Monkeys Eat Bananas: November 2007

80 Years Old

The point of the Utah trip was to celebrate and commemorate the 80 year old, and to party. We had family, friends, food and fun.

Before things started, the picture book of Grandpa's descendents was given to him. He really liked it. It was and will be a treasure.

Tables were set with mints, nuts, cups and miniature sports cars.

Help in the kitchen, including my Aunt Marie, in white, who was my co-conspirator on this event.

Greeting family and friends.

Lloyd and Ralph.

Fred and life long friend Enos. (As a kid I remember "Let's get in the car, we are going to Enos and Gertie's. That always sounded funny to me. His late wife was named Gertrude.)

Lloyd, Ralph and June. June still has plenty interesting things to say.

Lloyd and wife Marie. (So much thanks to them and their family for making this party happen!)

And food of course. Also, two cakes - a chocolate with frosting and a white with chocolate frosting.

Here is the gang. Ralph, June, Marie, Lloyd, Marie, Don, Enos and Fred.

And now we say good-bye.

Keith and Gayle - cousins.

Clean-up took about five minutes with everyone helping.

This was such a great chance to see the family again. I hope we get to do it again soon with even more there.

More Utah Larry and Kendall

When I was in Utah, I got to visit with Larry and Kendall. They came down to Murray to pick me up and we ate lunch. They took me to Layton where they live. We did some last minute shopping for my father's birthday party, then we went hiking. Here we are going up the face of the mountain at Adam's Canyon. WOW, how I love the smell of mountain canyon spring water rushing over the rockes! The whole event was basically four hours of deep conversation, just picking up where we left off for the most part. Too bad they live so far away.

A Little Family History

Here we are at the Benson Mill in Lake Point, Utah. Fred's father was raised in this little town near the Great Salt Lake. It is at the junction on the road between SLC and Nevada, where the road to Tooele splits off. Fred lived on this property for about three years as a young child. His father was the watchman for the mill and the woolery.

Where the wagon in this picture sits, is where the family lived those three years in a two-room, "tar paper" house with a garage behind.

These are the foundations of the old woolery. One night when the family lived on this property, the woolery caught fire from spontaneous cumbustion, and burned fiercely, and with a tremendous stink! The fire fighters came with a pumper and started pumping water from the mill pond. The woolery was considered lost, but they doused the house and garage for many hours.

We went to this cemetery in Lake Point. Fred's grandparents and some other family members are buried here.

I felt really warm when I brushed some dry grass off of this and other markers. These are names on my family history sheets, but here they really were.

Saw where some of the old houses were and heard some of the stories.

Great outing!

A beautiful world!

I was just eating at the table enjoying this riot of color.

Had to share!!!

New toy to master

This arrived at Nana and Papa's house just in time to learn to climb stairs!

A Day in Nauvoo

The rubble of the old Catholic girls school.

We ran into Andy and Lauren and hung out with them.

(random boy)

I like the sentiment. Thank you for the lives you lived.

They painted the original homestead.

Ahh...the Mississippi...

The end of a beautiful day...

Goodbye Nauvoo.

Iowa

Last week I went to visit Sarah and Elisabeth while Alex attended a conference. This is their apartment building. The middle window on the right is their living room.

This is their neighborhood - very prairie.

Elisabeth does everything wholeheartedly, including watching PBS.

She likes to wear big shoes.

Two blocks from their apartment is a mall with a Children's Museum (next trip!) They have a playground inside the mall too.

I like to call this shot 'Where's Elisabeth?'

We got her new boots that matched her coat.

Downtown and U of Iowa are the same. Here is the grand view of the campus entry.

At one point in history, the railroad ended in Iowa City. Hundreds of LDS handcart pioneers started their trek west right at this park. It would be fun to figure out if Dad's ancestors started there!

This is real prairie grass.

Some sort of creepy crawly thing was discovered.

The girls.

We had a FHE / birthday party with Joe & Heidi.

Monday's activity was to teach Sarah a few cake decorating tricks. She made me a delicious birthday cake!!

St. Louis Deja Vu

On the trip to Iowa I paused for artistic refreshment at the St. Louis Art Museum. I parked for FREE just to the right of this picture, entered for FREE, and feasted for 20 beautiful minutes.

This is just one amazing work that I viewed...

The next 'must do' stop was...
It was just as delicious as I remembered.

The church where Sarah was blessed and Anna was baptized. I also remembered the best spook alley ever and the time the cub scouts had that 6th grade teacher demo model rockets and one landed on a neighbor's roof!!