A Picture Book of our Trip to Pick Up Spencer in Canada!

Here we go, headed to Canada to pick up our youngest son, Spencer, from his two year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  We have never really been to Canada, because I am pretty sure the north side of Niagra falls doesn't really count.  We were looking forward to enjoying time with 'Elder Perkins' and getting to know some of the people he had worked with and had learned to love.

Our party included my husband Scott, myself, our daughters Darby (with the book) and Becca (asleep) with her son Titan, who would turn one while we were on the trip.  The trip took two days, and we booked into our hotel on Thursday night.  On Friday Scott and the girls went to pick him up and bring him back to the hotel.

And who do you suppose he was the most excited to see?  Or should I say 'meet'.  Spencer had four nieces and nephews born while he was on his mission.  Three of them are now turning one, the fun age, and Spencer plans to  be every one's favorite uncle.  If the friendship he developed with Titan on the trip is any indicator, he is well on his way to his goal.

And now we shall LET THE VISITING BEGIN.

Our fist stop was to meet Gel, a teenage investigator that Elder Perkins and his companions have been teaching.

Next we went to meet three generations of lovely ladies he had  been teaching as well. Tami is the Mom and her daughter is Brittany, her granddaughter is Emma.   Of course its Halloween time, and costumes are involved.  Do you like Elder Perkins new look?  Also, don't overlook the 'witch kiss' detail.

At Wilma's house it was birthday party time.  I loved the Halloween decor outside!! Because this was her son Joseph's birthday party, there were lots of goodies including 'sticky rice' which is a purple rice pudding, Yum!!  It was also fun to meet their friends, including Joy who also comes from the Philippines, and speaks the same regional dialect.  Wilma and two of her three children are new members of the church, and it was fun to run into them at later church events.

The next morning it was off to do a session in the new Vancouver Temple.  Darby was nice enough to stay behind and babysit adorable Titan, thanks Darby!

We then enjoyed some down time at the hotel and lunch at IHOP where they had all you can eat pancakes.

More Visits took us to meet more wonderful people, this is Noel and Raquel and their daugther, Janna.  The women in this family were also recently baptized.

Next it was time for Trunk or Treat at the church house.  To the left is Becca with her baby elephant, Titan.   Spencer is shown here with his favorite Vampire (otherwise known as Noel), which was appropriate as we were listening to Breaking Dawn through out the trip in preparation for the coming movie.

More spooks and witches. The one second to the right is the scariest for me.  Any idea what it feels like to know that your baby is 21, definitely frightening.

 
 We met more wonderful members of the ward after moving inside for the food and dance portion of the event.  I was astonished at how welcoming and kind these people are.  I was also charmed by how they all interacted with each other with no reluctance due to age, gender, financial or marital situation or color.  It was a bit of heaven.  I am not surprised that Elder Perkins felt no desire to leave these people, neither would I.

Here we are after church on Sunday at a little going away bash presented by ward members for Elder Perkins and Elder Mueller who was also going home, and whose parents had come from Switzerland to pick him up as well.  Here they are with some of the ward youth.

And finally its time to say goodbye to his former companion, Elder Larsen, second to the right.  Nope not related, though he was also raised in Bountiful and even went to school with my niece back when she was Alicia Larsen.

 Last of all we had to visit a couple of Elder Perkins favorite haunts. including a visit to an 'All-You-Can-Eat' Sushi place.  (What is it with Elders and All-you-can-eat places?)  Here we see Becca feeding Titan with chop sticks
 And now you can see the remnants of ALL we could eat.  I promise, all those dishes ARE NOT MINE.  I am not a huge fan of sushi, but the food was great, with the best terriaki beef I have ever had.  Strangely they also had jello jigglers, and Titan snarfed down half of the 7 orders.  BTW jello jigglers and chops sticks work just fine. Last of all the view from the sushi place is of the Asian Mall where we shopped.  Great stuff, and lots of really amazingly dressed Asian women shoppers, just like those we saw in Japan two years ago when we picked up our daughter Emily from her mission there.


All in all it was a great trip.  After this last picture we drove four hours to Kelowna over a snowy mountain pass, but for some reason I never got out my camera again.  We met some amazing members there, and then picked up my friend Stacy who lives nearby and had been visiting with her mom there.  She drove back with us, including stopping to spend the night and visit with our daugter Brittany in Boise.  Britt was great hosting and feeding us on the way up and back.  We don't see her and her boys as much as we would like, so that was a treat too.  Of course it was especially great because Spencer got to see two of his nephews as well.  Thanks Britt.

We got home late Thursday afternoon, spent and ready for a vacation from our vacation .... I am still not up to speed. Thanks for coming along!!



Bargain Banner at the Acorn Antique Show!

 At the Walter Larsen Show last month, Bruce and I discussed having a discount shelf at Antique Shows, especially in the late fall through early spring when we don't really have a good place (like flea.o.logy) to close out inventory.  I decided it would be fun to have a sign to draw attention to our discounted shelves, and found this great old pointing finger on Graphics Fairy.

Then, using an 8 by 8 inch pad of coordinated scrap book papers, I made simple pennant flags spelling 'cheap' and used the pointing fingers on the two ends.

Here you can see the banner in place on the sale shelf at the Acorn Antique show at the Weber County Fair Grounds this past weekend.

 Below are some other pictures of our booth set up for this show.

 I love this old Raggedy Ann and Andy set.  The set of books next to them are four books by Louisa May Alcott that were printed in the 1880's.

 These various Victorian pink luster pieces were from my own collection.  The remaining pieces are now headed for Treasures Antiques in Springville.

 This is just a general shot of the front of our booth.

 This sweet garden corner of the booth kept changing all day as one item after another sold.  The sconce, chair and a couple of the paintings sold ... but the nice columns and sweet screen door will likely be for sale at our first indoor flea.o.logy sale in January.  Read more about this sale here

I am not sure if the pennant banner made a difference or not, but both Bruce and I sold several items from the shelves and have decided to continue having a discounted area in the future!

The sale was a lot of fun, and I will be blogging later about the other wonderful dealers at the show in the near future.  If you live in Utah and have not gone to the Acorn Antique Show in the past, you may want to rethink that choice.  The next show will be February 18th and 19th, so you may want to make a note of that.

Nettie's Gnomes Home ... The magical Place Gnomes and Witches Appear!

I saw my first Nettie's Gnome at the Barn Boutique in Springville, way back when it was held in a barn.  Lets just say I was beyond charmed .... that day Dorthea went home with me.  Dorthea is a charming little girl gnome who looks surprisingly like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.

Later when Nettie came into the antique store where I work, to buy antique gew gaws and jewelry to accessorize her gnomes and witches, I was lucky enough to meet her.  Nettie Barnett exudes the charm and magic that she sews into her creations.

Despite the fact that I have acquired six of her wonderful gnomes and witches, I had not been to the magical place of their creation, until last weekend.  Whoa, I was pleasantly amazed!!  This cobbled walk leads to a magical cottage.

Over the foot bridge, including its toes, one finds a life size witch, at leisure on the porch, to greet you.

Inside, at least during The Witches' Ball event, one finds wonderful witches lounging everywhere.  I took some pictures of favorites.  Nettie's attention to detail is legendary.

 

 

I hope you all enjoyed the fun and whimsical witches.  Witches not exactly your thing?  She also has some cute little Halloween children.

And there goes our good friend and Treasures Antiques' customer Lisa with new witches for her own little witch family!! 

I hope to be able to show you some of her charming gnomes during gnome season.  If you love her witches and would like to contact Nettie you can click here .