All The Things

This is the thing I just finished, my mini art gallery.

This is the thing Becca and Brady did ... they watched a Harry Potter marathon.

This is my first outdoor Halloween decor thing for the year.

This is the display thing I saw at Jordan Commons when we met up with Jeff and Robin to see 'Fly Me to the Moon' ... Wicked is coming at Thanksgiving.  That is some THING I have been looking forward to for a long, long time.

This is us doing the selfie thing, after the movie, which we all thoroughly enjoyed.

and this is the Big White Cupboard thing that I amazingly was able to fit into my garden booth at Treasures.  

I had to move a lot of other THINGS around to make room.

But I like the look now, this booth has been sort of buried looking for a while.

And then, there's the Book Club thing I do every month.  This time it was Lilly's thing ... she lives in our apartment, no room for 9 folks to gather around and talk about books there.

Here's the other ladies doing their thing ... and the thing is, that on the far left of the first book club picture is Cindarella, who has been staying with us since Monday evening.  She will be with us until next Thursday, as I am leaving to do the Fleamarket Thing in California next Friday.  We met Cindarella in Finland in 2017 when we attended a YSA thing at the largest wood burning sauna in the world. We have been friends with her on Facebook ever since. 

Jeff and Robin were doing some THING different. and as you can see it involves legos.

We so wished we could have supported them in their legoing, but alas we had a house guest who was interested in other things. 

Here's a couple of things Dad accomplished this week.  He made salsa for his second time ...

and them he made 500 of these little things. We each take Amla powder, Turmeric powder, and a capsule filled with Ginger Root powder.  All three of these things are anti-inflammatory. 

 On Friday we did one of Dad's favorite things, and that is that we went to a funeral for the baby girl in this picture.  She is also the wife of one of his two best friends from high school.

Here are some pictures of Janet from High School.  She and John had a thing going all though High School and married a year after graduation.

Uncle Rick was also friends with John and he and Wendi did the four-hour drive thing to attend the funeral. 

And here is the new widower between his high school besties... the Thing is that Clark, shown on the right, was widowed 8 years ago.  Another thing is that Dad ran into his 2nd most serious girlfriend, Mary Clark.  She was a relative of Janet's and Janet had lined them up initially.  That was his Junior year at Olympus.  He met Deanne in his Senior year after moving to Cottonwood. 

Here's a thing we did on Saturday, we went on a buying appointment for a couple who is trying to close out 3 storage units they've been paying for 20 years.  This piano in their home reminded me a lot of our old oak piano. 

This is Dad with the gentleman who, as it turned out, fulfilled Dad's thing for finding connections.  He is the cousin of a guy Dad went to high school with. 

The lady's grandfather, shown here, was a Texas Ranger in his youth. I invested in something that belonged to him, that will be a housewarming gift for Emily and Sam.  The thing is, we won't visit them in their new house, so that should give me time to fix it up a little. I hope they love the thing. 

Here's a thing this crew does well.  They hauled out two weedy bushes and then replaced them with this nice bush from their back yard.

The other thing is that we have been benefited by their hard workingness too.  I think it was Adi who tore down my overgrown Virginia Creeper that had overtaken this arch way.  Of course they were here to mow our lawn, thanks for that too. 

These are some things that are happening in India.  Parks is adjusting to his new bathtub.  How cute is that? 

The family went to visit a Lotus Temple.

Van decided to share a thing he's been learning at school, meditating. 

Here is Spencer with Parks, and the Lotus Temple in the background.

And one of the most important things of the week was our chance to celebrate J. Scott, as he celebrated his 22nd birthday. 

Another thing we did was to take Cindarella to the Timpanogos Temple.  She met her friend in the upper right-hand corner and ran into another missionary she had met in Finland, Spencer Bellon.

When we took her to church with us this morning, another of Dad's favorite things happened.  This gal (Courtney Jensen) sat by Cindarella in Relief Society (We teach primary) and after she introduced herself and said she was from Finland, this gal mentioned that she is a quarter Finnish.  How did we not know that?  Dad had met her father up in Elk Ridge, last year, when we went up there to do the fireside for the stake that was going out to Mosida for a trek.  Small, small world, a thing Dad loves!

And last of all, but definitely not the least ... is one of our favorite THINGS.  Teaching Primary.  We have been teaching this class for around 8 months, with six of these young ladies. They are all adorable, and so so so much fun.  This week was the icing on the cake, though, as the two girls on the front row, to the right and are twins, just moved into our ward ...  How perfect is that?  

As I was leaving sacrament meeting, one of my favorite things happened.  I felt a prompting.  These two little girls were sitting on the end of a pew, and the one in pink was crying.  I stopped and introduced myself to the mom and asked if they were visiting.  I thought the problem might be that the little girl was visiting and didn't want to go to a strange primary.  The Mom said she is Emily Wright's (The nurse who came in and shower Grandpa every week back in the day) sister, and they had just moved in with Emily and her kids.  So, I asked how old the girls are, 8, and asked when they turned 8, and voila!!  I told the sad soul that she and her sister would be in my class, and that we have 6 other girls in our class, not one boy, and that we have so much fun ... she brightened right up, and I walked them into Primary.

What a lovely thing it is when we get to do all the things we love.  I hope you had good THINGS in your life this week as well.  I'd love to hear about it, if you'd like to send me a text!  

 

The Three Larsen Boys Etc.

So, we started the new week with planning a sudden antiques yard sale. The daughter of a friend who passed away a couple of years ago, asked me if I would help her sell some more of her Mom's antiques.  I figured I had the whole van stuffed with vintage furniture that needed selling, and Nikki is always game for a sale at my house, and three is multiple sellers.

Also, fun this week was Becca getting up in the night to see some comet, or something, and seeing this instead!!

Of course, there were kids going off for their first days of school too, Britt's kids were just a week ahead of the others, so you can go to last week to see theirs.

All so cute!!

Not sure if you can see the hummingbird on the left side of the stem of the tallest Zennia.  I always wanted a hummingbird feeder outside this window so I could watch them ... Now I realize I just need to keep growing Zinnias outside my kitchen window.  Sorry about the screen I had to take the picture through.

Now down to business with how we spent our Monday.  We took Ashley out to lunch for her birthday, that had happened the day before, which took our mind off what happened 6 years ago on this date.

We even introduced her to one of our favorite stores, that's right, it next to Mi Rancherito where we had eaten lunch.

We also got an arch just a block up Mainstreet, it's part of the replacement of Mainstreet and the beautification project here. 

So, 6 months ago I took this picture and decided that I wanted my mushroom collection in a cupboard instead of on my window shelf in the kitchen ... it only took me 6 months to get round to it. 

So here it is, I found spots in my dishes cupboard for the red and white China that had been in here and took the plunge.

I really like the overall look, and it's a fresh look, since it's been years since I moved all the red and white down from the red and white garret bedroom and filled this cupboard with red and white. 

The smaller plate here was a gift from Spencer and Brittney at Anthropologie. 

And look who came to stand in front of it the next day, as they had come to Mow.  We sure appreciate those of you who are mowing for us this summer. 

And just for fun, I ran across this fun blast from the past. 

And guess what day Tuesday was?!

And this is how we celebrated Left Hander's Day, by going to see Arsenic and Old Lace.  I know, kind of a stretch, and it took me 20 minutes online to connect left handers day, and the fact that we were going to see this play.

After having dinner with the Moes and the Heuers at Golden Coral, we drove down a flooded state street to the theater, where the trees had been shredded in the storm that had happened while we were at dinner. 

This man's shirt says something about an ovation being the best pay for the actors after enjoying a play.  

Here we all are at the end of the play, including Eric.

Here's the man who is the theater supporter.  He mentioned that he had been at the slap stick Scarlet Pimpernel play with us last Friday, and said he really disliked it.  He also said he is The Super Fan and goes to 25 plays a month.  The funny thing is that the next night, Barb and Randy went to the Hale in SLC, and he was at the same play, on the front row in the same shirt.

Here he lets Dad hold his new license plates!

Later we understood the Hale's shredded trees, when a friend who lives in Orem, not far from the Theater posted this picture of hail they received in the storm.  Whoa. So, I guess that means there was lots of hail at the Hale, and it cause a hail of a problem for the poor tree.

I had another worker come in on Wednesday for the last two hours, so I could take off with Dad to go to my Niece, Kristen's son, Bryan's wedding reception.  We got pictures of most of their family.  Here Dad is with Jack, Kristen's youngest sibling and his wife Jane and their youngest. (Jack is Trevor's age, and his wife Jane. Jane's niece, Eliza Middleton who looks a lot like her, and served with us in Finland.)

Here is Kristen's oldest son, Jeffrey with his wife, McKenzie, they have been married for 8 years. 

Here we are with the Bride and Groom, Bryan and Bronwyn.

Ray and Kristen pose with us. 

Here we have Kristen and Ray's kids ... Lauren, Jeffery, McKenzie, Leigh and her boyfriend.

Here I am with my beautiful niece.

And here is Dad with Kristen's youngest, Sammie and her new husband, Coleton.  They got married during our cruise month. 

Jill made the beautiful cake.

And here is my Sister-in-Law, JoLyn, with Kim's boys, Jack and Steven. 

Now here are Dad and I with Clark and Jo.

And finally Jill's daughter, Jill, me, Mary's daughter, and her boy friend, then Dad.

It was great to meet up with so many of my nieces and nephews and their kids. Of Jo and Clark's surviving 6 children, we saw either the child or a child of the child in 5 cases.  Jo was talking about having a reunion next summer using the three back yards of the houses in their family compound.  I think it's a lovely idea. 

Of course we had to walk down memory lane, this is the administration building of Utah State University, where Grandpa Carlo was attending school when Dad was born.

We loved these huge busts out in front of the building.

In our Scottish frame of mind it was fun to see this monument to the Scottish man!

This monument is also amazing, but its much larger and it's in India, even though it looks like a pair of similar arches in Paris.  We are loving any pictures we see of Spencer's family, and we appreciate them sharing them.

Thursday was the normal drill, me at work, and Dad at the temple.

Then on Friday we had another wedding, this time with a Finnish connection.   Since it was in Kaysville we called our favorite Kaysville-ites, and made arrangements to meet them for dinner.  Yep, yummy Mexican, and Dad loved the cheese enchiladas he ordered, saying they were the best he's had since his Dad made them for him, more than 30 years ago.  Grandma Carlo's enchiladas are definitely Dad's gold standard.   We loved our time with them, and they suggested that 8 would not be too late to visit Bruce in the rehab center in Bountiful on our way home.  They had been there twice, so we trusted that.  And we are so glad we did. 

And while we were gone north, these great workers came over and pulled all of the furniture out of the van. Before cancelling the trip back east, we had decided the only way to deal with it was to take it all to DI, since Dad's still not able to haul furniture around .

Thanks to you all!

This is some of the stuff we put out before heading north too.  Unfortunately, both Jane's daughter and Nikki cancelled on bringing stuff to the sale, but since I'd advertised on my insta page and Facebook Market Place I felt responsible to making the sale look like it had multiple sellers, as I had stated.  Therefore, I hauled out a lot more than I usually would, which I know Dad appreciated, as we're trying to organize the garage. 

There would still be a lot to do in the morning, even after spending hours putting out all the tables (Dad can help me carry them with his good hand) and some merchandise. 

So garage sale set up aside, after dinner with Doug and Shirley we headed to the wedding. This couple are the parents of the bride.  They are also the parents of a missionary who served with us.  Sirpa is a Finn, and both of these daughters served in Finland, as did one of their two sons.  We have seen Sirpa at many, many reunions, and she is darling.  Dad also follows her on Facebook and feels very connected.

We loved running into another couple of Finns.  Stina, by me, is the gal I had the conversation with at an antique show I did a couple of months before our first mission.  We got talking about mushrooms, of all things, and ended up realizing she is Finnish and we're headed there.  Thus, she had us over for a Finnish dinner before we left, and then on our mission we met her mother, who was a Relief Society President for 20 years.  Both amazing women. 

Now you see us with Dad's first companion, Roger Nuttel and his wife Jan.  I think this was the highlight for him.

And since we're here, we thought we show you the cute bride and groom.

On the way home from the wedding reception we managed to spend some time with my brother Bruce and his wife in the rehab center where he is recuperating from 3 weeks in two hospitals first diagnosing and later treating a severe septic invasion.  He's very week, and has been in the rehab center for a week, and is getting stronger.  He looks good, though the beard makes him look a lot like Clark, weirdly.

While we were visiting with Dianne in the lobby of the rehab place, Spencer Face Timed Dad.  He was home babysitting and thought to call, how sweet is he!

And how adorable is Parks. 

Of course we needed a selfie before saying good bye.  Dianne had been there visiting for four hours, and then kindly stayed an additional half hour for us.  She is taking such good care of him. 

That day, Davin and Bri celebrated their 17th anniversary.   Of course this is what Dad posted on FB for the occasion. 

On Saturday it was a long and exhausting Day.  I got up at 5 and went downstairs and to the garage to price all the goodies I'd pulled out on Friday.  At 6 Dad got up and went running. By the time he got back an hour and a half later, I had moved all the boxes and medium sized items to their places, and by 8 we had customers.  Not a lot of customers, it was a pretty slow sale, which was complicated with a heavy rainstorm in the afternoon.  Doing it alone was not nearly as fun, but I did manage to paint one and a half of my green chairs and we did manage to make $650 in sales, which will go into our Art Buying account.  Yeah.

Today Dad and I both spoke in church, but in different wards, accompanying High Councilmen.  My assignment was how Testimonies and Living the Precepts of Christ's Gospel are connected.  Brother Hancock who I spoke with shared a letter he got three years after his mission from a man he taught, and to whom he had given a Book of Mormon with his testimony in it. I asked to take a picture of the letter, that he so treasures.  

After our 8:30 meetings, we had an hour and a half at home to get ready to teach our Primary class.  I asked Dad to find me one of his old shirts I could tear up.  He donated this one that had had the collar cut off to use as a pioneer shirt for our mission. 

I'm sure you already figured it out, but I got exactly the reaction I hoped for, when I told them we were going to have a little play, and that I was going to be Moroni.  They shrieked when I got to the part where I took off the shirt and tore a big rectangle out of the back.  They loved representing the cities who had refused to fight when Moroni was trying to raise an army, but then, with the Title of Liberty, understood the necessity. It was so cute as our 6  little 7 and 8 year old girls, one by one refused to fight as they had been instructed, then the last one said she would fight, and I had to explain she had to wait to change her mind later.  The best part was after the 6 'cities' had agreed to fight and followed me and the title of liberty around the room in a giggling march.  Possibly the high light of my teaching career.  Scott said they will never forget this activity.  

When we got home I made veggie pizza for an early dinner, as Dad had a concert at the Springville Art Museum with his Barbershop Chorus.  It was a perfect dovetailing of our artistic interests.   He had a hour long practice before, so I got to take a good look at the quilt show that is currently on display.

These are my favorites.

This is probably hand pieced.

Wow.

Of course I am always a fan of anything bee themed.

oooo and mushrooms ...

This one is just too pretty for words.

Definitely a winner.  Sometimes I wish I was a perfectionist, but that's usually only when I see something like this.

I thought this was a very clever combination of patterns, and such great colors. 

Another beauty.

Then it was show time ....

The whole chorus.

This is close up of Dad when he was singing in his 12 man ensemble. 

Another view.

Just wanted to show you some of their younger members.  The blond is the guy I gave the Hobbit book to, a few months back.

Then there's paintings.  This chair was painted by Randall Lake, a Utah Artist who lived in University Village with us when I had Brittany.

These next two artists are people I follow on Insta that I did not know were local artists.  This guy does amazing live action demos on IG.

I adore this one.

This is an old painting from the 1800's a Utah man painted it as a self-portrait.  I think its charming, its part of the museum's permanent collection.

I thought this was fun.  Brian Kershisnik, one of Trevor and Nell's favorites, has a whole hallway full of art that he has been collaborating with this man to paint for 30 years. 

The man is Brian's age and has Down's Syndrome. 

These were a couple that I liked.

A landmark was reached this week by Kai.  Among his 14 states is one of the four we have not been to.  We plan to visit North Carolina when we eventually head back to work on Julie's estate with my nephew Scott.  I'm sure that Kai will have all 50 long before the age when we will finish up the task.  Way to go Kai!! 

And just for fun, we thought we'd share one more thing.  We found another Darby, and this one sparks, which is kind of like our Darby, who sparkles.  Love you Darby.

We hope you had an amazing and fruitful week. We love you all and appreciate your interest in our lives.