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.  

July mashup

We had the $ girls at our. home for 3 days.. and I took them to see Tarzan at CPT.  They loved it!  We also had Grandkid game night while they were here.  All 8 of the grand nuggets came.  Grandkid game night was a riot– we did our normal Chicken nuggets for dinner then we played “quarters” where you have two teams across the table from each other and pass a coin under the table so the opposite team doesn’t know who has it, then you all slap your hands down on the table at the same time, and the opposite team tried to guess where the quarter is by having it be the last hand left on the table.  George was a hoot at this. If he did have the coin he was very serious and his hand was pressed down hard… if he didn’t have the coin, he would scratch his head, tent his hands, wiggled, and then couldn’t figure out why the other team told him to lift his hands up.   We laughed a lot.  Then we drove/ walked to Maverick and Arctic Circle for treats and playing on the playground.  It was super HOT.  We got home in time to divide into teams of 2 and prepare skits, or songs, to entertain each other.  We had so much fun, we did this twice.  And finally, the last 15 minutes of the night we played Dominoes.  I love my grands.

Wayne is loving his Bee hives.  He is very attentive and learning a lot this summer. 

We continue with our Sidetracked band performances. Tuesday we had a band day.-- clear out to Draper, but they loved us.  We do our patriotic program through July, and when we sang God Bless America at the end, the entire audience– those that could– were on their feet and many of the old veterans were saluting.  IT was very touching.  I cried….Then we all cheered for the good old US of A.  

We are doing upkeep on the cabin to make it through another winter.  We have painted the two sheds and helped with the shingles..  We still need to paint the back of the cabin and the deck.  Wayne got free paint and also large 5 gallon tubs of paint for a dollar a gallon.  When you don't caree about the color it's easy to find unwanted paint.

POPPY broke her arm on Monday– she stepped onto a swivel chari and slipped off and caught herself with her left arm and broke both bones right above her wrist.. Pushed the whole arm over to the side, so her arm look like an S curve. The x-ray is wild looking.  It was crazy.  Poppy was in shock and didn’t cry, but kept saying, “I wanna go back.  Can’t I go back and do that again. I didnt’ want this to happen”   ( wow there’s a lesson here – when we all do dumb stuff and want to go back… but life doesn’t work that way– it’s about choices and consequences and trying to do better next time, and the time after that.)  Addison rushed her to Instacare— where they said this break is so bad you will need to go to the ER.  So off to the ER, where they had to sedate Poppy and put her fingers in a finger trap, pulling them up and a weight on the muscle of her bicep to pull it down, so they could lengthen out the area and “push/pull" the two bones back over the wrist area where they belong… yikes.  But they did a good job.  They said if an adult did this, then surgery would be needed for sure, but kids' bones are pliable and easy-going, and 4 days later after all the swelling was down, she got a hard cast on and will be in that for a month– then a brace for 2 weeks and she should be good to go.  

Poppy and George out selling lemonade and cookies....Papa is a sucker for this...and they made $80.00 in one afternoon.