What I wore in August

 

School has started!

 I had my last first day of school! I can't believe I'm almost at retirement!

Andre's first day as a Sophomore at the University of Utah.  He changed his major to film, and he's still with the marching band playing trumpet!

Sophia's first day as a Senior at Viewmont High School.  She doesn't believe she is a Senior and neither do I.  She will continue with her choir, band and musical theatre pursuits.  She has a bunch of good friends, and a car to drive so she is doing great.

Alfie's first day of Jr. High...this was taken after school and he loved his first day.

Poppy's first day in 3rd grade.  She got her cast removed just in time and now has a brace on for 6 weeks.  She is a good reader and they are figuring out ADHD meds for her to help her focus better and not zone out.

George's first day of Kindergarten at a Charter school... this way he can do Kindergarten twice! 

Elsie is in First grade and feeling it.  She has a ton of confidence and wants to really learn to read this year.

Lady is going into 3rd grade and hurt her wrist this summer.  She is so smart and has a lot of anxiety.

Tayla first day of 5th grade ( she also hurt her wrist).  She is almost as tall as me, and definitely the tallest in her grade.  

Lexi has her first day as well as a Teacher's aide at the girls' North Layton Prep Academy charter school.

First day of school for Monson’s girls and Lexi went well – they are all excited and looked darling in their uniforms and new backpacks.  

Sophia’s first day as a Senior at Viewmont High was full of emotions– she was happy and sad to be a Senior– she misses people from last year and can’t believe she is this old.  I told her to feel all the feelings..and do your best to enjoy.

Addison’s house was a bit crazy on their first day…. They are type B parents and don’t read all the emails and calendars ( so much like me), so they didn’t know George’s school started days before the Davis district– and he missed his first couple of days… oh well.  And they need a uniform for him!  Which they didn’t buy with the normal school clothes.  They have since fixed all of this.  George came home from his first day and said, “School was good, nobody hit me.”   He has a low bar.

Alfie was all tears heading back to school, “Why does the world make us go to school?”  “I hate learning.”  Which is funny becaue Alfie has always been a good student with a lot of friends.  They got Alfie and Poppy and George to school late after Addison lost it, yelling at them all to “eat  breakfast, grab your stuff, get in the car!”  (We all take our turns being crazy parents. )  Alfie went in mad because he was late – but he came home at the end of the day all smiles.  It went GREAT!  He loved his first day at Jr. High.  Success. Poppy loved her school too– and she got her cast off and only has a wrist brace now– so that’s good.  

Andrew is loving his marching band camp– he loves playing trumpet and has changed his major to film.  

Closing of Childhood Church

We went to the open house for the closing of the 4th, 20th, 36th ward church building in Bountiful on 1400 South. (Too many stairs and too hard to get it up to code.  They will be collapsing some wards and realigning boundaries in the South Stake.)  This is the church we had mine and Wayne’s and Addison and Bre’s wedding luncheons.      

We took Wanee and Holly…and what I thought would be like a 20-minute outing turned into 2 hours.   We saw so many people there that we hadn’t seen for a long time....David Irvine, Carolyn and Mark Zaugg, Dave and Robin Beck, Gary Wall.   So, a lot of visiting, plus they had history books of the different wards from the 1950’s on up.   I went through the 4th ward ‘60’s book and found so many pictures of my mom when she was RS president of that ward, and her as a witch entertaining the primary kids for their Halloween Party, and Dad serving in the 4th ward bishopric, and one pic of our whole family with Angela as a 1 year old.  Mom had amazing hair of course.  It even had pics of  “The Singing Mothers” that mom and Grandma were part of– and a picture of my grandma’s quartet- The Classics-  when they entertained at a ward thing.  It was crazy.  I have pics of me as a 6 year old in matching coats with Marcie that I have never seen before.  It was so great to go through these books.  I’m very grateful for ward historians who took their jobs seriously.   

I got a pic in front of the big Jesus - fishers of Men paining in the front of the chapel.  They handed out copies of that pic to everyone with a little write up on the back of how Dean Belnap painted it.   (Eric Belnap’s dad)  Then we had lunch under the trees and more visitiing.  It was awesome!  The building is for sale for 1.9 million if anyone wants to buy it. 

1967

1970

1970

1970

1967

1965

The Singing Mothers

1969 Grandma Butters quartet

1969-- Angela is the baby in the blanket

 

Painting the cabin

We got the ENTIRE outside of the cabin painted, and both decks!  We got $ 1.00-a-gallon paint– really good stuff from Sherwin–Williams– but couldn’t pick the colors– so now the cabin is a cream color with driftwood color trim and decks. We powerwashed the dirt and old paint off on Sunday when we got there with Addison’s family and Landon…and prayed it would dry by the next day.  There was old paint flying everywhere.  Addison was a mess!    Then on Monday we painted ALL DAY.  It was a ton of work.  We took up our 22-foot extension ladder and a paint sprayer, and we were happy that Wayne and Addison would climb to the top or hang out of an upper window with a long extension painting roller to get it all done– I couldn’t watch.  It was to crazy for me.  I remember decades ago when we painted the cabin and Steve Shurtz hanging out of an upper window to paint the high eave and Jane saying, “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”  I understand that sentiment now.

   We had Landon, me, Bre, Alfie, Poppy, and George paint the decks, and it was kind of a mess with a 4-year-old painting..but we couldn’t keep George away. Alfie rolled on the second coat of paint on the back of the cabin with a 26-foot extension pole that Wayne got as well.   Landon filled all holes in the roof with roofing tar to seal those up.. So the cabin and the two sheds should be good paint-wise for a couple more years.  Our big goal is to take the deck off and put a new one on that wraps around to the front door. It was good to be up there.  It’s such an amazing view sitting on the deck and watching the quakies….very peaceful.  

What we really like up there is Wayne’s solar-powered battery to run the lights in the cabin instead of the NOISY generator.   Then it really is peaceful.

 

Welch Reunion '26

 We had our Welch extended family reunion with all of Wayne’s siblings and families and Wanee of course… we worked at Wanee’s home and yard— we cleaned, tore down the shed, and swing set and pruned and cut, checked sprinklers,  and made 4 dump runs out of Wanee’s backyard.  It looks like someone cares again.  Wanee supervised while, Dale, Wayne  and I, Landon, Truman, Rob, Tami, Mark, Stockton,  Savannah, Andrew, Derrick, Jane and Steve and Amy’s family all helped.  Then we showered and changed and made it to the dinner and program portion of the Reunion at Terry’s church. 

 

It was going to be at Barnes Park– but the heat was too much so we quickly went into a church.  It worked out great.  Jane had gotten some artifacts- heirlooms from Wanee and Tom and displayed and talked about the importance of them, and shared pics. Wanee put on her wedding dress again…at 90! 

 Some of the kids and grandkids put on some of the clothing items and had their pics taken in them.  It was special.  Then awe all participated in family skits based on old family memories– we had Grandpa wearing a helmet while driving the whole family in a hail storm by the Bentleys; The Ski accident with Wanee going down the hill and hurting herself by Shurtz’; we acted out the Grasshopper story from the cabin; Wanee acted out bringing baby Dale home on an airplane at 3 days old and all the stewardesses amazed that she could fly and felt and looked so good after just giving birth– she finally had to tell them he’s adopted. Mark Welch family did “old Man Jones, Skin and Bones” with Wanee getting after them; Terry’s family had pics of all the original family which they were little blown up into 8X10 sized,  with the mouths cut out, then they put them over their faces and sang a version of Love at home.. It was really cute; Tim Shurtz family did silverware in the sandbox story; Tami and Wendi’s group did “r- ted” skit that Mark loves to do—" I’ff R. Ted."    They had darling crafts for us all to make and Sandy provided a Cafe Rio style dinner.  We had about 90 people there. 

What I wore in July

My @whatluckywears Instagram account has 13,200 followers.  I can't believe it.  It's fun for me to get outfits together and preach my pro-aging messaging.