Racing from One End of the Week to the Other

 

... and we'll start the week with our first finish line.  On Memorial Day Dad and members of Trevor's family, Davin's family and Becca's family joined to run in the onion days races.

Trevor has finished his 5K and comes back to run Dad in at the end of his 10K.

Here he is with Becca after her 5K that she ran with Reagan.

Davin and Bri also ran the 5K with Adi and McKenna.

Trevor ran with his two oldest.

Eva was feeling a little worse for the wear, but would feel even worse later in the week, poor girl.

Dad won 2nd place in his age group.

The cousins who run together have fun together, that's for sure.

And that applies to siblings too.

Of course there is always the parade for everyone to enjoy...

Trevor and me.

Darby toted that baby on her hip all morning.

Penny got to bring a friend too, as a very grown-up looking Cam looks on.

Here's the crew ... without the tree we lost last year, it was necessary to set up two pop ups for shade.

This guy had about as many watchers as the parade.

I adored the fact that he carried this flag for more than an hour.  His other hand is occupied with parade booty.  

The grands; Grandfather and granddaughter.

The man with the flag takes a few minutes with his mom.

A popsicle with Aunt Darby.

We had 2/3rds of our triplets.

Spencer and Becca et al behind the fence, with Moose.

Spencer took over the Mountain Man Breakfast. 

And even though I did not get a picture Eva made the honey butter and fried the scones. 

A big Thanks to you both.

I remembered to give Van the pokeball I had bought him when he was in India.  I also told him I had bought a binder full of poke cards from a boy in the ward for him, but I had misplaced it.  He wanted me to look for it, but I was making breakfast, and told him it was in a plastic binder, and he could look around for it.  Guess what, it was in with my back mail, on the old China Cabinet, that would leave the room by the end of the week.  It took him 2 minutes to find it. HURRAH!

When I saw this mascot, I thought, that looks just like J. Scott.  I asked him to pose in front of it and then realized it was the logo guy for Chubbies, a fast food place his family loves ... but still ... J. Scott is not chubby!! And it was one of the last times we will see him before he heads to Oregon for Graduate School.  Oh, how we will miss this kind and gentle soul.

Overnight Monday night I got sick, my whole digestive system was cranky AND my hip and knee were miserable.  I had plans to craft with Shirley and didn't want to cancel.  It was not as fun as usual, but it did get me through some pretty miserable hours.  Here are her cute crafts.

It took me a couple of days to finish up with award ribbon spooky banner, but it was accomplished finally.

Shirley brought me this one, that became the center piece that I know she spent a lot on at a California craft show called Glitterfest a couple of years ago.  I thought that was so very nice.  It is purrrfect.

Eva had her turn for feeling awful the next day when she went in to have her deviated septum straightened.  We all felt so bad, she was so miserable for a couple of days, but now I am sure she's glad she did it.  Trevor had his done a few years ago and is glad he did for sure.  Within hours of the surgery, she was breathing better. 

What a brave girl.

Meanwhile Dad and I were hauling the newly painted display cupboard into the mall in step three of the great musical cupboard switch out.

Here is Dad at the mall, still in his jogging togs.  We arrived an hour and a half before the mall opened, which gave me a chance to get most of the stuff from the other cupboard, into other displays, since this one will be a locked display.

By late afternoon, Dad messaged me this picture to show that with the help of two shifts of men from the ward, three in all, he was able to get this cupboard in place completing step four of the musical cupboard game.  The big one Becca is buying is in two pieces in the parlor, even as I write.  A project for next week.

This is the sad dining room table, half of it full of my crafting day leftovers, that I felt too awful to put away, while the other half has all the contents of the old cupboard.  

This customer was sporting a hilarious shirt on Thursday ... gotta love it!  Dad picked me up after work to go to a promising buying appointment that turned out to be a bust.  I had him bring the van, as she talked about a lot of great furniture, but in the end I spent just $100, and it would all have fit in the car.  Alas ...

Trevor had sent us this picture of two tiny Brian Kershisnik paintings that were being sold at the opening of the Kershisnik show at the Tiny Art Gallery in Provo. (Trevor and Nell were both in line at 5:00 for the 6:00 P.M. opening., they purchased the bottom one, Sleep Juggling.) 

We stopped by on the way home from my Orem buying appointment, of course it was 7:30 and they were long gone.  This is the new Tiny Shop, above the Tiny Art Gallery. 

This is me with the founder of the Tiny Art Gallery.

Here is Dad with Brian Kershisnik.

Here is the gallery itself, one has to kneel to peek in, and I did so.  It was not pretty getting up in front of all the people, but I am getting pretty immune to looking stupid, since it's a large part of being crippled by arthritis. 

Here I point to Trevor and Nell's acquisition. 

Afterwards I eat tiny pie ... yes, I did.  I figured it was so small the sugar in it would not even by noticed by my system. 

This cutie made the tiny plates and pies.  She's the cofounder of the gallery.

Friday found us still immersed in the world of Art, as we attended Rick Avati's funeral.  He is my cousin Debbie's husband and is a sculptor who is a Listed Utah Artist. 

Here are some childhood photos of him, and 3 sculptures.  The middle one is of Debbie. She and his kids modeled for him a lot.

Here he is as he finishes up a sculpture grouping.  When he was not earning money from commissions, he was working in a foundry making statues from models of other artists. 

On the way home we stopped by Ashley's to drop off the coffee cups we'd gotten for her from Briahnna the week before.

Here is a cute pumpkin, already ripe in her front garden.

That night it was off to stand in line at the JKR Gallery (J.Kirk Richards) Business Card Show.  This is a clip from Kirk's Insta video of the line.  I am further back sitting on the chair that Dad ran over to Macey's to buy for me.  Is he the best or what.

Still from Kirk's video we head into the show.

This show is always so fun.  Trevor first introduced us to it, then we started going with the Kews.  The fun thing is that Terry found a way to buy from the show as well.  If you look at the wall here, you will see some art without a tag hanging below it.  Those items have already been chosen for purchase.

Here's a high shot of the crowd in one of the gallery rooms.

After I bought the frog on the mushroom, I looked up the artist's Insta page and found it in this grouping. These pieces are actually entirely fired ceramics.

Here it is as I take the tag at the show.

I actually bought a print of the original painting the artist did this miniature from.  It will hang along with the larger print in my angel grouping in the dining room.

I don't remember the name of this artist, but thought the painting was charming.

On Saturday morning it was finally time for Becca's Marathon.  It was a bucket list item for her, so last spring she started training.  Brady made this cool poster for her, based on her teen love of the Stephanie Meyer novels ... Emily may have had something to do with it, but Brady did the work.

Dad also went up the canyon to run the half marathon, to support Becca .... and Brittany drove down from Idaho to support them both.  I was still snoozing when this picture was taken around 7, as Dad ran down as far as the Grotto, and she awaited a chance to cheer him on.

Becca's family is all ready along the way to cheer her too.

Now we're all gathered at the park, near the finish line to cheer on first Dad, and then Becca.

Here is Dad with Daniel Crump and his daughter.  Daniel's brother-in-law was also running the marathon.

Now for Charley's hand drawn poster ... 'My Grandpa is cooler than yours' .... haha which applies to his 5 grandkids in the picture. You can see Dad is pretty broken.  He said it is his last half.

The race photographer gathered all of Becca's cheer squad. Trevor had fun running along with Dad for a couple of miles.  Dad loved that. 

Dad and the Mitkos at the Finish arch.

A close up of Charley's sign.

and with her brother Kai.

That's all of us, including me. The Cheerers I mean.

And the runners, biting their medals. 

Well done crew.

That afternoon Trevor, J. Scott and Eleanor headed to the BYU game.  Dad had given up his ticket to attend the Larsen Reunion with me, which made it fun for them.

Their other grandpa was working with the ESPN crew, which is his regular job as a statistician, though he is retired now, and picks and chooses his gigs. So, they all got a tour of the van.

How cool is that?

Dad and I, meanwhile, had headed to the Larsen Family Compound in Holiday the home turf of my brother Clark and 3 of his children's families.  Here we see cousin, Andrew telling about himself and his wife and 8 children.

Bruce's son Jared and his wife Jordan are working on a home nearby and promised us a tour!! You may recall I ran into Jordan a couple of weeks ago at an estate sale in the Harvard Yale area.

Here Becca and she chat.

These are two of my Clark's son's-in-Law, Mary and Kimberly's husbands. Both live in the compound.

Here Kristin, Clark's oldest daughter, tells about what her 5 kids are doing.  Her youngest Samantha has her back to the camera, with her husband on the right side of the photo.

Jill and Brittany catch up.

Kimberly came and brought her cute boyfriend, Chase.

Here we see Shirley and Doug, and Nicole and Phil.

Catching Ross and Julie to say goodbye.  Every one of my parents surviving children were there.  Did I get a picture?  Nope.  Also, though Joyce and I visited, I didn't manage to get a picture of her either.

Here is Bruce's son Matt with his pregnant wife, Briahnna and one of her children. (They brought us sour dough bread last week, and they also brought some to the reunion, along with an assortment of spreads, definitely a big hit.) This baby will add their number of children up to 12, though Matt shares custody of his four, since she was a widow, they have her seven children full time.  I think Matt was prepared to take on this amazing girl and her kids because he saw what a wonderful job his Dad did marrying Dianne and taking on her five children to go along with his five.

Here we see Dad and Spencer visiting, with a spattering of other relatives.

Here's Ashley and her family.  We had Brittany, Ashley, Becca and Spencer with some of their kids.  Basically, our two first born and our two last born. It was super fun to show them all off.  We are so proud of our amazing children.

Another random shot.  There were around 80 people there.  Pretty impressive.

Our gang.

Shirley, Dad, Clay's pregnant wife, Clay and his young brother Eric. 

Brittney, Parks, Spencer, Natalie (Jon's wife and mother to Clay and Eric), Charley, Kai, Britt, and Kimberly, whose husband you saw earlier.

And here are a select group to see Jared and Jordan's new house.  Me, Nicole (Jordan's sister-in-law), Becca and Dad.

The house is Prairie style, which is what they call the mansion size Craftsman Style houses.  The one- story homes in this style are called bungalos. 

Original William Morris Pimpernel wallpaper in the main floor bathroom. The house was built in 1917, the year my mother was born.

Here Nicole stands in the library, there are two walls with full bookcases like this, and a window wall, and another wall with a single bookcase.  It's was all so beautiful and they are restoring it meticulously. 

Here's the rest of the crew on the original front entry porch.

Back at the reunion site, with most people gone, and most of the cleanup done, Cam came to ask me a question. "Mimi, I had so much fun, I loved this party.  I want to always remember it, but I am afraid I am going to forget about it.  How can I make sure I always remember how fun it was?" I was stunned by her precosity. 

Then at church today, I snapped this picture before the opening prayer, so not actually during sacrament meeting, of the bishop accompanying the congregation.  I cannot say how much I love this.  BTW, did you see how I justified taking the picture?