Unexpected Treasures

 

I made funeral potatoes on Monday morning, and Dad took them to the church and attended the funeral for Lee Cheney.  It was all musical numbers, and he enjoyed it a lot.

I went up to The Grove to take in Christmas stuff.  Jenn had redone the entry room with a nutcracker theme.

It was all so well done, Jenn if very, very talented. 

These quilt socks that her mom made were cute.

This arche is pretty amazing too.

This little feather tree with tiny ornaments got me thinking...

Another dealer took this picture of my booth later in the week.

On Tuesday morning we heard lots of sirens and went out on the balcony to see all the Veterans as they drove by to celebrate the day. What welcome surprise, many of them even looked up and waved to us.

Then I spent a lot of the day finishing up my two gallery walls in our bedroom.  The lower right hand corner is the interior painting that my cousin Debbie bought for me from the 1 3 5 show the previous Saturday when I was unable to go. Dad stopped and picked up the two paintings Monday night before he went to his Barbershop practice.

The other painting is shown in the lower right-hand

 corner of this arrangement.  I'd been waiting for it to finish off the wall below the thermostat, so it felt good to finish them up, as they've been in transition for almost a month.

Dad had settings apart at the Stake Center that night but called me between appointments to say that people coming in had mentioned that there were red northern lights outside.  Red northern lights are very rare in fact I had to google it to make sure there was such a thing.

I went out and walked around the block and saw some red in the sky, but didn't have my phone with me, as it was home on the charger.  Of course, these pictures were taken that night by people using the long exposures on their phones.  I felt bad that Dad didn't get to see it. Dad got this picture from Jay Wiseman's page; he was a missionary with him in Finland. He lives in Bountiful and Dad thinks the water here is the Great Salt Lake.

I was at home, mostly that night, and saw this post on Insta.  I have been wanting to organize my own vintage sheep, and ...

Voila, this is how I did mine.  I know it's sort of weird, but it's considered to be Christmas decor.  Probably because of the nativity, as many of these are nativity sheep.  I have all kinds, made from all kinds of materials, wood, plastic, plaster, celluloid, cast metal, composition, rubber and resin.

I also realized that I had finally made it to 2500 followers on Instagram, I started in 2013, so it's been a while.

At work on Wednesday, I noticed that another dealer had marked my Cosco stool as her own.  She is next to me outside and I was pretty upset.  I sent her a picture and told her what I had seen.  She wrote back and said, she was so sorry, someone had unloaded some items for her, by her booth, and she thought it was one of them.  I totally believable scenario given what we do.  Why didn't I think of that possibility when I was all huffy?  I wish I could just learn not to jump to conclusions.  I told Nikki about it, with the learning point the next day, and when someone brought it in to buy, Nikki asked if it was the same stool.  Because the other dealer had written on it with marker I had asked her to change the dealer number to mine when she worked on Saturday.  Since I'd told Nikki she just rang it up under my number.  So, all is well that ends well, and hopeful I can learn my lesson.

On Friday I worked on tidying and putting away things in anticipation of getting out Christmas, wish me well.

Then I headed to SLC, where I went and picked books that a guy I got off FB Market place had for sale.  Then I picked up my cousin Debbie and we headed to Ogden to go to the Acorn Antique Show, truly the only real antique show in Utah.  I used to sell at this sale some 12 odd years ago, and so did Cathy Cox, shown here with me and her husband Fred.  I saw lots of dealers selling who I've known for years.  Cathy and Fred were just shopping.

I found this painting in the booth of an old Treasures dealer, his name is Steve.  I was floored when I noticed that it was signed WW Perkins, who is Grandpa Milt's older brother.   Small world.  I didn't love it, but what's a girl to do, I knew Dad would want it.  It actually had "Property of Jessie Pierce Perkins" on the back, who was his wife, so evidently its one they had in their home.  In looking on Family Search, we saw that his wife was born in Springville, and the place name on the painting is Springville Mountain.  He grew up in Gunnison with Grandpa.

I laughed when I saw some guys carrying out this treasure from the sale.  I ended up with three pictures, one a print, and the other two were paintings.  I am just keeping the WW painting. I also got an antique Scottish Pipe band hat that is made from the same tartan as Dad's kilt, he will be so excited.

Debbie shows the framed print here, as we pose in front of a taxidermied bear.

On Saturday Dad brought up box after box of Christmas decor.  I did these two little feather trees with mini antique ornaments, like the one I'd seen earlier in the week.

Another fun old tree and a carved Santa too. 

Here is our Scandinavian tree in the family room.  I've been collecting ornaments for it all year and then dug out old ornaments we had like the straw ones we used early in our marriage because many people in Finland used them on their trees.

Here is my miniature tree collection with this sweet man pushing a lady on a swan sled that I found at the estate sale I went to with Becca, et al this past summer.

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Dad took off a bit after 5 to head to BYU to enjoy the game with Penny, who he had picked up at Davin and Bri's as she had been attending McKenna's birthday party. Her birthday is actually next week, and we'll be adding her collage then.

They much preferred the outcome of this game to the one they watched at Trevor and Nell's last week. They won 44 to 13, and since it was also a Texas school, they felt somewhat vindicated.

Now here's a blast from the past. This is when they were engaged, I got it off Andy's FB page, so many, many moons ago.

And I thought I'd show you a candid picture I took of some of my cute neighbors. 

Last of all I wanted to share a miracle we heard about at a church in West Jordan today.  Dad and 7 other men from his Chorus went to sing at the ward of one of them.  I always love to stay and listen to the Sunday School lessons in other wards, as I am truly a Sunday School junky.

The Sunday School teacher is from Switzerland, and since we were talking about section 129, she shared her father's conversions story, as we were reading that section which had sealed his testimony.  She said that every state in Switzerland has a very particular dialect of German or French.  Her father was multi-lingual, speaking 12 to 15 languages.  Well, as it happened, he had been trying to find a church that he could believe was true.  He was, at the time, traveling to see friends in Africa, in the Sahara, I think, and was at a bus stop.  The only other people at the stop were 3 men in white clothing.  Two were sitting on the bench and the third was speaking to them.  Peter, as happened to be her Dad's name, slowly moved toward the group trying to understand what language they were speaking.  He said he had never heard anything like it, but that it seemed to be a very simple, and precise language.  The man who was speaking noticed him and turned to him and said, "Peter, do not worry, you will soon learn of the true church, it will be brought to you by two men."  Peter walked toward the three men and put out his hand to shake hands with them.  They acted very strangely, he thought, each man keeping   his hands by his side. Then, she said she didn't know if they had disappeared, or not, but that her Father felt the truth of the man's words.  Peter also said that when the man spoke to him, he used the exact dialect of German that was his own native language, which intrigued him.

When the Peter got back to Switzerland, he soon had LDS missionary come to his door.  He talked to them, and they gave him a Book of Mormon, and outlined a few chapters for him to read.  When he met with them next, he had already read the entire book and asked if they had anymore.  They gave him a Doctrine and Covenants, again marking places, but by their next appointment, he had read the whole book and declared his intention to be baptized.  He said that it was section 129, that had finally convinced him of the truthfulness of the Gospel.

So that was our week, I am humbled to say that when Dad said he was going to sing at a ward in Salt Lake, I could tell he didn't expect me to go with him. I told him if we both just attended church there, we could try out their Sunday School.  I believe I was prompted to go with him and truly feel blessed to have been there to hear this amazing story. 

B is for Birthday Bash

Happy Birthday little guy.  Johny turned three on Monday.

Looks like fun.

How cute is his cake?

That morning, we had little rainbows.  I loved this one that showed up amongst the bubbles on this painting. Its fun with a crystal necklace hanging in the window, because we get them on sunny days.

On Tuesday my Nettie's Gnome had a rainbow face, that was a first.  But it always makes Dad and me smile.

But most importantly I had my final exam for my upcoming hip replacement surgery.  My friend Kim sort of met us halfway, by driving up to TOSH from Daybreak to deliver a mushroom painting that I had commissioned.

At home on Tuesday I framed the painting and hung it here.

Also on Tuesday, as we're cleaning and organizing things for Titan's party on Saturday, I framed this Cassandra Christianson Barney painting that I bought at The Grove the previous Friday.

I also traded around some other art.  Here is Dad hanging a portrait that previously hung in our bedroom. 

We also hung the deer head that I had bought at Treasures the previous week.  We love how it turned out.

There was also other reorganization of goods in getting the Carriage House ready for Titan's party.

I saw this great antique chair at work on Wednesday and purchased it on Thursday after talking to Dad about how we could use it.

Then it was Friday and time to go to the church building in the Cottonwood area that Dad attended growing up.  In fact, his Eagle Project was putting in a sprinkler system at this building which probably started his fixation with sprinklers in general. The occasion was my cousin Brent's 90th birthday. Just inside the door we met up with Clark and Jo, then Ross came soon after.  We got this picture and visited for a sec then Clark and Jo headed out.  You will see pictures of Bruce later, as he and Dianne came in about a half an hour later.  Yep, it was me and all of my brown eyed siblings.  More than half of the surviving 6.

  We met lots of people we know, or whom Dad knows from Facebook.  This is my cousin Danny Larsen, Brent's youngest son.  He is standing with Eric Ealache, who ran around with Mike Mitko.  Danny was asking Dad how he, Dad knows Cal Beck, and when Dad said, "Cal is good friends with my son-in-law Mike Mitko".  Eric, astonished and said, "You're Mike's father-in-law?"  It was kind of funny.  This picture is for Mike, not sure if he'll remember my cousin Danny Larsen, but Danny remembers him.

My cousin Brent is a huge U of U fan, so Dad wore his U of U shirt Kimmy gave him on the cruise.  Then Danny said that the only BYU person who was invited was Lui Lapuaho, a former BYU football player, who married Danny's niece. (Brenda's daughter)

Here is my cousin Bryan, with my brother Ross.

Ross and Brenda had a crush on each other, back in the day, which was good because they are cousins once removed.  Bruce makes a third here.

And here I am with my cousin Sandra.  She is Uncle Gene and Aunt Verness' daughter.  She was a year older than Julie, and I am not sure I have ever actually met her before.  Well, I am sure I did before I was 5 because we lived next door to her folks on Hartford Street.

Here Debbie presents her Dad with his Birthday Cake.

Here is Dad with Peggy Riches who he grew up with at school.

Here are Brent and Ross.

Ross gave him some kind of a collector coin.

Ross with Debbie

and with us.

Me with Brenda.  She is Brent and Dar's oldest, and she worked at The Store for almost 50 years. That is the company with whom Dad started in the Grocery business.  He worked them for 15 years before being sold with a store to Macey's, which is the best thing that could have happened according to Dad.

Here is Brent and Dar before she passed aways 5 years ago, during covid.

Here they are when they were young.

And here is Brent with his Dad, Monte, who was hands down my very, very favorite uncle.

And just for kicks and giggles her is a real live polkadot zebra, with a gene variation.

Then it was Saturday, and time for me to finish up all the house stuff.  Dad had vacuumed the house the day before, and swept the hard floors on the main floor.  That left a little tweaking from me, and the table setting, saving the silverware for Dad to put on when he got home from ...

Going to the BYU-Texas Tech football game at Trevor's.  As you see Spencer family came too.  How cute are Penny and Cam?

Van and Cam

Go Cougs!!

He got back in time for the fun to begin.  He and Brady are dressed as waiters

to serve drinks to Titan's friends at his Birthday Bash and Murder Mystery party that evening at 5:00

Becca and I dressed as maids.

Then Becca served up the soup in preparation for a four-course dinner.

How cute does Reagan look?

Titan had written the murder mystery allowing his friends to make up their own characters, and then incorporating them.  You see Elias on his left here.

I headed up part way through and was hanging out in my room when Becca and Reagan came up to say good night.

Then Titan came by, I think he and his friends all had a ball.

But we were not the only ones having fun, Darby and Dallas were having fun this week in Spain.

Evidently the food there is great.

And finally, at church today I ran into Julie Johanson.  She was my walking partner and realtor when we bought Payson Cottage.  We have never been in the same ward, but with the new changes, Voila!

Dad was at meetings all day, so I was pretty much on my own, but that never bothers me, I get more reading done that way.  Hope you got to do some things you enjoyed this week too.