the chorus. I met his wife and she told me about having had polio as a child. She's just a few years older than me, but then my brother Wayne had polio, and her was 7 years older. I was so blessed to be born just in time for the vaccine. The guy far right is Dad's former quartet member, Lars.
The man on the far left here, is Canadian. He started playing hocky about 10 years ago and is still playing as he approaches his 60th birthday. I thought that was interesting.
Here are all of those who participated in the Brigade.
Here are some pics that Dad took of the picnicers.
and another.
Back at home I took pictures of my mornings work. This is the cloth I hemmed.
I got Dad to hang the flag display I bought a month ago. To the right is the smallest of the pictures I got from Rebecca Perry.
I bought the roses falling out of a basket painting from the 1800's on the right bottom from my friend Bruce Alison last week, and managed to fit it in. I also added the top print on the far right. It's the only none painting.
I pulled back the curtain into a tie back on both sides of the walls to the balcony in our room, to make room for the two larger paintings I got from Rebecca.
Here's the other wall with its new painting.
This sweet 'Believe' sign is incorporated with a tiny nativity scene. I got it at DI this week. I rarely keep decor I get there, but I'm into mini nativities, so it was perfect.
Here's another kind of collection. In fact, these are pictures of originals that are the MOST precious I can actually call mine. They are all ready to go back to school. These are Emily and Sam's
Davin and Briahnna's
Becca and Brady's
Trevor and Nell's
and Brittany and Mike's
We hope to see pictures of Spencer and Brittney's next week, when their two older go back to school.
And today we get to wish J. Scott a 24th Happy Birthday!
Now Papa and I are in Highland with the Summers, as their folks are off to a work conference in Chicago. We hope that you are enjoying the warm (hahaha) weather while it lasts. Thanks heavens for Air Conditioning.
