Per Perkins Perhe: Almost Heaven

Yes, this week was almost heaven and we spent the end of it in West Virginia. The Washington DC part was Heaven for 2 reasons, one is that we had two miracles happen. First was the miracle of getting a parking space at all. The second is when we went to the Zoo and got home to realize we had lost Brittney's house keys. Scott felt prompted to go to the van where we had put some things before heading to the zoo. And yes, the keys were on the sidewalk, and had been for 3 and a 1/2 hours, as Scott had dropped them from his pocket as he took out his other keys to open the van.

The other heavenly part is that we got to spend time with beloved family members.

Monday found us in the basement apartment of this 3 story row house in Washington DC in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood.

Here's papa with our charge, who happens to be proving himself a Perkins family grand, by sucking on Papa's pen.

Here's our charming charge in his 'high chair'. He's now eating cereals and vegetable baby foods, in addition to the mother's milk we fed him each day.

And at his changing station. And yes, he is smiling because he has on a dry diaper. What a happy, happy baby. I think Darby was always my happiest baby. I used to sing, You Are My Sunshine to her, a lot. I could do the same for this happy fellow.

3 days of our 5 with Brittney, we had a lovely walk into the commercial area of the neighborhood where we shopped at Lidl and or Target, which were both in the same mall.

Here we arrive.

On our way back we took pictures of memorable things, mainly architecture, but in this case at the fun van driven by the local handy man.

or these relatives of a Hollyhock.

How crazy is this?

Here's our bed, an air mattress that sat back mainly into an alcove that sits below the front basement window.

On Tuesday night, after Brittney got home, we headed to the DC temple, to meet the Kews, who work at the Temple on Tuesday night.

And in front of one of the temple windows.

Wednesday it was Brittney's birthday. She is just a year shy of the big 50. Doesn't she look great.

We had a nice facetime chat with Spencer,

During the call Van pulled himself up to stand by the couch for the first time. I thought that was amazing timing as I was able to reverse the screen so Spencer could watch it happen in India. I tried to get a video of him doing it again to send to Spencer, but though he continued to do it the rest of our time there, I never was able to catch it. He is just 7 months and is a very good crawler. I expect that he will walk early. I think Spencer getting to watch that was also a tender mercy. Spencer had tears in his eyes.

I also got to see Van, who is not feeling well.

and Cam too. It did our hearts good. Can you see here that she has cut herself some bangs?

On Wednesday we headed out to the zoo, a 4 miles round trip.

We loved all the old houses.

And I thought this lizard, one of a pair on the stairs up to a mansion was charming.

We laughed at this 'Target', as just one little shop in a strip mall. Then we went in to get something to drink and found that this small section was just the entrance into the huge basement shop that was underneath the whole mall.

A nod to the season.

Papa and Parks

Lots of talk of Pandas but no Pandas, as they were evidently recalled. They will be reintroduced in January.

I was pretty exhausted walking home, as it was mostly uphill, in fact I had an adrenaline rush, which is what it took to get back to the apartment, another tender mercy.

That night Brittney treated us to an amazing dinner. The restaurant is called Founding Farmers and is based on a group of farmers in North Dakota, who decided to found a coop with restaurants, on the east coast. The food comes from ND and is prepared from scratch in a farmer's wife manner. It is very popular, as you would imagine in a world where everyone is eating mostly factory prepared foods which are full of preservatives, which frankly don't actually taste very good.

On Friday we headed out to do some junking. Brittney had applied for a week's parking spot for the van, and we had been very lucky to find one, or should I say two. Because more of spaces in the crowded DC neighborhood, are for small cars. We actually feel that it was a tender mercy. But given the irreplaceable parking spot we didn't dare move the van, which is why we ubered to both the temple and the restaurant. But since we were leaving on Friday, when Brit got home from work, we decided to go antiquing that day. I had good luck at a thrift store run for the benefit of the blind. Next,we stopped at this Good Will, I loved the sign.

We took the little guy back to his mom once she got home and headed for West Virginia.

It had been a wonderful visit. We are so glad we had a chance to go. Brittney is doing a very brave thing, we are proud to have her in our family. She is just amazing.

Arriving at What Joy Farm, I was impressed with the natural beauty of the leaves on the mossy stones of Julie's front step.

Our drive to Julie's took about 3 hours. Here's a random picture of Scott in the kitchen area.

I found a rock for my memory wall. It's actually one that Julie found and brought in the house.

Scott showed me how close Julie's house is from the Virginia border.

After working on sorting bins for 7 hours on Saturday, Dad and I took off for a town in Virginia where the largest antique mall in America is situated.

It was a lovely mall, I liked this booth, a large one probably 12 by 10. And it was entirely dedicated to 'The English Hunt Scene" I was amazed that there were so many things that were applicable to the appellation. There were some figurines,

plates and lots of framed pictures. My set of 5 pictures that I got at the PCC Fleamarket in September, would have been right at home here.

There were a lot of things that were just foxes.

Also, this lovely booth set up like the sitting room of an 1800's colonial home. The only problem with the mall, is that after two hours touring the store, I had not found a single item that was affordable enough to buy. Fortunately, afterward, Dad and I had 10 minutes in a small antique mall in town, just before it closed, and I asked to see a booth that had 'good prices' and was guided to a booth that the worker was clearancing out and I managed to spend $100.

Then it was back to the bins at Julie's. My nephew Scott and I tried to account for all the bins and came up with about 60 still at the house, and probably another 15 in the van, ready to go home with us to Utah. After dinner I got hack at the bins and did 8 more before heading to bed.

Welcome Sunday morning, and a happy birthday to Emily enjoying life in Texas. She is a mere 38, ah the joys of being on the younger end of the family. By comparison, you are always going to be young.

Then it was back to the bins there were so many more than I had thought. We'd hoped to get out by 2 on Sunday, but I still had something like 25 bins to go through. A 'good bin' with antiques and crafty supplies might take a half an hour to go through, but 3/4 of these bins were mostly clothes, fabric scraps, vintage clothing, etc. But I did check through every bin, because there was often one keeper in the middle or bottom, regardless of what else was in the bin. In the end we were done just after one. My nephew had pointed out the quick progress, as I had had Scott leave the bed set up, thinking we might need to sleep over one more time. So around noon Dad had packed away the air mattress and bedding. After some visiting with Scott and hopes for future visits, (At some point Spencer and Brittney may have a turn in DC) and with his upcoming semi-retirement, we may get to host him at Broadstone. He does have a brother in SLC, and his ward Allisa is here as well. There were goodbye hugs, with tears in my eyes at least. Scott is such an extraordinary man, I am so grateful that we have gotten to know him better. He's like Dad, the energizer bunny, he just goes on and on, doing good.

Here are my Scotts. They both did a lot of work. My nephew Scott worked continually, hauling out bins, and vacuuming them off, before turning them over to me. I went through each pulling out antique and craft items, and a few clothing items for myself. Julie and I had amazingly similar taste. The other items I hope to be able to resale. I will put them, over time, into the antique mall, coding each so that I can sell the items, and share the proceeds with Julie's heirs, as Julie had asked me to do, several times.