Making the Most of Summer.

And here it is mid-July already, and the members of our family have been busy.  Elias is the third of the 'triplets', to get his learner's permit.

On Tuesday I had my twice a month date with Alysa.  We did our typical, doing some junking

and then eating at Alysa's favorite restaurant.

Eva's 19th birthday was Wednesday.  Her Aunt Brittany shared this picture from her own wedding on 8.8.8

Here is Dad's collage of Eva's birthday.

Here she is on the big day!

This is the second table at dinner that night with members of Nell's family, including cousins.

Eva with her besties, Avery and Kylie.

Trevor and Lu

Here is table one with Eva at the far end of the right side.

Now for other fun that was had this week ... Here Emily and Sam host four missionaries for Pizza. Included in this group is a brand-new missionary from Payson, who happens be the Grandson of my friend KD from my book club.

Brittany and her kids came down to do a day at Lagoon.  How fun is this?

Before heading home the next day, she hooked up with Spencer for lunch.

Emily's family went to the zoo.

And these pictures indicate family fun to come, as Becca and Brady get their new fence installed as well as some sprinklers ...

As they are planning a pool party for us all. 

On Thursday I finished up the changeover of this booth.

I'm hoping that it will boost sales in this little half of a half booth.

Dad spent the day at the temple doing his normal temple shift, of course his favorite part is running into old friends, which almost always happens.

I worked at the Grove on Friday. That evening I worked on reframing this little dog punched paper portrait from the 1880s. It was in its original antique frame but the oval had been cut out and then glued on a larger rectangular hard board that visually is too large.  But I guess that was the size of the frame they had on hand.  The cool thing is that the dog is made up of tiny glass beads. I've seen more than a hundred punch paper samplers over the years but had never seen one with beads.  Googling it I found that glass beads were used on these starting in the 1860's. I also learned that artwork like this was often done as a memorial to a beloved pet.

And in that vein, we have seen lots of pictures on-line of Miss Missy, Brittany and Mike's Scottish Terrier who passed this week.  She had been a puppy mill mommy until she was worn out at age 6, and Brittany rescued her and gave her 6 lazy years as a family dog.  We all adore her.  I hope there is a doggy heaven.

 Saturday was full, full, full.  I started by dropping Dad off at Kathy's funeral.  Her husband is a long time friend and fellow barbershopper that Dad knows.  His chorus went to sing at her funeral.

I dropped him off and did some junking, then went and picked him up.  We had intended to head up to Brighton Ski Resort, so see Ashley disk golfing in an international tournament, that including 4 people from Finland.  We were excited to get to see her golf.

But plans go array sometimes, and we realized we had already missed her Tee Time.  When I talked to her, she said she was done and was heading down the mountain.

I shopped the grand opening of this store.  I had signed on to be a dealer here back in March.  When the mission idea came into being, I knew it wasn't possible.  The store is darling, it would have been fun.

Of course, on the course, Ashley had a ball without us, what beautiful scenery.

Kim and a friend were there to support her.

So, we had planned to take Spencer to dinner for his birthday after the tournament, and when Dad called to try to change it to lunch, Spencer said he was loading up the house to put much of it in storage, as he  prepares to move with the kids to Boston next week, where Brittney is already working on her second Master's degree at Harvard. 

Dad asked if he could help, so I dropped Dad off again and went to DI again, my doesn't that sound familiar.  Anyway, we passed the Police Memorial Motorcycle ride that was headed toward Big Cottonwood Canyon with its 2500 riders.  Yikes. 

I guess it was a good thing that we WERE NOT headed up the canyon to Brighton.  I just hope Ashley wasn't delayed coming down, but it looked SOOOOO cool.

Here are Spencer and Dad loading in a big vase ...

Then off course it was off for some Indian Food at Mumbai House on 21st.

Today I was back in Primary after two weeks away.  I now have two teaching partners, who will continue after I finish in September.  Raylene Christensen taught last week, and Nancy Ramirez taught today.  She brought some confetti eggs, as she was teaching the kids about how Christ wants to gather us under his wing.  The kids had a ball breaking them.

And I think Nancy did too.

So that was our low-key week.  We're grateful that we got to see a couple of our kids.  We are grateful that they all seem to be living active lives and are doing such a great job taking care of our grands.