August and September, 2018

I'm going backwards in time, since my previous post was all about going to North Carolina in the middle of September, and these events happened a few weeks before then..

FAIRY GARDEN area (sans fairies). I love miniatures. I want miniatures for my miniatures.

The height of summer glory.

It's always sobering to look at pictures of my mom from just a few months ago and see how much she has declined. Although today (Sunday, March 17th, Leesie Lou's 21st Birthday as I write) I went up to see my mom and she was doing better than I've seen her in months. I had an ulterior motive for going on a Sunday because they have two daily newspapers delivered to the sitting area every day, and I love having newspapers for my potato peelings, but don't take the paper any more. I also love to have the Sunday comics on hand when the kids come for Sunday dinner, but I can't buy a Sunday paper on Sunday, so, voila - I stole one!  (do you think stealing memory care's Sunday paper is a bigger sin than breaking the Sabbath to buy one?).

This is such a walk into the past, 7 months ago it was the height of the farmer's market too. I LOVE the South Jordan farmer's market. It's close, and it involves farmers and their marketable fruits!

Dennis and I celebrating our 47th wedding anniversary at Market Street Grill. Mmmmmmmm, oysters and clam chowder.

SLLUUURRRPPP!

This picture is the BEST! Before Elise left on her mission I showed her this photo of great-grandpa Hiatt from his French mission journal (he was a scrapbooker before scrapbooking was cool). He had written "what's the use?" to go along with his expression. Elise wanted to re-create it so I sent it to her and she DID it. It's that awesome? She's the bomb.

This is BYU Education Week 2018 where Tony presented IN THE MARRIOTT CENTER THIS YEAR!! ROCK STAR STATUS!! He joked that his dream was to be playing basketball in that arena, but, yeah, wow. Really humbling and terrifying I'm sure, but he was just awesome.

School clothes shopping with the girls. I don't know which store we were in but I'll always associate school clothes shopping with them with Forever 21 which they know I hate! I should add that to my 5 things I hate list, and remove round-abouts! They're so fun to shop with. Now Lauren too old, and next Reggie will be too old too.

And this little Vivster is going to have such a different second decade of growing up, because she will be surrounded by BOYS.  "The girls" have been so "girly" and Viv will have to hold that down all by herself (with plenty of sisters to help her along the way and pave the road)!.

Eli and Cal  - Boys don't want to go school clothes shopping. But they did like the Orange Julius.

I think this was one of those random shots that come over all of us sometimes when we see a pretty sunset and think "I've GOT to take a picture." It's soul-satisfying to do it. So there ya go - a pretty random sunset replete with traffic signal.

We are blessed with robins in abundance, and it has the healing effect of feeling Wyatt very near. I take pictures of them all the time. Flocks of them. This is probably one of the photos I took last August of my solo buddy who was in the yard all last summer.

This is our Relief Society summer party at the Gibbon's home. They're rich. It's nice to know rich people.

Evidently Forrest was in town in August. I think he's juggling a lime and an avocado which is so appropriate for Forrest, the man who loves to cook, loves fresh ingredients and who in my opinion invented "Taco Tuesday!"

Okay, this is good for a giggle. I'm officially old (and semi-senile just so you know) because I am now a member of DUP. Yes, you could put that in my obituary. No, on second thought, never mind, I doubt I'll ever go to a meeting. I think they have "camps" or something.

Angie was here too for the Saints launch and this must be Cindy's birthday we're celebrating which is September 3rd.

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End of summer glory - Bacon Lettuce and Tomato sandwiches and fresh peaches, worthy of FOUR photos in a row

DEEEEEE-LISH!

And here, in stunning billboard-worthiness taken while I was hosting at the conference center, is the SAINTS launch!! and Angie, MY Angie is one of the writers. It's just such a thrill that she has this opportunity, and since she is a genius, it's just awesome knowing her genius mind is working so hard every day, full time, to help bring the history of the SAINTS to life, Latter-Day SAINTS, ALL ABOUT US YOU GUYS!

We got to attend the launch party at the Church History Museum. Oh my GOSH! It was thrilling to be there and to know Angie has been working so hard on this spectacular endeavor. We got to meet some of the other writers and historians. I developed a HUGE crush on one of the historians, whose name I can't remember, but his talk was just so good.

This is Angie and some of the other people who worked on SAINTS. The lady to her right (not the best picture but she will never know) wrote the screenplay for the film "Jane and Emma" that came out last fall. So many gifted, talented people in one room (with really good hour de ovres too!).

Denny came to the open house too and I remember that this little girl in the picture was a random little girl, we have no idea who she is!

And I'll finish with one of the simple pleasure of life - going to Springville every week for piano, and sometimes Cindy makes us dinner too!! And Dennis reads to Truman.XOXOXO MOM

North Carolina Trip September, 2018

So these Cool Sweats took a trip to North Carolina last September and got to visit some of the other cool Sweats!

On one of our day excursions we drove to Pinehurst Golf Course which was just gorgeous. We sat in the lobby of this clubhouse for awhile. I felt like I feel when I go to Ethan Allen.................very insecure. It is marvelous how many different kinds of people there are in the world. Golfers - Dennis - Non-Golfers - Me. Rich people - Pinehurst clubhouse - Not Rich People - Me and Dennis. You get the drift?

However, I am rich ENOUGH, actually exceedingly rich. I can take trips, I don't have to go to work any more, and I can visit the North Carolina Sweats! Here's Care Bear in her darling bedroom. We always have so much fun when we're there. There are always lots of plans, loads of food and lots of laughter.

One of the things Dennis and I had on our "must do" list this time was to F-i-n-a-l-l-y make it to the Great Smokey Mountains. We'd tried to do it a few years ago at the height of the autumn leaves, but it was so foggy that day as to make the drive hair-raising. This time we were a little early for the leaves, but it was gorgeous! A true wonder of America, a land full of wonders.

 Just look at those miles and miles of rolling hills.

And notice these threatening clouds!!! Yes, we flew to North Carolina right at the height of a major Hurricane that made national news. People couldn't believe we were going "to" North Carolina. Luckily Greensboro is inland and just got bands of rain and high winds, but it was still quite the experience to be there that week. The stores were all running out of food, the gas stations were out of gas, everything was closed.

Appalachian State University is near the trails we hiked, and let me tell you, these trails were swarming with college kids who decided to hike the same trail we were on that day because we soon found out the schools were all closed because of the impending hurricane! This is one of those groups, and everywhere were SCADS of dogs!!

One night we visited the B and C's climbing gym and watched Caroline lead this group in exercises.

Here's Brandon showing us some of his skills (he actually wasn't feeling well that night and was just there with us picking up Caroline - I don't think he usually climbs in crocks :-).

Just being together at Andrew and Andrea's home is the best part of visiting!

Whitney is a talented homemaking artist. She likes to sew, and knit, and cook. She is also an artist artist and a musician.

And Caroline likes to get around like the athlete she is - why walk on your own two feet when you can do a handstand?

We did lots of jigsaw puzzles too! Good hurricane projects. I can't remember what this show on t.v. was but it was one of those 50's musicals that they don't make any more.

The compelling reason for visiting when we did was to see Whitney in Greensboro city's production of "Newsies." Andrea and I got there early and the rains started pouring down.

And then, they stopped - this is their cute downtown theatre district which reminds me of La Grande All small towns remind me of La Grand.

Andrea and I went to an art gallery that was next door to the theatre and saw these incredible miniature carvings. This looks like a street, but it's actually a pottery container the size of a vase with this carved in miniature into it!

Here are Andrea and I anticipating the oncoming storm!

And ta-da- our star performer Whitney after "Newsies" You can't take pictures of the play during the performance, but it was beyond fabulous. Oh my GOSH! Whitney sang and danced with all these other young talented professionals. It was fabulous! The PIPES on these singers. Whitney has a gorgeous voice, and so did everyone else too. Their power, and theatricality and musicianship just washed over all of us in the audience.  You had to be 14 to even try out so Whitney was one of the very youngest actors in the show.

The looks on Whitney's face in these photos just shows her natural exuberant personality. What a charmer!

It was such a memorable experience to be with our North Carolina Sweats! Can't wait to go back.
XOXOXO
Mom

Conference Center

These are some of the women I served with at the Conference Center on my Monday shift. I didn't realize how much I missed them until I downloaded this photo. Just LOOK at those faces! The first time I met the elderly woman, Krista, (second from the right), I let her physical frailties color my impression. Oh my goodness was I wrong. She has the energy of someone half her age and is the BEST story teller. She's a kind, gifted woman full of light, with a sparkle in her eyes and a keen wit. Her frame is hunched over and she walks r-e-e-e-e-a-l-l-y slowly, but her husband Joe sits tall in the saddle - like Dennis will when we're old and I'm hunched over like Krista. The blonde lady seated on the left is a gospel doctrine teacher just like me. One day we were sharing some thoughts about an upcoming lesson, and the topic of Joseph Smith translating using a seerstone in a hat came up. She said "My son just wrote a book about that."  I gasped and responded "MY son just illustrated a book about that!" Turns out it was the same book!! We were giddy to find out that our sons not only teach together at BYU but amazingly had recently worked together on a book. Both of us immediately texted our respective boys, and they both responded with "He's a genius" (I guess it's a running joke between the two of them. Although Tony later said to me, "No, mom, Michael Mackay really IS a genius"). The lady standing on the far left never had children. She was a down to earth person of few words, five foot two (like I swear 90% of the women were, accompanied by 90% of the men who were all 5 foot 7, I felt like a giant). She had the most brilliant blue eyes, like little blue marbles, that were actually quite startling if you looked directly into them. I always wondered what she looked like as a little girl. The lady seated second from the left, Jane, is as full of goodness as she looks. She was the designated "Resource Specialist" before she got a new responsibility and I replaced her and was such a good "resource" for me. She was one of those people who immediately decides to call me "Barb." The lady third from the left is one of those people whose smile and face immediately drew me in. She seemed familiar the first time I met her. I feel like we're related somewhere down the line, because something about her instantly reminded me of my Aunt Barbara, so all pretenses were down from the get-go. She has nine children and is as sturdy and buoyant and curious and no-nonsense as a farm girl in a novel (at least in a novel I would write? Are farm girls curious and/or buoyant?). Interestingly, she had eight boys and one girl- and so did a lady on my Friday shift have nine children, eight boys and one girl! I always wanted to get them together. The lady on the far right, Cindy, was someone I didn't get to know very well at first and then got really close to toward the end of my time at the conference center. She brought her husband to the Christmas party and he was so handsome and debonair! He reminded me of Celine Deon's husband, although I know next to nothing about Celine Deon's husband. She was so open-hearted and vulnerable and loved to talk when we had slow days. Both of her sons had hemophilia and unbelievably one of them died of AIDS after receiving blood transfusions from someone with AIDS during the unknown and uncertain days when the AIDS epidemic began.

This is a "snapshot" of a few of the people I got to serve with over the almost three years I was at the Conference Center. I could include 10 more snapshots of all of the others. I wanted to get this down on my blog because I want to remember it. After I was released in November, it was so transforming to have two whole extra days to get everything done that I wanted to do during the holidays. And I was kind of surprised that I didn't miss it more, but I honestly didn't miss it! Although, now that it's the middle of bleak mid-winter, I have little pangs of wondering if I might want to do it again. Crazy! Or, I might want to just be a piano player one day a week at the conference center, that would be fun, and not exhausting at all, and serving at the conference center is - ex-haus-ting! But also great missionary experiences almost every day which are a blessing beyond measure.  I might also look into playing the organ at the temple one day a week. Who knows! But Amy just moved to Logan YESTERDAY!!!! and we are going to ROME in JUNE! So, I will probably continue enjoying this stretch of time with no responsibilities -  for now :-)