Our Colorful Lives

 

It was definitely a colorful world this week.  We've had lilacs for almost a month, and here comes the wisteria.

I just wish the rest of the yard looked better, but these have never bloomed like this before.

Then Dad and I ran to Spanish for some errands and ran into a couple of current Mosida Missionaries at Lowes.

Where Dad was picking up a couple of special bolts to fix this book cart that I later added to my Book Booth at the antique mall.

and speaking of Mosida Missionaries, here is LaVern Crump doing a dramatization of Lucy Mack Smith in Nauvoo.

We've finalized our plans to go back and see them in Nauvoo in Mid-July.

This man and his wife dropped by on Tuesday and asked to see the house.  The funny thing is that I had met them at the mall and given them my phone number and an invitation to see the house a couple of months ago.  Yet, they were not following up on my invitation, they said they'd always wanted to see the house.  He collects pictures of elaborately decayed doors and knobs.  She is holding the book in her arms here.  He said he's been invited to share some of his art at the Springville Art Museum Spring Salon that starts next week.  I can't wait.  I know Nell would love a peak at this book.  Great minds, you know. They are coming back tomorrow to take pictures.

Dad did several chores around the house, including mowing for the first time. He also made some 4 by 4 inch spools for me, as I spent most of the day gathering ribbon and lace, and rolling them onto Scott's specialty spools. I've been clearing out my crafting stuff and I am putting in a Millinery Booth at the mall, that includes buttons, ribbons, lace, patterns, antique flowers etc.

In big news from out of state is this announcement concerning Sam's Schools outperforming all the other schools in his region in academics, with his daughter and another student finishing a test with a perfect score, which rarely happens even once.

On Wednesday I took many of the bobbins, and lace spools into the mall.  Many of these spools are Dad's custom work.

 I also took in a bunch of circus stuff that my friend Shirley had given me to sell for charity, since I had to put away my Easter display for another year.

Loved and adored these fun green shutters that my friend Tiffany scored.

Also, on Wednesday Trevor and Nell wrapped up their trip based out of Amsterdam. I'm adding a few more colorful pictures that they took while there.

The houses are amazing.

And the tulips, of course, are iconic.

as is this windmill in my favorite color.

They had hit a few other countries, and what a wonderful adventure.

And a canal, you can't get more iconic than that.

And how perfect is Nell's bag for our colorful theme this week as they head home.

No color here, but newsworthy none the less, as Trevor, and his same age cousin Jack meet on the plane.

Saying goodbye after they arrive in SLC.

In other news, that day, Darby realized her washer was leaking in her brand new, first to be occupied house.

The flooring had to be taken up in places,

and new sheet rock cut away.  Fortunately, her sister Brittany and her family stepped up.  Britt even stayed at Darby's house waiting for the plumber on Thursday so Darby could go to work.

Here's Alex helping out his Aunt.  Fortunately, they found a part was incorrectly installed and the builders are covering all the costs.  Perhaps colorful language was part of the ordeal, at least I think I heard the plumber was so inclined.

 

Here I am at work on Thursday.  It was fun to see these two besties, meeting a new friend.  The girls are 16 and their moms have been best friends all their lives. The woman in blue is a 75-year-old Navajo lady who was buying turquoise jewelry as well.  Both girls and the lady all asked me to send them this picture.  It was a joy to observe how much fun they were having sharing their common interests.

In some sad news, Dad realized that he had missed a day of reading his Book of Mormon for the first time in almost a year and a half.  On the other hand, I rarely make it a week without accidently skipping a day.

I thought I'd share one of my Acai bowls.  Adi got me hooked on them, and so healthy.  They make them at Aubergine, the restaurant that Spencer introduced us to a couple of months ago. I think they are pretty colorful.

On Friday I headed out early to Treasures to take in more laces and ribbons, and to buy a small chest of multicolored drawers that I wanted to use between our chairs in our bedroom.  I had taken in a small table and managed to break more than a hundred bucks worth of inventory installing the table.  But I want you to know, there was no colorful language involved in this bit of inventory reduction.

When I got home these gentlemen were outside in their car.  Dad was already home, so they must have just pulled in. They were from North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada, we had a nice visit and made an appointment to meet with another set of missionaries the next day.

Abigail celebrated her eleventh birthday that day.

While Mike Celebrated his 50th the next day.

On Saturday I ran in a couple of things into Treasures, then went to the AF DI, as well as this book sale in PG.

I ended up at The Grove Vintage to replenish my booth, before heading home to meet up with the other set of missionaries, who were also a joy to visit with.

That night I used these button card blanks to make ...

up these button cards, while Dad and I watched a murder mystery for our date night.  Yep, buttons are always colorful.

So today Darby and Dallas went fly fishing, I guess their new favorite fishing spot is on the Owyhee River. 

and for the sake of the subject of the blog, we are going to assume it's a rainbow trout. 

Kai was also out spending time under a bright blue sky as he heads north on the Pacific Crest Trail.

Of course, this seems like the perfect picture to finish off our colorful week.

The Big Book of Finnish Missionary Stories Debuts

Good Monday morning, here are at Trevor and Nell's, as they've gone off to view the world, and it's time to see our Penny off to school

Eleanor is getting ready to go as well.  She crocheted her cute hat and it reminded me of the fun owl hats that I bought at the Beehive Bazaar back when she and her two cousins, Elias and Titan were babies. 

Thanks to Trevor for finding these two cute pictures of Eleanor as a baby.  The hat on the left is the one that I have to her and her 'triplet cousins', all born inside of 6 weeks.  The second is another cute picture of her in an even cuter owl hat.

Another morning this week Penny heads downstairs with her clean folded clothes, what a girl.

And here is Eleanor as per AI as I made one more picture up for my Grandkids Alphabet Book. Hmm then again, maybe I need a picture of her as the Aunt that she played in The Importance of Being Ernest.  hhmmm  

We just loved time with Rosie while we spent the week at Trevor and Nell's.  Here she is on Eleanor's lap. Every morning after the girls went to school, we headed south to take care of our typical business.

I went to DI in AF for opening most days this week and managed to get lots of goodies.

What a load.

On Tuesday Dad went with me to the State Developmental Center for our lunch and visit with Alysa.  It was fun to get to see Diana and Randy Graham again.  Dad missed the other time I ran into both of them.

Lunch with Alysa was great, and Dad got to see how fun it is to be able to feed three people for $15 bucks, but I got to be the sugar momma this time, because I carry cash and Dad doesn't. We played Zilch during and after lunch.

After lunch I took Dad home so he could get his car and then worked a half day at Treasures.

Lots of great pictures of Trevor and Nell, I've added my favorites.

So fun.

My very favorite of all.

Dad loves this April Fools meme, to help us celebrate the fun day on Wednesday, we see it every year.

I went into Treasures again that day and managed to tidy up this Gallery wall. 

On Thursday morning Penny shared her fun star shaped bento box lunch.  She had so much fun packing it.

Here it is with the lid on.

I had Pat come in for an hour that day, so I could meet Dad at a park and ride, and head up to Farmington to Tucano's there.  Here we see Sister Faye Wade as she greets us all.  A committee of ten of her missionaries had been working for about 6 months to put together a book of stories from her mission time in Finland, 1972-1975, with stories of 100/300 missionaries who were contacted and who shared mission stories and miracles.  The committee members and spouses had come from all over the western US. A missionary came from Texas and another two from Arizona, and one from Alaska.

Here she holds up the book that has just been presented to her.

Here Burke Rees holds a picture that was gifted to him by Darwin Rasmussen, who headed up the book project.  Burke was very helpful in its production.

Here is Darwin being presented with an AI picture to thank him for all his work, by Paul Sharman.  Dad hadn't seen Paul since they were in Finland, but he recognized him immediately because he looks just like his Uncle Bob Sharman with whom Dad worked for years. 

You might be wondering how we did at Tucano's with our vegetarian requirements, and the fact that it is famous for its Brazil barbeque, and to be honest it was great!  They have many wonderful sides and salads, and we enjoyed it more than we expected.  

On Friday many of the same people ended up at the Church History Library, kitty-corner from temple square.  Here we see Mike Nyberg, presenting the book to Matt Grow who is the head of the acquisitions committee.  Yes we asked, and he was unaware of being related to Nell, but is related to Clark Sevy's wife, Margaret Grow Sevy, she is his aunt.

This picture is of the members of the Committee who came for the presentation.

Here is Matt Grow with Sister Wade and her children who were there.

As a treat Matt showed us a first edition the Book of Mormon.

This is a picture of the first edition of the Book of Mormon in Finnish, in 1950.

And this is a picture of the whole group who were there.

Dad checked to see if he is related to President Wade and he found that they are 7th cousins, twice removed, through the Perkins line, which is unusual.  Both of us tend to be related to people through our mother's lines.

Next, we headed to lunch at the Garden Restaurant in the Joseph Smith Memorial building.  Dad and I sat with a couple from Arizona name Irene and Tobin Rudd.  It was fun to get to know them and to find that all 6 of their children are active in the church. I shared my favorite Finnish conversion story with them and they loved it.  (I'm sure you remember it, it was about the boy who'd had angels attend him when he was sick as a ten year old, and who looked for the true church for twenty-five years, before praying for someone to bring the church to him, and then seeing two young men in suits as soon as he got up from his prayer and looked out his window.  It took another ten years before he was actually baptized.)  Anyway, Dad found this picture on the man's Facebook page, with his sons. He's on the far right and has been a member now for 30 years.

As we were leaving and heading back to the parking under the Conference Center I came face to face this sculpture.  It is stunning.  It is the 5 virgins holding up their lamps.  I almost immediately burst into tears.  It was so beautiful, and the virgins are multiethnic.  The spirit had been so strong all day, and I was just stunned by the spirit of the piece.

I took pictures from all angles, as its to be viewed from all sides.

I guess it's been here for a year, and Sister Johnson, the General Relief Society President had spoken about it in Conference last year. 

Every time I thought about it, or told someone about the last couple of days, I would tear up.  I'm hoping to be able to get a small copy of it someday, I have already sent an email to the artist. 

And how beautiful is the temple with the dark blue sky peeping through the clouds.  What a beautiful day.

Of course, we had a few hours before the Finnish Mission Reunion in Bountiful that evening,,, so I got to go to DI again.  Great week for that.

Here we are at the reunion in Bountiful, not far from where I grew up, maybe a half mile.

Here's Elder London.  He and his wife served as the office couple during our first mission.  I took this picture to show you that he served in Finland 4 times.

This guy made me laugh.  He is the spouse of a Finnish Missionary, and in the years in Finland spot on his name tag he wrote. Muggle. Dad and I sat at the greeting table.

Here we are inside the chapel, as Dad gets ready to present a copy of the book to the new mission president, for him to take to Finland and place in the Mission Library there.

Here is the man himself, Bert Dover, as he speaks to a standing room only group. He seems to be an incredible man, one of six new missionaries who was sent into Russia, soon after arriving in Finland after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Here Dad meets up with the son of one of the Bishops he grew up with, his name is Micheal Boud.  There were three missionaries from their ward to serve in Finland.

This is a picture of Dad with Harri Myllyla, who was the stake president of the Helsinki Stake when we were on our missions there.  He had taken over from President Aura when he was released to serve as the second mission president we worked with in Finland.  He will be released as Stake President, as he and his wife were in town for him to be set apart as an Area Authority Seventy.

Here we are with Dad's second companion, who lives in Colorado.  His name is Ralph Lyon, shown here with his wife Marilyn and Dad had not seen him since their missions, though, as it turns our, his daughter was the choir director at Payson High School for a while. In fact she took over for Dave Dalquist retired. 

It was super fun to run into Aron Boney, who, as it turns out, is Sherri Oldham's nephew.  There were a lot of younger missionaries at the reunion as they had been recruited to come and sing the new mission song and I mistakenly thought he was one of them.  As it turned our he is a year older than Brittany.  He's a doctor and currently serving as a Stake President in North Carolina. Sherri had told his to look for Dad, and since Dad did the presentation, it made it pretty easy to spot him later.

You can see how many of the recently returned missionaries there were, and the new mission song is amazing. 

Here are the Wade era missionaries who attended.

Then on Saturday Emily and Sam took the 2 sets of missionaries assigned to their ward to dinner. You may recall that the missionary shown here in the vest, is Kenton Phillips nephew.

Look how grown up our Johny is getting.

Cutest family in Texas, I am sure.

On Saturday Dad and I watched conference, and then between sessions we loaded up goods that would survive being outside at Treasures.

Including our last mesh table and four chairs, that we used to use in the patio area that has become the Carriage House and is now served with banquet tables and wood chairs.  I've been selling them off slowly ever since we changed functions.

I bought these antique 'motel' chairs last fall from a neighbor, and they've been waiting for their turn in the sun.

And look who dropped by.  Debbie was one of the group I hung out with in High School.  If you're a regular reader, you'll know I ran into her at Art and Soup last month.  She told me she's been painting and showed me some of her work on her phone.  I told her how much I liked a fairy picture she had and offered to buy it.  Of course she refused payment.  She is just as fun as she was in high school.  So amazing.

So, she and her husband John were headed to St George to do some mountain biking and she stopped by to drop it off.  How nice is that?

During the Saturday afternoon session, they released the general Primary presidency. This is a picture of the new presidency and the president is the first president to serve from Africa.

Today has been a quiet day, just watching conference, which has been lovely.  The spirit has been strong since Thursday, and with the chance to hang out with Eleanor and Penny, it's really been the perfect week.