Sunday, May 20, 2012
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Saturday, May 19, 2012:
Denny joined a small group of Utah Teachers of French for breakfast at La Bruge restaurant in downtown SLC. After a delicious waffle breakfast (with whipped cream and strawberries), the group hiked up to Ensign Peak. Upon their return, they went to lunch at Les Gourmandises and he had a delicious French dip sandwich.
In the meantime, I put the large hanging geranium plant into a nicer hanging thing and pinched off the dead flowers and hung it up on the lamp post. It does look beautiful. It was getting hotter at each passing hour. I prepared to plant the individual petunias against the east wall – gloves, kneeling pad. However, I didn’t have compost or fertilizer or shovel! I got discouraged easily and went inside.
It seemed like a great time to finish the audiobook, The World According to Bertie. It was due yesterday and I’m charged $1 every day that it’s late. I needed a project to work on while listening and brought up the 10-drawer storage box for small items like nuts, bolts, screws and the like. We’ve had it for 40+ years and never once tried to organize the millions of little objects inside. I had great fun! What a surprise! Well, I just took my time and did it – 4 drawers of screws, 1 drawer of nails, 1 drawer of … oh, you get the picture. I washed the box and the drawers also, and by then the final CD concluded also. Cute book!
I drove over to the library to turn in the audio book and pay the fine and while there, checked out 4 other books. Next I went to Walmart for a card and ½” notebook to give to Roger & Edie, a large bag of potting soil for the flower boxes for the backyard, a large bag of organic compost material for the petunia planting, a Quick Start fertilizer for the petunias, and a weed killer for the growth in the cracks of the driveway. Oh, yes, and a small shovel, a spade.
Denny was home when I got home. He’d had a fun day with the French speaking persons he was with. He was working on a permission sheet for the up-coming stake youth conference, designing an attractive logo. Mary and Adam came over to get the photo of Denny (in uniform), me and baby Angela taken in October 1969. It’s for Adam’s war report. Mary recommended the book Edenbrook. She read it yesterday, staying awake into the wee hours of morning!
At 4, I got Denny to help me with the planting. We got ¼ of the petunias planted, then we cleaned up everything and went inside to get ready for the 6 o’clock reception in honor of Roger & Edie. Julie and Richard came from Tooele and came to our house and drove us down to Dupaixs. After parking, we saw Crawfords leaving the house and called to them to stop! The Wallaces and Gillespies walked up just then, too, and we all visited in the Dupaix driveway for quite some time. All 10 of the Dupaix children are in town and they had some wonderful group photos taken yesterday and developed and enlarged for today’s reception. Tomorrow the missionary couple will be speaking in the ward sacrament meeting.
There were friends and relatives coming and going in the hour and a half we were there. There were many we didn’t know but most were well-known to us. We sat at the kitchen table where we were out of the way and able to see and greet everyone. There was talk of going out to dinner, but it was late and the idea was dismissed. We were starving. Kroffs, Bullocks, Doyles, Bradshaws and Dupaixs had a few minutes together for picture-taking in the front yard before we said our goodbyes, then Denny and I walked to Wallaces where they had set up the Dominoes in preparation for our arrival. We had a couple of hours of fun – Denny won and I lost. We were served ice cream, then Clark drove us home.
Mark was packing for a week in Cancun, Mexico, with Chanelle and siblings and parents. We gave him some spending money as our gift for his graduation from the U. He has sold a few things on KSL classifieds – a dishwasher, oven, lights. Angela is buying the huge refrigerator. He's excited for the trip and was staying tonight with Chanelle's brother and family closer to the airport for their early morning departure.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012:
We tried to stay asleep and in bed a little longer because of “Friday, late start day.” It’s a morale-builder. When I got up, I made Denny a lunch and he was off. I did a few worthwhile chores throughout the morning. Mark was doing odd jobs with his things, too. He said he had put several items on KSL for sale and had received requests for them already! Chanelle’s parents are going to Cancun, Mexico on Sunday and are taking Chanelle and Mark, too. It will be nice to have the spending money.
Angie called before leaving for school to ask if I could be at their house at 1:40 when Luke and Levi got home from school. Yes. She had taken MarkV to the airport in the early morning, so he wouldn’t be available. She asked me to take Luke to buy a birthday gift for Lily at K-Mart, too. Everything went as planned. Lauren would be in school until 3:30, so Luke chose a water soaker gun to be from him and a second one to be from Lauren – you can’t have fun squirting someone else if that person doesn’t have a gun to shoot back, right? Levi was with us. It just took about a half hour. Then we watched TV until Lauren and Angie got home at the same time. Mary and Adam were coming over. Angie would take Adam with her to go to the party, and she would just stay the two hours and bring them all home afterwards. When I left them, I went to Target to buy a gift card for tonight’s wedding reception.
At 6:00 Denny and I went to Orem for the wedding reception for Elder Howell (Travis) and a sweet young thing, Noralin of New York. As we wrote in the guest book, our beloved senior couple, Lynda & Frank Badger of South Ogden, came into the hall!!! We were so happy to see each other!!! We all hugged Elder Howell and he was so happy to see all of us!!! There was an amazing buffet, and we four had a wonderful visit while eating. We thoroughly enjoyed visiting with Elders KC Sorenson, Michael Johnson and Dane Lyman, as well as Sister Rachel Hammond Bellamy!!!
Before separating, we planned to meet the Badgers in downtown SL next week for dinner and talk. Lynda works Mondays and Thursdays at the Family History Library, so we’ll meet them afterwards. We said we’d invite Kathy & George Jarvis to join us. When we got home, I did call and they were excited to see the Badgers, too – Thursday. OK! It’s a date.
John, Aubs and boys met us when we got home to give me a belated Mothers Day gift -- huge strawberries dipped in chocolate. What a yummy surprise. Angie and three kids stopped by after taking Adam home from Lily's party and visiting with Matt & Mary for a bit. Angie measured the refrigerator that Mark is selling. She hopes it will fit in their lowest level kitchette. It's a big one.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Thursday, May 17, 2012:
It was another regular school day. Denny took yesterday’s lunch already packed. The house was totally full of Mark’s belongings, I was amazed. A large POD was delivered to the house next door and some point in the day, he was able to get the large items in the front room moved into the POD. He and Chanelle came in and out of the house from time to time to organize and sort his things. I really didn’t go anywhere other than my room and kitchen. It’s not a bother.
At 1:00 I went to my hair appointment. From there I drove to Draper to leave the party invitations for Lauren and Luke. No one was home, but I was able to get into the house through the garage and leave the invites on the table. I went to Murray from there to deliver the party invitation to Adam. Mary was home with the three youngest boys. She had packed up Noah’s baby clothes and was going through basement things. She said she had had a powerful realization that her time at play with the boys was as necessary to running a happy home as was being tidy and organized. That certainly has made her day more enjoyable and worthwhile! I saw the boys before leaving – seeing Noah playing with Sam and Gabe looks so natural now that he’s walking so well.
Kathy and George Jarvis picked us up at 6:30 and we met Evelyn and Lyman Moody in Draper for dinner at La Hacienda. We all ordered something different – well, as different as one can get with Mexican food…there are many different names, but they all using the same ingredients, non? I had two cheese enchiladas with beans, rice and lettuce/tomatoes. I couldn’t eat it all, but I did pretty well, and it was very tasty.
We talked and talked and talked. They are a wonderful group of friends. We were there until long after closing time – we didn’t notice because there were a couple other groups winding up their eating and our waiters didn’t seem to be anxious about our being there!
I’m very, very sleepy.