Tour of Utah Bike Race and Me!

The wonderful old lime stone house in Hoytsville was owned by the grandparents of my childhood neighbors.  Its the house that made me fall in love with antiques and old houses, when I was nine!

 Last weekend, Mr. P. and I ran up to Hoytsville to check out the goodies at the occasional Vintage Market there.  I had missed shopping it the day before, and thought he might enjoy the trip into the mountains, for the second day of the sale.

Except, as it turned out, the sale was just Friday.  Opps  ... but the owner lives next door and happened to be at 'the old milk barn' ... so she let me browse, how nice is she?

We had noticed, on driving into town, that the main road was lined on both sides with vans painted with notices of bikers from foreign counties, and we realized we had happened onto the Tour of Utah bike race... they had come through Payson on Wednesday when I was at work, sadly, so it was serendipitous that we happened by when we did.

Sure enough on our way back through town, the police closed the road, so we walked along the route, and got to see some of the best bikers in the world ride by!

 It was so fun to smile and wave at the locals who had come to cheer on the cyclists.  Everyone loved it ...

OK, maybe not everyone, I noticed a few kids who seemed bored.  

A Smash Book for a Sick Girl

 We have just passed an eventful weekend ... My 6 year old granddaughter, sometimes called Birdy, is sick.  On Friday she woke up with a bad stomach ache, her Dad took her to Instacare, then later in the day to her pediatrician, who sent her to the emergency room of the local hospital and there they sent her to Primary Children's Hospital, the premiere Children's Hospital in 6 states.  If you have followed my blog, you know this is the hospital for which our family is involved in fund raisers twice a year.  Well, I am afraid its our turn to find out about the wonderful facility first hand.

 Here is our girl not long after she arrived, and before the meds helped her pain and her temperature. 

Knowing she would be there for a few days, I thought it would be fun to do a smash book for her to embellish.

 I found a picture of the hospital on line, to add to the book.

 I also found a couple of pictures for her to color on Graphics Fairy.  I left room for some of her own art work.

 I also included markers for her drawings, and some stickers to place where she sees fit in her book.

You can see that she was pretty happy by the time we left the hospital at 3:00 A.M., on Saturday night.

 

Now we are all feeling better too, what the doctors saw on her liver at the first hospital, is  now thought to be an infection.  The doctors have been giving her super antibiotics, and will do more scans today.

Afternoon Tea in Austenland

 Oh you know me, such a fan of afternoon tea ... and this tea was just the best.  It was hosted by the Salt Lake Film Society as a fundraiser.  They were showing the Salt Lake Premiere of Austenland, and added an opening event of tea at the Grand America, where they host 'High Tea' every afternoon.

My friend Robin, who is also an Austin Addict, and member of the Jane Austen Society came along.  Here we are, all decked out in our finery ... ready for tea!

 We sat with two new friends, Sandy and Rebecca ... and as it turns out, Sandy lives on my nephew Andrew's street, and her sister-in-law, Rebecca, went to High School with my niece Megan.  Such a small world.

Here, Shannon Hale, the author of the book Austenland, as well as the screen play, talks about how she came to write the book ... and, like many, for her it started with the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice.

Austenland, the book, is one of my favorites, as are many of her others, such as Princess Academy and Goose Girl, both of which I read and loved before finding out she is a fellow Utahan, and lives 60 miles away from me.

 While Shannon was presenting, the dessert portion of tea was delivered ...

 Then it was time to say good bye to our new friends, and make plans to arrive back in Salt Lake at the Broadway Theater for the premiere some 3 hours later.

Here we are at the premiere with the cute photographer, complete with an antique top hat.

Robin and I were first in line, and got to see all the other Austenland and Austen groupies as they arrived.

Then we got to meet 'Darcy' for a moment on the red carpet!

Our friends Barb (Right) and Donelle (Behind the camera) joined us for a fabulous romp through Austenland.  We all loved the movie, though it was amazingly different in slant from the book.  We also got to meet Jerusha Hess, the Director (Most famous for her work on Napoleon Dynamite) ... all the insider stories were just delish!