Milestones and Mother's Day

This has been a week of milestones! A Prom Date, a twelth birthday, a wedding, a graduation and a double mission call!  

OK, maybe Kim's prom was last week, but this is the first time I'd seen a picture!  

On Monday I worked on projects for Fleaology, but I also posted a couple of pictures on instagram. The library pic is for a collections post. 

This one was for a Pastels  post on IG.  

This is my disclaimer. Brittany, very emotionally, told me that I should not do seperate posts for our spiritual experiences. Dad had thought the same, so our spiritual experiences will be mixed into the blog just like they are mixed into our lives. So... 

We hosted our  family home evening that night.  The theme was missionary work and testifying of Christ. It was pretty much a continuation of Stake Conference ... It was powerful and the spirit was there to testify. Everyone felt it, it was wonderful. 

On Tuesday I worked getting the yard ready for Fleaology with Tyla, another beehive I bought at the Young Women's camp fundraiser. She's quite the little worker. She's the daughter of Emily who comes in to help Cheryl shower. 

Dad came home early and mowed the lawns, then we spent a quiet evening reading.   

On Wednesday I was off early,  junking my way to meet up with Dad in SLC to head up to Tanner's 12 birthday celebration in Layton at my niece Megan's house 

Here's part of the crowd to surprise a beloved and discouraged cancer survivor, my grand nephew Tanner 

This is Arlene, my college bestie, and her sister, my sister-in-law Shirley, Tanner's grandmama.  See how much they look alike?? 

Tanner's hugging a loaf if bread his Aunt Arlene gave him, bread he'd fallen in love with at her house. 

This is Noah, Tanner's just older brother. It was so fun to get to know this charming young man!! 

Here we are, the Viewmont alumni of 71 and 72  

And me with my just older brothers, Doug and Bruce.  We had a great visit with friends and family. Tanner could certainly use lots of prayers as he struggles with host vs graft disease. 

On my walk with Ginny on Thursday I got pictures of Jill Wilson's grandma house. I even got a blog out of it!! 

Then we headed to the Salt Lake Temple to see Krista and Josh sealed for all eternity. Here are her brothers, Austen is serving his mission in Washington

(Note the cooler behind them?  It was holding flowers, Jeff had loaned it for that purpose. It disappeared. Someone reported it as suspicious. Church security cut into it so as not to detonate anything ...  Hahaha I wonder if it was my brother Clark. He works on church security at the several blocks they call the temple campus, that's his church mission!  Jo works her mission as a hostess, for which she is supremely suited!! )

Waiting for them to come out of the temple for pictures we were approached by Ace Moyer, who was a few years older than Brittany in our Salt Lake ward. It was so fun to catch up. He lives in Arizona and he's a radiologist with 4 kids!  

Here they come, what a beautiful couple 

What a beauty and so fun. I whispered to her that she's like Rose of Downton   Abbey. So good and so kind and always in charge of fun. 

Beautiful!! 

Look who we ran into at the groom's luncheon! In Pleasant Grove. 

The receiving line. 

Brilliant Barb built a beautiful cake. 

Also that day, Spencer had his first graduation ceremony.  Brittany and Charly came down. I love this picture Brittany took of  Spencer, all gowned and Brittney with Charly  on the big day.  

We took Darby's car back (yes, she had loaned us her Mercedes, while Dad's car learned to strut better.). Then we all went to dinner!!  

Dad got the call early Friday from Ron Baker, our mail man. I drove over to get our official mission call. 

Then while Dad worked a half day I junked my way to Salt Lake again ... 

Here is Spencer with Brittney's family. 

Becca and Brady and crew came too!! 

Then all the Perkins joined at Milogros in Orem to celebrate Spencer's graduation!! 

We are so proud of our 7th child/in-law to graduate!!  Brttney gets her master's in two weeks!!  

Barb and Randy came too as we planned to ...

Opened our call. 

We had everyone's attention ... 

When we opened it ... 

To find that we are going to Finland, intering the MTC  on September 26th!! Yeah!!   

On Saturday we went to recycle metals ; our ongoing charity, donating to the temple patron fund to help people travel to a temple if they don't have one near.  We got $17!! 

Then we got the floor sander, etc at Home Depot (Dad's Mother's Day and birthday gift to me).  

When we got home we found these Idaho beauties. Britt is hosting a bohemian tea for her bunko group. Guess who has the goodies for such a thing?!  

Having cancelled Fleaology we had a few visitors on and off all day, including Geraldine of the like named north county antique store. This is their Lehi house, we showed them ours so they will show us theirs, sometime. 

We got the parlor cleared and wanted to save pics of the historic floor. The outside was false grains with two or three coats of paint then a hard lacquer. 

Here's a close up the faux grained part. 

And the never finished center. 

Sanding stated out well. About two seconds later the sanding belt was gummed up with the paint and varnish. We waited for the belts to cool then cracked off as much as we could.  It was a mess and 6 hours of hard work, including me using paint stripper and our hand belt sander and did not even come close to finishing it. 

Can you guess what I'm doing tomorrow?   We fell into our chairs exhausted about 7:00, barely able to move ... 

But we were up bright and early to hear Trevor  speak on Mothers at church in his ward.  He gave a lovely tribute to the mother's and grandmothers in his life. 

  I got a great picture of men in Bow Ties!! 

In our ward we had fast Sunday since we had stake conference last week. That meant no traditional Mother's Day program. That's why our cute primary sang the prelude and I snapped a picture before the meeting started. How sweet are these kids!! 

After church I made biscuits and gravy because Eva told me that's what they'd made for Nell's breakfast in bed, and it sounded yummy!  Then naps ... And ...

Then it was off to Highland for family dinner, in honor of Mother's Day. Thank you Becca for hosting!  

Everyone had fun!! 

Love these guys. 

And these guys too!  Not sure how I missed getting a picture of Darby, unless it's because she was outside being the favorite aunt with the next generation!  

Thanks everyone for a lovely Mother's Day and especially for that rousing rendition of our family song. I laughed hardily at Davin's joke that it always takes so long to spell his name at the DMV. "Oh P that's the way to begin E everybody can win, R, we are berserk, K it's oK to really work ..."   Thanks all, I love you and on this Mother's Day I'd like to say I am so grateful for the responsible, kind, caring, funny and hard working good citizens you have all become!!  No matter what you say, you are all a credit to me and your Dad!  

Feeling the Spirit at Stake Conference

Stake conference was amazing. Our Stake President asked everyone to do Knucks with the person next to them. Then he went on to challenged us to reduce one element of our testimony to a phrase and to bare that to our Knucks neighbor. President Simmons said we would feel the Spirit testify.  I turned to the 30 something young man and he said "I know I'm a son of my Heavenly Father!" Wow. I felt warmth throughout and then tears came. It was so powerful. I told him that  I know Jesus lives. 

Afterwards I asked him if he'd served a mission and if he'd testified to non members and had them feel that power. He said it's based on their preparation. Some feel nothing others feel it with great strength. 

The whole concept, at least presented just that way, is new to me.  I think it's good to know as I prepare to serve a mission.   

This is a great story a speaker told today. He said he was out of work and out of money when his son fell from the top of a slide. It was obvious that his arm was broken badly. At the doctor they xrayed and made an appointment for him to meet with a specialist to have it surgically set the next day. The man was so worried about the extra expense he was sick. But he had his Father come and help him give the boy a blessing that evening 

When they got to the surgeon's the next morning the surgeon confirmed the need to surgically set the bones after looking at the X rays, but then said he needed more X rays. 

After the second set the surgeon asked the father who had 'set' the boy's arm after the first X-ray. The father said "no one," then the doctor said, someone must have prayed because the boy did not then need surgery. A simple cast would do, the bones were perfectly aligned. 

Paula Gets Shot (in the knee)

What a wonderful week!  Can you tell I'm feeling (almost) no pain?  Read on and you'll find out why? 

Monday was a quiet day, thankfully after our run, run, run Sunday. I got a chance to post an all red fjnine on IG.  No problem finding red☺️

In the afternoon my gardening girls came and we worked some more on getting the yard ready for Fleaology!! 

On Tuesday I went junking with these rambunctious girls in Salt Lake ... 

Do you love my mushroom head? 

Here we are at The Dodo for lunch!!   I'd had plans for a girls night with my friend Lyn and then I felt crummy, so I spent the evening convalescing with Dad, whose off at the temple for two weeks!! 

On Wednesday I walked 2 blocks to the Mexican market, driving really hurts my knee, but when I was walking back I wished I'd driven. Fortunately there were pretty sites to distract me. 

Including this sweet view of our house through the greenery of my across the street neighbors.

I also found this picture on line, it's of a lovely pottager!   That's the look I was trying for with my grow boxes xoxoxo!   

That night Dad and I finished off Downton Abby, after watching it whenever we could for a month. So fun, and we caught so many snippets we'd missed.  

On Thursday morning I met Darby when she dropped off her car, being a former pharmacy tech she knew the arthritis meds her dog takes are people meds, so she brought me a dose of it.  

Darby ended up with a quick and relatively cheap fix on her car, but also heard from a second vet that her horse Dallas might be sicker than they had thought. We're still waiting on a final diagnosis, but if praying is part of your life, please pray for her. 

At work, the medication worked well enough that I had a much better day than I have been having.  I also snapped the picture of the retro mail box at work. How cool is that!  

I had a call into my doctor that day, and they finally called at the end of the day saying I could have a steroid shot in my knee!   Yeah!! 

That night I had book club and Dad had home teaching appointments.  

Ann came over Friday morning and I went to the doctor's and got my shot. Ann drove our van and we headed to Hoytsville for a vintage sale!  

Great stuff and great prices.   Next it was Cafe Rio!  

And then we went to the new Savers I noticed a few weeks ago when we went to Dad's mission reunion.   So this goodness is what I got because we're going on a mission!!

I have always wanted this desk. It's Eastlake about 1880. When we got my mom's inheritance I wanted to get one but they were almost always $3000. Sometime $2500. I couldn't bring myself to buy one, and bought the Eastlake drop front desk instead. 

So Ann and I walk into Savers and I find one for $50. I can barely believe it. I'm crediting our mission to Finland!!  ❤️❤️

Mine needs glass in one door and some restorafinish but I'm still pinching myself!  

That night Dad and I reached into our deep pockets (hahaha) and bought the goodies above at the girls camp dinner and auction!!  We also scored dinner with the first councilor's  family, that we lost out on at last year's auction.  

On Saturday I finally reassembled what was left of my garden totem from two years ago, shown left. Putting it in a bird bath makes it less susceptible. 

Dad also did weed and feed on the grass and we hauled the family room couch to the dump and set a bed up for Cheryl, which she has yet to touch. 

That night we were off to the adult session of Stake Conference. We drafted the Kews for Mexican afterwards. Here we are at High Mex! 

Today we had a wonderful stake conference. The spirit was very strong. I'm going to share some of that in another blog post.  I know not all my readers share my religious convictions, and so when they read these posts, they will know our personal spiritual experiences will be separated into another post, so they won't need to read them if they'd rather not. I think this set up will serve us well while on our mission too. 

This evening we went to have dinner Stina and Seth Van Cott in Highland. She grew up in Finland and I met her at 3dotters last week. Remember the red polka dot mushrooms?   

We had Finnish food and a lovely visit with them, their two daughters and his parents who moved here from Texas a year ago. It was a fabulous evening.