Tomasi and Irene Tukuafu

little yellow birdie

2011-09-19T20:33:00.001-07:00

We often hear "thud" on our windows, but this time we didn't hear it, but Tomasi was working outside and came across this darling little yellow young birdie. He brought it to me. I took several photos of it...and brushed off it's very tiny loose feathers around it's head. I set him down on the table and it was not natural for him....so took him to my wisteria bush and he hung on to his little dear life for a few hours and then I guess he recovered and flew off. yeah.
here it's truely said, "a bird in hand is worth two in the bush".

quilt as cupboard

2011-09-19T20:29:00.001-07:00

I went to visit my dear friend Ramona Hallman. and because Pat, her marvelous carpenter husband has been so busy working elsewhere........he didn't ever get around to making cupboards for the kitchen. I think these are wayyyyyyyyyy more cute then board cupboards. I just had to post this of Ramona's kitchen. I love this family too. Pat is the one that set my stained glass windows in my house and took down the big tree that was sitting where my shop is now....and did other very creative work in my house.

Peter & Sheryl Uluave

2011-09-19T20:26:00.001-07:00

We had such a wonderful suprize to have Peter and Sheryl Uluave come and visit us here in Nauvoo. We were young married couple friends years ago in Hawaii. Peter was one of Tomasi's fishing buddies. She used to play the lap dulcimer...I just love this couple and we will be friends forever.

#63 bowed psaltery

2011-09-19T20:19:00.000-07:00

I'm so excited to work in the shop and it really calls my name. All but one of my Manger puzzles are sold and I'm working on this bowed psaltery.....oh what a joy to work in my little shop. I've got orders for 2 more psaltery's and I just got another one in the mail today. WHOOOOOOOOOEIS. going to get all this canning done in the Kitchen as my shop CALLS MY NAME.

canning times

2011-09-19T19:58:00.000-07:00

Got a WINDFALL of roma tomatoes. paid $1.00 for 30# and then he gave me 30# more of "seconds" I thought I'd NEVER see the end of these. 4 boxes and one bucket. whew.
V8 juice here

zucchini Jam. can you believe that? and using jello for the coloring. interesting. but I learned something on this....and after a day or so, it tasted good

these were SWEET...pears in cranberry juice and spices. FUN FUN and yummmmmmy. I didn't know I could have blanched them and slipped off the skins. I pealed every one. oh well. but I'll do pears again like this.
and here's DRYING tomatoes. wayyyyyyy easy and good. and all now in a quart jar and pint jar. easy cheesy to do.

puzzles and pears

2011-09-11T09:39:00.001-07:00

While I'm working in the shop or the house, Tomasi has a new thing that he's doing with the throw away shingles from NRI. .....whooooooooooopies, it's putting it on that GAP from where the board ends and the roof of the house comes and it's really finishing up the back of the round house sooooooooooooo nicely. I love his SHINGLE ART WORK.
the first thing that I've done in my new shop is make these 5 NATIVITY Christmas puzzles. they are for an order from some missionaries that I work with in the Temple. I oiled these down at the end of the day.....after making bread (can see on the big table) and also some time consuming CANNED PEAR HALF'S in Cranberry juice. oh yummy. I did 7 pints of these. I'm having soooooooooo much fun learning all these canning things. Out of the same book I've talked about before.

Inside the shop

2011-09-04T20:59:00.001-07:00

Here's my lovely sanding counter and "put stuffs together" counter....overlooking the lovely Mississippi. Surely no harp shop has a view like I do!!! yes, wonderful Pella windows that I was not able to use in my house. I've got some peg board that Worth got me and I'll be painting that white and then putting that at different places.
Here's the big belt sander that I use for all sorts of things. and the one next to it is a great sander that I need not too much. This roll thingie that they sit on....I can easily roll out and clean out when I'm done sanding. OR if it's a nice day, I'll just point it out the open door.
And my lovely work bench that does more stuff then I knew it could. and my drill press. It has a broken spring that I hope I can either replace or just get another one. He's been sitting on my porch all last winter and when I could work with it, I would...but not good for machinery to be so exposed to the weather.
some barnwood that was going to get thrown away. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO....so saved it and put it around the air conditioner. I love these odd pieces. oh so fun now working in "IRENE'S HAPPY HARP SHOP".
I saved these piano legs from Lungrin's throw away piano and knew I was going to use it somewhere. THIS IS THE "WHERE". I will put a bunch of lovely cherry wood on it. My BIG TONGAN will get all of it from under a tarp tomorrow and I'll have it where I can get to it. I have a lot of plans for that wood. Mostly Pioneer bread knives. Scroll saw is now in her place.

THE PARTY

2011-09-04T20:54:00.001-07:00

here are some of our 40 guests. We love all the folks that came. We did some performing and then later on, when we had just a few folks, Dave Hardle brought over his girl and the dear Adam's girl and they played some flute duets. What a treat for us. Sorry these photos are blurry....but you get the idea. I served a big square cooker pan full of Hawaiian Meat balls....and we had plunty left over. We took it and Rice to the Temple the next day.

Tomasi cleaning windows & UMU MAKING

2011-09-04T20:42:00.000-07:00

WELL, things don't go on my blog as I'd planned, but you get the idea. Here is the last step in doing a Umu.............Tomasi's style here in Nauvoo. I took these through our front CLEAN window.
all backwards. It it wasn't so late, I'd switch these, but oh well. you go figure it out. Here he's putting on wet newspapers (instead of lovely banana leaves)
Moving the hot rocks around and taking out the still burning hard wood.
he's planning what to do next. he didn't know I was taking these photos. ha. Do you see the little red Hummer feeder on the window here. oh my, my love for humming birds has increased 100 fold. We have around 6 birdies. they are very territorial....one is a "king of them all" I have another feeder on the porch. What a JOY to watch them.
Here he's cleaning the windows. Yeah. He did all the window of this house and also all the screens. This was in preparation for the big party that we had on September 2 for all the paid workers at the Temple and their families. We had a wonderful time as always.
I was too busy to take photos when he was taking all the done food out. The turkey fell off the bones and ham was done perfectly. I might be able to add someone else's photos of this fun event.

Tomasi cleaning windows

2011-09-04T20:37:00.001-07:00

Worth and Barbie Holmes come for a 3 day visit

2011-09-04T20:22:00.001-07:00

This is my dear Brother Worth Holmes. He and Barbie have been married 47 years like we have. what a joy to have them come and he did so much for to finish my shop. They came on Thurs 25 August and stayed only till Sunday Morning. His purpose was to help me finish the shop and put things away. He gets in the shop and I turn on my scroll saw and he said, "the floor needs another layer of plywood....not only OSB wood....it's just not strong enough for all your equipment." He's also a woodworker and turns bowls and has a perfect shop that he built. They live in Tyler, Texas. He's still a computer programer. He's also a lead singer in a Barbarshop quartet and belongs to a big group there in Tyler. We did get to do some singing while here.
Of course, there's the scrabble game with all four of us.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day....
and here he is....and I also was gluing and screwing the plywood down. It's made it much more sturdy and after..........Tomasi got right in and painted the floor and they together put in all the "base boards" then we brought in most all the tools and ran out of time. My brother is quite a clown and makes a lot of jokes that couldn't be written down here. I love him dearly and we're hoping to go to Tyler, Texas for Thanksgiving.

Dave on the roof

2011-09-04T20:18:00.000-07:00

Dave Hardle came over and helped Tomasi finish up this side with the throw away shingles from N.R.I. He just jumped up on the roof and then laid the black roofing stuffs and then they covered it over with the shingles. YEAH it rained that evening.
Notice the cute throw away lights I got from Vicki. I have two of these and Peter put those in for me too.

Tehani and insulation and OSB boards

2011-09-04T09:37:00.001-07:00

Here is Tehani helping Peter Alberts put in the OSB boards. She's really strong in putting those screws in and Peter really appreciated her help....SO DID I.

these posts will be out of order as I've been so swamped with all going on in our lives....but here is Tehani Sewell, my granddaughter that helped me put in the Insulation before Peter Alberts came to put over the OSB boards. We learned a whole lot about this process. I had to go get some more at Menards.

Crew of Two

2011-09-04T09:15:00.001-07:00

Last cut on the floor "kick boards"
filling all the cracks with foam. this shop is WELL INSULATED!!
and Irene is well pleased with all this work that's been done!!!
Peter cutting the last OSB board for the walls. yeahsville
Peter putting in the air conditioner.
these are the cool cabinets that were giving to me by Clark Peterson. they fit perfectly in the "bump out space" this will be where I'll do all my sanding.
When Peter left on Saturday 6 Aug 2011, we came home after the Temple to see this Scrabble set up note for us. After Peter and Tomasi would work or even in the day when it was just too HOT....they'd play a game of Scrabble and then sing songs while I'd made food. I loved their blended voices as they sang.

crew of Two, Tomasi and Peter Alberts. After Kim left to go back to their home, Peter Alberts stayed on and did so much finishing work on my shop. Everything had to be measured and then cut oddly as things were not too straight. I wanted to have OSB boards for the walls because I want to hang things and have it not be DRY WALL....as nails and screws don't do well on that material. I got 17 (4'X8') boards @ Menards and This is what Peter used. It was hot and muggy the whole time...he just kept on working and called Tomasi when he needed him. I helped some too. Mostly in "praise". They then painted the walls white and floor green and put the barnwood around the floors. This day they were really tired. The intended goal was to have this shop done before by brother came to help me set things up in the Shop.

BOG FIRE

2011-09-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

After we did so much work on the Shop and we knew we'd not be using so much woods and other things we'd stored "just in case we need it"....Tomasi put that old wood and stuffs over to the Mississippi Side of the road. Not poisonous stuffs....and had a big bonfire. Everyone does this here. Well, we've not had rain for a long time and this fire started crawling along other logs that float up here when the Mississippi is flooding. He became worried about those two trees that we love....and so was taking buckets of water down there....3 days...and it wouldn't go out. So I called my fireman friend and he told me it was a 'BOG FIRE' and for me to call 911 and they'll send the firetruck. YEP YEP they came in about 10 min....sirens screeming at 7:30 a.m. I was so impressed by their speed on getting here, and getting down in that muck and getting that fire out. There were still some little "smokers" a day or two later then we had a good rain and that did it. Bog is a mixture of dirt and wood and whatever else...but it burns. That's what the Irish had to use when England took all their trees to build in England and for the stained glass trade and making of bricks. That's why you see Ireland with mostly green grass and rocks. It used to have forests. They used bogs peat to heat their houses with. I think they still do.

Plantain plant/healer

2011-09-04T08:47:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to post this for any of you not familiar with this marvelous weed/plantain/healer. This grows all over the world and you can look it up on google and learn more. Here is a big one that Tomasi saved when weeding. When I had a class in Hawaii in Relief Society, we had a very knowledgeable Hawaiian man come teach of of so many healing plants growing in Hawaii. This was one of them. He had this one, and called it the female and another one that had skinny leaves, male one. both are healers. When stung by a bee, wasp, spider, centipede, get these leaves, heat 'em up on the stove/fire a little bit and squeeze the juice out on the affected area. then wrap more leaves on it and tape it up. It will heal very fast. When Tomasi got poison oak so badly in Ashland, Oregon, I took him to the doctor and nothing was working....he was breaking out with it everywhere on his body. So I went to the park and gathered up sacks full of these leaves, put them in the blender, added honey and lemon and had him drink it. It didn't taste badly...and in 3 days it was totally gone. I have recommended it to many here in Nauvoo. IT WORKS STILL.

Hot and COLD baths

2011-07-25T11:38:00.001-07:00

Folks, you can figure what has HOT baths and who has COLD baths. yep. These are HOT pickled Zuks....and the directions is that they soak in a brine, then cook some with the vinegar and spices and then I ladel 'em in the jars and put 'em in a HOT WATER BATH on the stove for 10 min. boiling. yes, it does get "hot" in the kitchen, but I'm having soooooooooo much fun learning how to do this.
ahhhhhhhhhhhh, and when it's REALLY hot...like almost 100 degrees plus that "heat index"....it's a TWO bath day....I just "lollygag" in this lovely bathtub and enjoy the critters outside. tired grasshoppers, slow moving birdies and sometimes a squirrel or two. Do you see my "ocean view" here? yep, that's the only place that wonderful seascape would fit and I like it in the bathroom too. I have a lovely angel watching over me.

Kim and Peter Alberts

2011-07-19T20:43:00.000-07:00

Here Peter Albers is measuring the door side to put that board to stop the door from swinging inside. He can see the numbers of the tape measure way up there....his wife, Kim checking. He suggested that I have the door swing outward so I'd have more room in my shop and I'm so glad that this is what he did.

the OSB board was hanging over the edge of the 2X4 and he used my Jig saw as a "sawsall". amazing to watch someone do things with my tools that I'd never think of doing. One time he bent the blade, just stuck it in the crack and straightened it up again and kept on going. I found out today that he used to replaire coo coo clocks, but now doesn't like the sounds of "tick tocks" after he had a heart attack.
Here is the last of the door being put together. He's dad came from Holland. After this photo, I asked him if he had Jewish ancestors and he said he did.
They have built several houses together...and worked together well....she knowing what tool he needed next, would plug it in....and what screws needed and hand it to him.
this is Kim and Peter Alberts. I knew him when he was a little boy when he lived in Hawaii. They have 9 children and usually live in Missouri. A few years back they lived in Nauvoo for a short time. Now they have that little pineapple freeze place in Duck's parking lot. I had asked quite a few folks to come and just PLEASE, CAN YOU PUT MY DOOR IN? All asked if I had a frame for it, no one would do it. Peter and Kim are my answers to prayer on this. A beautiful big door that will let light in the shop in the winter time. He told me that ,"for a shop door, it's good to have it swing out as you'll have more room in your shop". They came this morning and had to straighten the sides, and hammerjang other stuffs....sledge hammer the top frame....hoooooo boy. no easy task. I think it takes a great deal to "bush carpentry" then what first meets the eye. He has been a contractor. whoooooooooopies for me.
this picture Peter is using my big jig saw to make it square on the top so the door will fit. odd cut for sure.

Zukinni Relish

2011-07-19T20:40:00.000-07:00

this is my first time canning zukinni relish. (yep, spell check doesn't know what I'm trying to spell here, oh well..........have a good laugh) I made this yesterday in 95 degree weather....crazy, but I'm so happy to learn how to do this. yep, LOTS OF ZUKS. whew. but gonna learn other ways to store these lovely long green treasures.

Temple Missionary Luau

2011-07-03T20:18:00.001-07:00

Tehani Sewell and I....she wanted me to do the Hukulau song and dance it. I did a lousy job, but smiled anyway....She did a WONDERFUL fast hula with her Uliuli and these are photos from one of the missionaries.
There were 120 missionaries all out at Fletcher's beautiful lawn and swimming pool. They have a gazeebo where we had the food. You can see Tehani by the pool dancing.
Look at this smile. one million dollar smile!!

Hukilou just went. ha. but at least they are laughing. I gotta learn another hula then HERE COMES SANTA IN THE RED CANOE. yeah, I did that too and they laughed. oh well.
Here is Tehani telling the folks that this "hula is a little rough". Oh No...it was so good and fast and she had little looks like her other grandmother. Valery Sewell would have loved to see her dance here.
the happy servers. You can see my meatballs Hawaiian style right there. boy was that good!
I love this couple
and all the Temple Missionaries
Brother Killian and his daughter...they sang with his Tennor Guitar and another guy on the Ukulele.
the folks that come here to serve a Temple mission are sooooooooooo wonderful and happy folks. It is a JOY JOY JOY to serve with them in this Sacred Nauvoo Temple. We do have fun with them too. I'm so used to seeing them in their white that at this Luau, they had some wild outfits on that were called "Hawaiian".....sooooooooooo fun!!!
this is Janet and I....we went to college at CCH (Church College of Hawaii) in 1964. the year that Tomasi and I were married. I didn't know her then...wish I did.
Tomasi and I and others did some entertaining and beautiful Tehani danced so fantastic and it happened so fast that I didn't get a picture of her, so maybe I can get one of the missionaries to send me a pic of her dancing and add it later.
this sister Missionary has strawberry blond hair and everytime I see her the song goes through my head, "Casey would waltz with the strawberry blond and the band played on...."
and who says the Senior Missionaries don't have a little "push and shove".....the one that has the shoes off was the planner of this deal....

Isileli Tukuafu and family come for a short visit

2011-07-03T20:08:00.000-07:00

When Isileli and his wife, Michele, her parents and a little well behaved little inside dog came to visit us...........yep, it was crowded, but fun the whole time they were here. They went to Tennessee for Michelle's mother's Holmes Family reunion and on their way back to Utah, they came up to Nauvoo all in one BIG VAN. They stayed only a few days, and I was so grateful for the visit.

Isi in the surf board shirt, 4 of the grands in the next row.
Here we are getting ready for the big carriage ride
and Isi's youngest two learning how to make rope.
When Isileli and his wife, Michele, her parents and a little well behaved little inside dog came to visit us...........yep, it was crowded, but fun the whole time they were here. They went to Tennessee for Michelle's mother's Holmes Family reunion and on their way back to Utah, they came up to Nauvoo all in one BIG VAN.

earrings

2011-07-03T20:06:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm learning how to take a photo of myself here....showing the new earrings that Kapua sent me. I like my grey hair, earned every one....and I look so much like my grandmother Lena Jane

Tomasi watching while I exercise

2011-07-03T20:03:00.001-07:00

Well, here is the Tongan just watching me as I walk fast to the beat of ZAMBA MUSIC on Pandora radio. I do a figure 8 around the living room and then into the Kitchen and then on and on.....change directions when a new song comes on and there ya go....a happy 30 min. walk fast for this granny.

The Christmas Chreche

2011-06-10T16:20:00.000-07:00

Here is ONE PUZZLE of the Christmas Chreche. When done with your decorations, you just put it all back into the little shed. I've made several Hundred of these and I love making these. the first thing I've made in my shop....nope, it's not done yet, but soon will be.....I hope. I get quite bogged down during the busy Christmas Season and so I think I need to let all know about these just in case they'd like to buy early. $30.00 plus shipping. These are creative lovely pine and kids and adults have loved these for years. I have a wonderful poem that goes with this puzzle.

Irene's HAPPY HARP SHOP

2011-06-09T10:22:00.000-07:00

These are some old photos that were taken when they were first digging the hole for my shop. yipes, it was in the winter, but there was one tiny window of warm weather and that was when the big bucket thing came and dug it here. whooooooooopies. Very tired of my "pretend temporary" shop was on my front porch.
Pat Hallman came and cut down the tops of these trees earlier. If I can find those pictures, I'll add 'em later. thank you Pat. He said after he got down from cutting that tree with the Chain saw....a bucket and his young son doing what he told him to do...."there's nothing like knowing you're alive then after you climb a tree and cut it down with a chain saw."
Here's the "supervisors" watching the machinery work. I love what these big tanks can do, but boy are they ugly. gonna figure a nice way to cover them up. One is my neighbors and the blue one is ours. Love cooking on gas, heating with gas (someday) and water heater & dryer on gas.
this is the last of the BIG BUCKET GUY. When he got done, Pat Hallman jumped into this newly formed hole and said, "this is a FINE HOLE for your shop!". Indeed it is. Sorry these photos are a little out of order, but hey, what's a blog all about, GETTING IT DOWN SOMEHOW...right? have fun figuring it all out. (very happy face here)
these are WONDERFUL granddaughters that learned how to roof and whoooooopies am I glad. They were my roofers for my harp shop. Rachael Montoya and Tehani Sewell. Rachael learned when she went with a group down to Mexico to help with building houses. Tehani learned from her Dad. OH THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. the Storm came a little later and harrah, the roof was secure! these two young women are attending nursing school in Keokuk, Iowa.
I got to cut the shingles and Vicki took 'em up to the girls and they measured and put them on.
and Vicki with the hammer and the girls on the roof.
the Petersen Brothers gave these to me. a PERFECT fit for the little bay....I'll be doing most of my sanding on the boards that will go on top of these and I'll have the most beautiful view

Here's the crew that came to work. Bless them all!
Bro. Pierce up on the ladder hammering away. It was a really cold day.
I'm sooooooooo grateful for these guys coming to help this job get done.
Tomasi painting the floor
Vicki putting on the windows on a VERY windy day. We're using 8 of the 10 windows I had left over from the house.

Tricky Vicki got a bunch of the High Priests Quarm of our ward and they came and started the work under her direction. She is amazing. this shop is 16 X 28 with a little "bump out" in the front. gonna put in the windows that were not able to put in our house. It is a "portable building"....see the blocks under the "foundation". yep. it's all sitting on ROCK like our house is.

this is Jack's truck pushing the gravel he dumped here.
I love seeing the big dump trucks do this and zowie, on my driveway is GREAT. Thanks Jack!
the big yellow truck
three walls up..

Tongan singing with the young folks

2011-06-09T10:05:00.000-07:00

We had 33 folks come to our house this morning. Kim Smith brought them. They are from Utah and were the most reverent group of kids in this house. Polite and kind. After we did our "song and dance".....the dance was with my little wooden Dancing Dan........they got up to sing. I was so surprised that they sang a Samoan Song. Tomasi grabbed the Ukulele and then they sang it all again with Tomasi playing the Ukulele. Now I know I can hold 40 folks....... if need be for a performance. That is if they are as good as these kids were. sorry, it's a little blurry photo....cell phone. I was so excited to have this group of 8th graders sing in our home.

Sunset 7 June 2011

2011-06-07T18:33:00.000-07:00

Folks, I'm wondering if I should just have a special place in my blog site JUST FOR SUNSETS? but this day, oh boy....this picture "looks cool" but it was 95 degrees and felt like over 100 because of the humidity. whew.....So I was glad to see the Sunset....cooker temps will soon happen. .....well, "relatively soon".

Civil War time lively Display

2011-06-03T20:37:00.000-07:00

above here is my salad for this event....and I'm eating it with a civil war fork! look at that lovely bread! these photos out of order, but you'll get the idea anyway. Below is the cooking set up for this event. ZOWIE...........Lon has all of this equipment and can cook in rain, snow, sleet or a off and on rainy day as this was. yep. you can see Mulholland Street behind this set up. I was amazed by all that was set up and learned so very much!
The cooking set up for this event. ZOWIE...........Lon has all of this equipment and can cook in rain, snow, sleet or a off and on rainy day as this was. yep. you can see Mulholland Street behind this set up. I was amazed by all that was set up and learned so very much!
Our new friend Lon Simpson has moved to Nauvoo and has set up a most WONDERFUL wood shop. He used to teach shop in a high school and now makes Shaker furniture and does MARVELOUS work in all areas of wood. His shop is in the old building that was built with the rubble of the first Nauvoo Temple that was destroyed. It is a beautiful building. Truely shows what can be done with "rubble stone". He is also a reenactment guy in Civil War stuffs. Here he brought his friends during the Memorial Day weekend of 2011 and here is one weaver. ahhhhhhh, got me all excited about weaving again.
Lon set up this tent that represents an officer's tent. enlarge this picture and see what you see that you don't usually see......Lon's wife, Nancy is on the right and has made her own Civil War type of dress. A jewel of a lady. I'm soooooooooo glad they moved into Nauvoo!
this Civil War reinactment guy here made his own traveling bellows. WOW....and made stuff right in front of us. He lives in Ft. Madison, Iowa. To watch the REAL THING being made like in old times.....very fascinating. He's made bellows for blacksmiths all over the country. This is made to be a "traveling Civil War"type that was used "back in those days".
Here's the little band that played. Check out the hammered dulcimer player. she ballences her instrument on her knees and has one leg on this H. Dulcimer. I'm sorry I didn't take other pictures of others in this band. Tomasi and I joined them for an hour and how fun was that? SUPER FUN!!! great autoharp player and singer!
Here is Lon in the white shirt. He plays the harmonica. sings great as well. In back of him is set up a GREAT woodcarver. He's married to the weaver.....beautiful workmanship. You'll see more of these folks. They sang a song called "Rosen the Bow" and I liked it much! I just wished I'd taken more pictures!!

scrabble

2011-06-03T20:34:00.001-07:00

Folks, we just love playing scrabble. I got a BINGO here and yet still lost the game to the "scrabble king Tomasi". As I type this, it's that hot, muggy time of year...so what we need is a little bit of "cooling time".....

Nauvoo Orchestra in May 2011

2011-06-03T20:23:00.000-07:00

Folks, there are very few places for an orchestra to play and here is where the budding Nauvoo Orchestra performed in the Catholic Church here in Nauvoo. Their performance was really good. Below here are the folks that did some singing and it was truely wonderful. I am grateful for folks that want to make music a part of their everyday lives and put on such a performance.

our lives on the Mississippi

2011-06-03T19:54:00.000-07:00

Gail and Dean Dalglish are dear friends of ours that we knew in Hawaii many years ago. yep, I know, not a clear picture with my cell phone, but we had such a short time with them that I just took it with my phone. they live in Canada and drove a bunch of young folks to come to Nauvoo. They had one hour with us. I'm grateful for the many friends we have had through the years. and in the "sunset" of our lives.....again with my cell phone. I have a camera, but it takes so long to load up that the sunset would have vanished by the time I "ran" up to the house to get it and then get it ready...oh well. cell phone again. I love my sweetheart when he smiles.
On my walks in old Nauvoo....there are soooooooo many lovely flowers.....here's some peonies.
and I looked up in one tree by the boot maker's house....wow, these blooms were all over this tree!
I still do not have my shop up yet ....and had to finish these two bowed psalteries. I'm going to be doing some painting on them now....here's a sorta sample. I've finished these.

sunset on the Mississippi

2011-06-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

Here is just one of the MANY MANY Sunsets on the Mississippi.

Illinois Stories | Nauvoo Cabins

2010-05-24T20:19:00.000-07:00

Okay folks, here is the story that was on PUBLIC T.V. station. It may take a while to load. It was fun making. It is a very wide angle lens and oh well, here I look bigger then I am...so that when folks see me, they may say, "hey, Irene, you've lost weight?" ha. I should do that for sure anyway.

healing of water's ceremony 18 May 2010

2010-05-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

Here shows the Grandmother's and a few guys that are here for the "healing of the Waters" ceremony..........this took place all over the world.......this is the widest place on the Mississippi...and across from my house also. This is walking distance from our house. Can you find Sue?
This is a famous drum maker. made over 6,000 drums, taught classes all over the world. His name is Rising Sun

Here is Rising Sun and Tomasi vising in our house. He was a Marine Helicopter pilot.
and here the three of us...this was a beautiful day............

Welcome in today. 16 May 2010

2010-05-17T18:18:00.000-07:00

someone remarked, "hey, where's that log bed you've talked about? sooooooooo here's my addition for today, the 18th of May. a wonderful comfy bed.
and the place for my coo coo clock, but I need to find someone to make it work again. A darling grandchild jerked the chain after the birdie came out and did her coo cooing and this little dolly said, "come out and sing again"...jam up. but it is perfect for this wall....
Our computer desks. Vicki planned this one. I love it. and yeah, too much of messy papers here, but hey, it's behind a wall...ha...around in back of the instruments. way cool plan.
the other part of the desk, Tomasi's side. he has an open window to the living room.
my gurgling fish and glass turtle....
I just found this corner cupboard and some of my Aunt's treasures on it....yep, using these too.
OKAY, now I'll welcome you into my house.....this evening. this is the cool door that I got on ebay the beginning of last summer. THIS WAS SAPOSED TO BE THE FIRST ONE ON THIS ENTRY....I'll get with Jamie Steen and get it right.....check back in a few days. ha.
these are out of order and if I spent a pile of time..........I'd put them in order. This is my lovely bathtube. Out this window in the morning.........I see a secluded little dirt area with rocks on it and many times a little cardinal family come and visit. I love taking a bath here. In the night I often use my fun candles. you can see on the window sill some antique bottles. One is a KICKAPOO Cough syrup round bottle. I had no IDEA that there was a real tribe of Natives that are named KICKAPOO. I found that bottle the first time I walked on the land that we bought in Hawaii so many years ago.....I was walking down to the stream.
well, here's the lovely sink. love this sink. found it for $50.00 leaning against some old building that WAS an antique shop in Nabraska on our way home from Utah 2 summers ago. (I know they run about $1,000 on ebay as I was looking for one like this) no one was there, so Tomasi and I found out who owned it and this old hippy guy comes out in another place and said it was $50.00. SOLD...gave him cash and we put it in our van. one heavy sink. but deep and what I like. yep. beautiful view out this window. I'm going to make a curtain for the front, old fashioned like.
and this gorgious stove. nope, STILL not hooked up yet, so using my round electric fry pan, and two rice cookers and a bread maker. It takes a long time for Tony to get to getting stuffs done.
here is an extension of my pantry. yep, I got one of those shelf reliance things too....gonna put more curtains.....gotta unpack my materials.
and a lovely sunset for you to look at..........
a better picture of my little throw away cupboard that I'v filled with my Aunt Vernie's dishes. this is what we're eating on now and nope, don't use the dishwasher....just me and my lovely sink. ha. I'm grateful that Tomasi appreciates eating on nice dishes too.
and my table cleared off and the view is fantabulous. always changing. and some of the birds are real characters. I want to get a spy glass. Tomasi and I often get out our binoculars....
When you open the front door, this is what you see right off. yep, a new real tree and she'll GROW up to the roof....I love real plants.
this room I've not been able to work in much as it's been the "catch all" room. what overflows from the kitchen etc. but it will be my sewing room and I'll get it organized and send more pictues when I accomplish that big feat. whew.
here is this WONDERFUL TABLE that Dave made fro me from these antique logs. He took these to the lumber mill and had one side cut smooth, and then the other side, the same. the BOLTED these together, hid the bold with a plug of wood and smoothed it over. The trunk of the tree that is under this table was saved from being put in the fire. I love this table. I serve food on it and we do mostly buffet style when we have parties....so this is perrrrrrrrrfect.
Okay, this is my bedroom dresser...and my little rocker. My favorite sister in law, Barbie Holmes painted the picture above for my mother.....I love her art work. (she's my only sister in law and my brother is a very lucky man to have been married to her for 45 years)
still in my bedroom. cherry wood floors....I love this mirror set up as a great place to put on my eyeball make up in the morning with morning light. ahhhhhhhhh, the view out these windows. and the sounds at night....God's Orchestra.
This lovely clock was ment for this space. I found it at a parking lot garage sale for $15.00...oh what a find. keeps perfect time. (I wish I did!) ha.
This is showing the upstairs log railing that Dave did. Tomasi is going to varnish them this week or next.
and the QUEEN SIZE BED waiting for my guests....when the grand children come, they will have to bring their sleeping bags.
this shows the stairs going up to the loft. and where I put the big glass ball. and the little love seat.
this lovely love seat I got at some used furniture store in Fort Madison. it has very good wood pin and tenion and I can recover it when I want to.

This is the sun going down and shinning on the instruments soooooooooo lovely like. Tomasi sits on the little log stook and plays his auto harp and guitar....I play my dulcimer with him when folks come............we love playing music together.
and so you'll all have to come and visit us someday. more updates will come as I do more stuffs. oh, the wood madallion I wrote about when I did it, but it's 71 pieces...and one point goes "true north". Dave had a compass and so he helped me do that.....It's Ease, West, North and South going in windy directions............but still getting there.

Skylight up again.

2010-05-16T20:31:00.000-07:00

Folks, this is Sterling Peterson up putting the skylight that has waited all winter long to be put up. Remember when I wrote of the devil wind that came the night before Halloween and sucked up the skylight because it was not fastened down good? well all winter long we had a good plywood with heavy black plastic over it and now the Yurt roof has her light in the middle again. Thank you Sterling for doing this....ahhhhhhhhhhh, the see the clouds roll by in the day, to hear the rain ...........and sometimes see the stars.............I love this roof as well....

You will see many pictures below and some older ones as well. We have progressed sooooooo much and soooo love living in this house. thank you for visiting. You will know you've "caught up" with all that I've done today when you come to the picture of the little red Cardinal that I took pictures of when we lived on 1730 Mulholland.

finishing with barn wood/sanding cherry wood floors.

2010-05-16T20:14:00.000-07:00

Here is Sterling Peterson putting on the little pieces of barn wood that has been beveled and artistically put into place. He has this compresser and a small nail gun and bamb bamb and bamb...I love this "art work". If our Kamaka friend saw this done in Hawaii, he's say the same thing about it as he did for all our "white painting" of the junk woods we put up our "temporary house" we built in Hawaii, "white paint covers a multitude of sins"...well so does barn wood and it looks sooooooooooooo great. Thank you Sterling.
How cool is this? wayyyyyyyy cool to me. using the barn wood for the openings to the bedrooms and other rooms. yep, been power washed and this is great sturdy wood. soooooooo rustic.
more of the same. I'm going to take more pictures, but this is a beginning of catching up on the pictures that I've had in my camera. It will take you a while to go though all of the pictures I've posted today, but I'm so glad that I've had time to do this Sunday.
We sooooooooooooo love our Napoleon Fire place. This is major heat we've had in this house while building all winter long. Oh yeah, we've had some area heaters to as to not freeze the paints and other things....but my darling little Frankie Ficus tree died that Vicki brought from Las Vegas...........She has since got me another one and we've planted her and she's doing great....her name will be Frances. I'll take her picture laters.
This picture is blurry because it was FLYING DUST TO THE MAX....and here is Vicki on the cherry wood floors sanding 'em down. We could find no sander that could sand these.....they were just tooooooooooo uneven....wayyyyyyyyy hard. Darren was on one sander and Vicki on this big monster hand sander. Yep, it's mine, but I've given it to Dave. The whole house was filled with Cherry wood dust. I'm sooooooooo glad we got the oak flooring for the big round part of the house.

bringing in the BIG LOG

2010-05-16T20:00:00.000-07:00

Here is the log that is named by Dave, "The man from Snowy River". The day they brought him in it was snowing outside, and the river was frozen and Daren had named the other lovely log, "Jessica". Dave had me cut a foundation for this log on my scroll saw, hard to see here and I wish I'd thought of someone taking my picture.
Here Dave is chiseling away and making this work....it's all in his head how he is going to do it, but to the rest of us, a mystery. Then it's done and zowie, "how cool is that?" we all say.
Dave had cut open some of the floor under this log before they set it in and put some big 2X6's in and had it sitting on the rock below...........so the post will never sink. this is good.
We are all glad that this post is FINALLY in...as it's sat on the porch for all last summer (I sanded this guy) and all winter.
Cute Tomasi, has just finished putting up our mail box and our planter cart that I had him bring from our other house. nope, not moved in yet here, but getting closer. not many folks put their mail box ON A TREE...I just figured that I didn't have to have a post to dig...and these trees don't grow very fast. ha.

for your info. our snail mail address is.

2639 N. Sycamore Haven Dr.
Nauvoo, Illinois
62354

my roomie from Provo 1962-1963

2010-05-16T19:46:00.000-07:00

Here is Carolyn and Flake Boone. They are serving a mission in Misouri and came to Nauvoo for a day to see us. I was just thrilled to see them. When I first met Carolyn, she had broken up with some guy and was moping around. When we went to a Stake conference, I had Carolyn with me and saw Flake leaning up against a wall to the entry. I said, "Now Carolyn, here is a wonderful TALL guy that you'll have some fun with"..........and was the matchmaker here. He has built a dome in Hawaii, and many other houses...their last house is in Snowflake, Arizona.....out of logs that he has cut and peeled himself. Someday after their mission, we'll go down and see their place.

Tony Winchester

2010-05-16T19:36:00.000-07:00

Here is a close by neighbor that FINALLY got around to hooking up my hot water heater. I am so very grateful. He works full time in Keokuk, Iowa. I'm still waiting for him to hook up the gas stove. yep, we have all the parts, and yep, it's all outfitted for the Liquid Propane tank. He also "someday" hook up our gas furnace ............ahhhhhhhh, the JOYS OF HOT WATER. I am now very spoiled with lovely hot baths and Tomasi in the shower. I'll write more on those laters.

more stuffs getting done....

2010-05-16T19:08:00.000-07:00

Here is Darren using the sander that I rented for the oak flooring. He ordered and I got some paist something that covered a bunch of the gapes.....and then this sander sanded stuffs smooth.
Here is Sue Stanton that is vacuming this part of my kitchen as we were getting ready to move in and we were FAR FROM READY, but no longer could we pay rent AND mortgage. So when we moved in, we had one sink with running water and one toilet.
Here's Dave using the last of the big logs for the railing. This is ONE BIG DRILL PRESS. I just had to have this record of Dave doing this. way hard.....not loud, just steady. It's a heavy beast and all of us were glad when Dave was done with this part of making the railings...then we could move this beast out and sand floors. whew.
you can see Dave smiling...........he loves this work. Again, good Darren helping to hold that big old log.........these are Aspen logs from Parley's Canyon, Utah. There were in a fire around a cabin that was Dave's Uncle's cabin. I sanded 60% of these logs.
This is the Licensed Illinois Plumber that came to put this all together. oh yeah.....I still owe his company......still waiting for the "tax return stimulus" that was supposed to come months ago. sigh.

Moing the log bed in my bedroom.

2010-05-16T18:52:00.000-07:00

Here is Paul Staples (our former landlord) and Sue's husband, Brad Stanton. This was ONE HEAVEY BED. In the back of this bed are the box springs. it made the bed WAY TOO HIGH. So Dave had me get 2 X 6's and he made a sturdy place on the bed frame for us to put the biggest, pillowest bed I've even been on. yeah, I got this bed from some used furniture store. A very comphy bed.
This is how the hauled it in.

YEAH GUYS, THANKS LOADS. This bed was made by Dave Hardle's son, Lance. He had made it for another person, but that didn't work out and I bought it several years ago. It's a beautiful bed.........but huge. Vicki had to widen out the wall to set it back into it. See the darling little lamps for when Tomasi will read to me? She said that if she didn't do that, I'd have a "bed", but no room for anything else. yeah, such insite from Vicki.

ALOHA DARREN MATHEWS

2010-05-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

Here is wonderful Darren Mathews. Darren has been a very faithful worker and chinked this WHOLE HOUSE....and outside and inside painted.....a marvelous painter. Then he got "roped" into getting on his knees and doing this lovely floor you see under his feet. He and Sterling Peterson did the floor. I think I put up some pictures of us doing floors. I was the "chop saw queen" for Darren. He'd mark it and I'd go cut it.....Sterling had the chop saw set at a certain angle and that worked for this floor. Then just before Darren left, he put on 3 coats of floor varathane. He had done the cherry wood floors with what we had and it's more dull finish. I have grown to love the shinny floor. wayyyyyyyy easy to clean. Darren named this post right behind him........"Jessica". The darker post behind him Dave named on the day we brought him in.....It was snowing and the river was frozen and so his name is "Man from Snowy River". I'm so very grateful to Darren for his working in a cheery way. He most often had Country Music on. Darren is now working in Idaho and uppper Utah painting big cabins and chinking them. We all miss Darren around with his happy personality. He left at the end of March.

finishing up projects.

2010-05-16T18:03:00.000-07:00

Tomasi up at the landing of the stairs, Before Dave put the last logs up.
Dave is awesome in his LOG ART WORK....the steps and landing are solid red cedar wood. Local logs that he had milled for this project.
this shows the finished project of these stairs. We may have a railing later on. but now it's safe to go up and down and that is very good.
Here is Vicki putting FOSSEL CRETE in the shower. this is great stuff. then she put some wild colors on it and the blended it in making it look like a ROCK SHOWER. yep, Tomasi loves the rock shower. He's been bathing in my bathtub and that "okay" but ahhhhhhh, hot water on the back...and nope, no water gets on the cherry wood floors. A wonderful shower. Thank you Vicki. She now has another big full time job and travels all over Illinois....as the company gave her a lap top and car and all that jazz. She's also got a house on Auction and has been making it into a SUPER DARLING house and painting it yellow and Sterling Peterson is working for her now. I'll post more pictures of her doings later when I take 'em.
This is Reed Gifford and his wife. He and I just finished doing all the woodwork on this desk for Tomasi and I. My desk is in front of this stained glass window. I'm very grateful to Reed as he's paticular with his work. He'll be doing more this coming week when I get the boards for putting up my kitchen shelves. I've since stained this wood and we've got our computers up and running....yeahsville.

first meal..........etc.

2010-05-16T17:42:00.000-07:00

Tomasi had brought up some of my Aunt Myrtle's other precious dishes. and I thought I'd show this also to you all. I used to eat on these dishes as a little girl too. My fav. is the Apple wear dishes, but I'm not unpacking these until I have my shelves built in the kitchen. yep, gonna show them off in my yellow, cheery kitchen.
This is just one of the many glorious sunsets that we see out our windows. We've not put a shelf on the window sills yet. next week.
This is a laugh. Tomasi and I were cleaning upstairs so we could paint and put stuffs up there and here was this spool table that Dave and others used to do construction work all during building this house. This $1.00 spool table has been a great help all along. I laughed that Tomasi would lower it by these makeshift rope. Okay, soooooo this is how our place looked when a girlfriend said she was "bringing a few friends from Quincy, Illinois to see our house". I looked out the windows and see this Medium size yellow bus that read, "Quincy Baptist Church". Oh wow....soooooooooo as these darling older folks used their walkers and each other to get up our little hill, Tomasi and I put our benches and few chairs and one love seat around and it was a blast to be with these folks. They toured our place and asked questions about all sorts of things....and we sang their age of songs....the best. They sang along with us and we had a wonderful time. Okay, so one lady said that she was friends with the man that works for PUBLIC T.V. and his program is "ILLINOIS STORIES". She said, "Can I tell him about your house and your stories and could he come out here and interview you?" I said "sure"...not thinking it would happen. WELL IT DID happen last Thursday and they also interviewed Dave Hardle and all his maravelous cabins. What fun that was and I'll let you know when it airs and after that I think??? you can see it on public T.V. on line? I'll see if any of you ask about this and if your reading and looking at this blog. ha.

Charles Woodworth comes to visit

2010-05-16T17:26:00.000-07:00

I wrote about this on my email where Charles Woodworth came to our house. He was the one who Baptized Tomasi in Tonga when Tomasi was 19 years old. He came to our house 50 years and one day after Tomasi was baptized. This was a precious day.........an appointment with destiny.
Sister Marsha Woodworth was so cute with Tomasi, putting her arm around him as if he was a son. Tomasi went there many times when Tomasi was a student at Liahona High school then.

Here is Nancy Campbell that is my friend that brought up the Woodworths.

2010-05-16T17:05:00.000-07:00

here is Tomasi painting the floor green. We were going to carpet the whole floor upstairs, but as you know, ran out of money. I like the green. It was dull, so I painted another coat of floor shinny varnish on it.....that was really fun. You can see Aunt Myrtle's rugs up on the portable book case...It's all down now and we have the queen bed up there all ready for our guests when they come and kids will bring their sleeping bags and take 'em when they go with their parents. Tomasi is going to varnish all the Aspen logs that Dave did and it will bring out the color and match the other woods in the house. I love Dave's log work.

glass balls and memories

2010-05-16T16:54:00.000-07:00

20 years ago I started making tables. After I felt comfy with making harps, I felt I could make a dinning table for our house up in the mountains of Hawaii. Did it. and have been making tables ever since. This is one of the tables that I made when we first came to Nauvoo in 2006 in the summer. I left the last one at the house we lived in on Mulholland Street. Here are the glass balls that Tomasi brought home and it filled my heart with memories. the small ones we found when we were dateing in Laie, Oahu, Hawaii.....in 1964. We married in the Hawaii Temple 30 July 1964. The big one I got when we lived in Tonga and I bought it at the open marketplace in Nukualofa. I loved Stain glass anything. Here is one of two lamps that I found 1/2 price at Menards last summer. I'm going to put this one up high so we can see over a larger area on the dinning table. I'm going to (easy cheesy) take the shade off of the floor lamp and put it on a swag lamp and hide the cord going to it behind the barnwood. Oh, I sooooooooo love looking out these windows. what a marvelous view. Ever changing drama outside.

Lois Crouse farewell party 14 May 2010

2010-05-16T16:08:00.000-07:00

This is wonderful Lois Crouse. She has lived in Nauvoo for maybe 30 years and her husband build a DOME home. wayyyyyyyyy cool, but he is gone now and she will be moving to be near her son. We had this party for her and she is known in our Nauvoo Women's Guild as "The Dancing Queen". also Queenie. We just love her. We had a little party for her and pictures taken. Yep, this was the first REAL PARTY but SURELY NOT THE LAST...at our home. She is sitting on the rocker that I rocked all my children on.
We had fun taking these pictures.....
Facing us all laughing as our friend put on gloves on Lois. but you can't see the glorious view out the windows.
We will all miss you Lois.

getting caught up

2010-03-07T18:44:00.000-08:00

What's going on inside this house? ahhhhhhhhhhh, so beautiful in this snow setting, yes? You can see the fireplace pipe up the left side, yep, that will be covered up with a chase and it will be covered up with barnwood to match the house...but in the mean time, we've sooooooooo enjoyed the fire inside.
Here is Dave, sanding off some barnwood IN THE SNOW.....what an awesome man.

Here is Darren and Sterling getting the rest of the oak flooring done. I have other pictures further down in this post about our oak flooring.
Here is Josh Adams when he was working for Dave to come to the house and he's sanding these big cedar future steps for going up to the loft.
Here is Darren on his knees also putting in the oak flooring. We were all glad that I got this oak flooring because it's much easier to put down when it's all ready to do so. Daren would measure it and Irene here.............would CHOP SAW it to the little pencil mark. I became the "chop saw queen". It was a "dance of sorts". I'd chop saw and take that board to Darren, he'd already make another mark on another board in another bay. I'd take that back. In the mean time, Sterling would have chopped his two boards.....this was no short easy process. ahhhhhhh, we used 5 gallons of wood glue. Yep, used that floor nailer too and small nails when necessary. there are very few squeeks in this floor.
Tomasi had a JOB....sorting these to sizes that we needed to put on the floor. my lovely bathtub awaits her place in my lovely bathroom. and I await sitting in her as well!!!
These boards look good and long, but are truely cast offs....missing edges and groves and became firewood.
more of the same. I took these pictures in case the folks at Lumber Liquidators didn't take the Utility grade lumber back in exchange of a better grade.......I had no problem in taking it back though. Darren, Tomasi and Sterling loaded up our truck and I took it all back and when I got there, this nice guy was unloading it and saw that this was a really junk batch of wood. Said, "so, you live in Nauvoo and have a large family?" (yep)...then he said, "My wife and I met in Nauvoo, are you a Mormon as well?" (happily I said, yes)...and I'm sure he gave me the best of the grade of wood I came there to get.
You many wonder, "why does Irene have this round barn in her building of her house here???" well, here's the story. Kapua, our daughter, got a GPS thingie for me to use and it was in our truck. I had someone program it for me to get to Peoria, Illinois where Lumber Liquidators were located. Yep, it did a great job until I must have made some wrong turn somewhere....and when the GPS (Tom Tom) said, "you have reached your destination" I could only totally laugh...as I was facing this round barn....took this picture and called on my cell phone how to get to the Lumber place. ha ha ha. I called several times......
You can see the "radiating" FLOOR pattern that was followed...also, all the junk wood. DO NOT get "utility" grade of wood.....tooooooooo much bad wood.
This shows Tomasi holding up a pattern that Pat Halman was using to set in the stained glass window. amazing his workmanship. You can also see the washer and dryer were not in their places yet. (but now are)
I was having such fun taking photos of this momentious event. I'd seen these two stained glass windows in the first week we were in Nauvoo..........one was in a antique repair guys window in Burlington....I just loved them at first site. then thought about it for almost 2 years before making the guy an offer....he said he had another one that was not framed.....I got both of the windows and had them in my garage for a long time....now they are finally up inside....yeahsville.
ahhhhhhhhhhhh, now done.
taken on the outside of the house.
We have some great friends, one of Pat halman. I've written of him before in email, here he was putting in one of the stained glass windows on the driveway side of the house. Vicki and I ordered the glass side of these windows especially for these windows. Even though the arch was different, Pat just worked with it and put it in and oh, how sooooooooooo lovely. Above here is the INSIDE of the computer area....Pat did more work on it and it's looks just super lovely.
Here is smiling Pat Halman. I decided with the suggestion of the others there, not to put this stained glass in the window that was made for it. I'm so grateful to Pat for being so creative in first knocking out and making bigger the little window that I was going to have open from my computer side....now, it will have this lovely stained glass to look at as well. I just could not give up that view towards the River.....
Here is Pat in front of this lovely window. the barnwood surrounding stained glass, what a contrast...how fun really. Pat said that he'd not had this much fun in a long time.
He staged this photo shot....this is the middle window where Tomasi's side of the desk will be. how fun it is here....
The two windows inside the house......on this side will be where the musical instruments will be. our "little stage".
Smiling Dave making the creative railing on the Loft.
Dave demonstrating how strong these railings are. yep, I'm sure the "grands"will try such antics.....you can see that the huge Cedar beams are beautiful painted in varnish and the railings will also be painted. You can see that poor little Frankie Ficus Tree did not like the winter and cold of her new home...but she has live branches and she'll burst into green leaves soon. I've been talking to her and so has Vicki. (plants and trees all have feelings, and we love this tree)
Tomasi went up to the loft and cleaned up there....letting old cherry wood come down via this rope line you can see here. I was going to have a cherry wood floor up there, but we're all sick of putting flooring down on knees. yep. going to have some carpet up there for families to sleep on with their little kids coming.
His not smiling face here...........(why do you have to take this picture?)
totally TOTALLY lovely railings. "orbs of dust" can be seen in this picture as well as a few others.
The process of putting on the resin goes like this. first prepare the wood by sanding it, then fill holes. I personally fill the holes with clear cauking...but that takes a few days to dry, so Dave does it a little differently. Here above he's using the "torch" and "wanding it" over the newly poured resin. this busts the bubbles. making a lovely smooth finish. It was Dave that taught me how to do my tables like this. You can see here that the Table is now turned over and we're working on the top.
This base below the table, is from some big old odd pine tree that Dave saw our friend going to cut up and put in his outside wood stove.....Dave asked to "save that log for Irene's table". THIS IS GOING TO BE MY ISLAND TABLE in the kitchen under those darling little lights.
We're saving the floor with the paper under....
ahhhhhhhhhhh, the LAST OF THE DRY WALL PUT UP. This was where the furnace was to be put and someday it will, but the furnace guy was wayyyyyyyyyyyyy too busy for me all winter long. My wonderful workers had to use the wood heat and you know what, when all the holes get totally covered and this house becomes air tight, I'll not need a furnace except when we're gone for some winter times. We all have been very impressed by the NAPOLEON FREE STANDING WOOD STOVE. a marvelous worker of a stove....made in Canada.
Here is Tomasi hauling the last dry wall. You can see he's gotten back most of his strength. He's hauled all sorts of things and what a jewel he has been on cleaning up rubbish and burning outside and keeping our "home fires" going in the stove.
YEP, it takes gas to go up and down to our place from where we live. Here I am getting gas at the newly opened older gas station. SINCLARE Gas. When I was a little kid, I'd beg my daddy to "get gas at the dinosaur place, pleeeeeeeease." I was the first customer and asked the owner to take my picture. These new folks will offer diesel and that is GREAT for so many folks have had to travel quite a distance to get this kind of gas.
Here is Dave taking off the "bottom" of this log. the table is made of 2 of the 3 best logs that we built the walls with. (you can see these clearly here). the Master Craftsman/logman at his best. Creating.

this was the WORST DIRTY JOB that Sterling did. hooooooooooo boy. can you taist the cement dust? ugh. He lined the shower with this stuffs. When Vicki came in, we opened the window and put fans on and shoowed out the dust. It took over and hour to clean the dust from this room. I'm soooooooooo grateful for Sterling doing so many jobs that were not "fun" to do.
you many wonder why I have this picture of Sterling on his knees here...but he's putting on THE LAST OF THE CHERRY WOOD PART OF THE FLOOR....in my bathroom. This was one HALLELUJAH DAY. More so to Sterling then to anyone else.............except me.
Darren painting walls..........a cheerful color. I JUST LOVE a yellow kitchen. How could Vicki have known this when she picked out the color.....At the time I was taking Tomasi to the Mayo clinic and told Vicki to choose whatever as I'd like it no matter what she choose. I've ALWAYS loved yellow kitchens.
She's now finished with that little hard job of laying that floor....you can see the water heater in place.
this is what this lovely house looks like in the snow. hoooooooooo boy. and the trail of Sterling going up. yep, it became big time ICE later. both Tomasi and I have these rubber/cleakes things that we put on our shoes so as to not slip on ice and snow.
this is Sycamore Creek....the snow on the trees was so very beautiful, I just had to take this photo.
Here too. snow IS beautiful...but by now, we're tired of it. this was late Feb.
This is my 69th birthday. Folks asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, I said, "Work at my house, of course". I have soooooooooooooo loved being a participatory in building this unique house and it could never NEVER have been done without Vicki. she is in the blue jacket here. She made some cakes and so did Clark's wife and sweet stuffs were had by all. You can now see these darling little hanging stained glass lights that Ralph put up. These also were on sale in the summer time. They will hang over the "island table".

Vicki is laying some floor down in the bathroom that will also be a laundry room. This is where the washer, dryer and hot water heater will go. They are now all in place. oh yeah.
I can hardly believe all that Vicki has done in this house....
I am forever grateful for this dearest of friends.
Here Dave is measureing the steps....you can see these going up....They will go to a platform, then one more step and a platform that will be held up by the large log on the right. I sanded all that log this late last part of summer. It's been sitting on the porch all this time waiting to come inside. Dave named this log, "the man from snowy mountain". good name...as it's snowed soooooooo much this winter. On the left side is one of the windows that Vicki and I had put in to put the other stained glass in....but I just could not give up that beautiful view that was there....it brings so much light into the house as well. You can see the pretend art work of Vicki here.....the "rocks" around the window.
starting from left to right........Sterling, Josh Adams, Darren, and Smiling Dave.........the log man.
These guys hauling that big 'ol log in the house on that little sturdy dolly.
These steps are made from real smelly cedar. yep, the kind that folks make cedar chests from. these are almost 5 inches thick. very beautiful wood. Only Dave could think of using such a style of making these steps. He is a log artist FOR SURE.
Here are the steps all waiting to be put in place. such an unusual design. .
Dave Hardle came to the house and began working on the steps that will go up to the loft. Here you can see that he's cut these places to put the end of the steps in. all out of sequence, but that's okay, you can figure it out.
both Dave and I took pictures here and you can see me sanding these old logs. They were brought back from Parley's Canyon, Utah. Dave's uncle had a cabin up there that burnt down and all the Aspen Trees died around that cabin. Dave uses these to build stuffs with them. I've sanded sooooooooooooo many logs. Really fun.

not too good a picture, but shows the heating vent that we put in.
Here is Sterling putting on the OAK flooring that I got at the LUMBER LIQUIDATORS. I choose this flooring because it took soooooooooooo much time to make each little cherry wood board into a tongue and groove and it would have taken at least 4 more pallits of wood to come from Shipshawana, Indiana. So originally I got it at $.89 per square foot. hoooooo boy, most was great firewood. so I took a trip back to Peoria, Illinois and traded the lousy #3 "utility grade" for #2 grade. We used most all of it. Sterling hurt his finger on one of the saws, yet kept going. He has been an extreemly faithful worker.
this is the edge of the wood madalion that I made. I explained this in an email. but when Sterling and his brother Clark said it would be easier and look better to have a "radiating floor" instead of a straight across the floor............the madalian I made here represents the 4 winds. One point goes "true North". Sterling has the lighter wood screwed down and I put all the plugs in. These will be all sanded smooth.
this is a good picture of the Medallion. I enlarged it at Staples from a 2 inch little picture. I used to put these on my bowed psalteries.
This is how I made it. I laid out all the boards, put the pattern on. cut the boards apart and numbered them. I then cut each board. There are 71 pieces in this....like a big puzzel. I stained what was not the "four winds".
This shows the beautiful 3 stained glass lights that are in the living room round area. the open bay windows are for book cases, they have been sense put in. Vicki and I made these......Darren stained them. all ready for the books.
Here is Darren Mathews that is painting the cherry stain on the window sills....you can see outside that it's VERY COLD...yep, snow and what Darren calls the "ice palace"....the outhouse. Darren has a great sense of humor and loves to listen to country Western music. sings along with many of the songs....I laugh at some of these, one is "I got a brand new girlfriend". Darren says that if you played all the Country Western songs backwards, you'd get all the couples back together, dogs would live again, everybody would be happy and all that stuffs."
Ralph Angrus above here is putting in all the lights and finishing up. I'm so grateful for him coming to do this. While we were building the house, he had some job working on fixing a bridge? not too sure here, but he had to take a bardge out there to do it....very cold and aweful work and he was more then glad when it was done....laid off for the winter. Yeah, he could come and do this work for us. Thank you Ralph.
this picture above is showing the plumbing that was replaced....not necessary, but now 4 inch pipe inside. totally runining my lovely cherry wood floors. I could go on and on here, but don't want to waist my time talking about plumbing and grudes and etc.
See that little COOL TOOL that is at the top left corner? It's been a great tool for cutting the cherry wood and then replacing it later on. ALL THE CHERRY HAS BEEN REPLACED by Sterling. Vicki and Sterling have cut out in "jig jag" ways so as to put the floor back almost as nice as it was before the big tear out for the jerk state plumbing inspector.
more of the same. just showing the wide path of the cut out. all of this took sooooooo much time and money to take out, then replace and hung me up at least 2 months.

fireplace, propane tank, painting and Laquer on

2010-01-12T18:21:00.001-08:00

This is cute Darren Mathews, Vicki's brother that has been sooooooooooo faithful to come here from his regular job of chinking, painting, caulking million dollar huge cabins in Bear Lake, Utah. He brought his own sprayer and other equipment, but most of all his great knowledge and experience to our round house. He just loved this log and ZOWIE, when he lacquered this log, what a beauty..... He hugged it and said, "oh, if only she was a woman". I laughed and took this photo. He painted all on the outside until it got tooooooo cold. Then he did a lovely cherry stain on all the windows and ledges. He took off the knoty Alder doors and took them to Vicki's resturant (that will be some other building when finished, someday)...and did all the 4 coats of laqure on these. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, soooooooooo lovely. THANK YOU DARREN.
Here is Darren with his working magic on my house.......and as I say frequently, "all with his left hand!"
OH WOW, before it got nasty weather, I had the 500 gallon propane take delivered. yep, cost BIG BUCKS to fill it, but I'll have a gas stove, hot water heater and furnace, so filled her up as well.
Sterling Petersen here is beginning to put in the outside pipe for our free standing VERY LOVELY Napolean real fireplace. It was starting to get cold all the time, so we got all motovated to get this hooked up.
Our truck decided NOT to work a few days before this event and so I had a pile of sand bags that were at the house I live in now.....went home and got these and emptied these out and then the gas guy laid the pipe after this. You can see Darren with his Perma Chink going over to help them with something.
ahhhhhhh, AHHHHHHHH, I can't tell you how much I love a real burning fireplace inside this home. This is such a beauty and puts out fantastic heat. We put a fan in back of the stove to bring out more of the heat faster. Darren suggest that "just for now'. I've sat and sat in front of this heater, yep, THINKIN AND THINKIN. Then brought up one of my recorders and played music for hourse as well.
I love this darling dog....this is Silent Bob, he Vicki's "construction dog"...and comes here not often enough.
This is Vicki's nephew and he was needed to help with putting the sand down before the propane gas tank came. sooooooooooo cute. age 13. He enjoyed working with his Uncle Darren.

Plumbing fiasco

2010-01-12T18:04:00.001-08:00

It's quite a long story how this all came about, but because I don't want it ALL ON MY BLOG, I'll be short with it. Our house was "targeted" and "someone" who had a "beef" with someone else, called in the STATE plumbing inspector. He requested that I tear up the floor and he could "inspect it" and then have it all replaced. sad, but ture. Vicki and Aki used the international Plumbing code and checked everything. They had other building folks come and check it. All the houses that Vicki worked on in Nauvoo area NEVER had a state building inspector come. oh well. In fact, NO ONE on this street on all the houses that are built have had a state inspector. Illinois has a "higher code" and 4 inch pipe is required under the house....and other little nit picky things, but it's done. aloha, $1,600 for Joe the Plumber. and another amount that will go for the septic tank outside. What is done is done. Not going to keep crying over the beautiful cherry wood floors that were already done. sigh.
these have since been reinforced but not covered up yet. We're waiting for Sterling and Clark Petersen to return to this working site. They are wonderful workers and seem to know what to do without being asked. What a blessing they have been in building our house.
Vicki was so disgusted that all this had to be done. AGAIN...and in such a mess.
But for the record, I put it all down. Setbacks for building anything just happen.
Vicki and I got a "cool tool" that can cut into the remaining cherry wood, and somehow we'll be able to get some new cherrywood down after these holes are covered up. yep, it's all been inspected.
This was the worst tear up. what a mess. hrumph
And down the middle of the main "great circle room". just for 4 inch pipe.

preservative coat

2009-11-14T05:11:00.000-08:00

Here is Vicki's 3ed brother, Darren Mathews.......He's been working with paints all his adult life. For the past 3 years, he's been a partner in Diamond X Construction in Garden City, Utah.....that's near Bear Lake, Utah. He's been doing log staining and painting in million dollar houses. I'm so grateful for this talented happy person to come and work on my house. I'm amazed at all that he can do in just a few days. He put a stain on the outside of the house and the color of the wood stands out more and the lovely contrast of the chinking. He'll be doing more chinking later. AND he does it all with his left hand. yep, a south paw. speaking of "south paw" ............Darren brought his dog with him. A friendly guy....but Vicki and I call him Bozo...

See the difference here on the porch. oh so lovely.

yep, you can see his mouth a working and talking and south paw painting. He is so accurate.

This is Clarks Peterson's brother. He was also out of work for a while and so when I asked Clark about him, he said that his brother Sterling Peterson also did construction. He spoke highly of him and so I asked to have Sterling Peterson to come on up from Missouri. What a wonderful mother to raise these sons with such great work ethics. He is fixing a window that would not open or close because some earlier workers didn't square this opening. This is in my sewing room. I call him, Sterling "Silver" Peterson.

squareing a square is no easy task after walls are in....(and not square)....well, as Sterling would say, "it is what it is"....instead of complaining, he just gets the job done. He's also done some nice barnwood finish decoration on my skylights. Another happy person to work with. How can I be so blessed?

2009-11-07T17:36:00.000-08:00

Akihito Inouye

2009-11-07T17:26:00.001-08:00

Going back to see old pictures that I didn't have time to put on my blog.....He is one that I want to SPOTLIGHT. He was such a wonderful worker and could figure out all the puzzle of the flooring.....WHAT A JOB that was. He was also marvelous in helping Vicki do plumbing as Tomasi was going daily to doctors with Chemo and radiation....

Aki worked with Tomasi doing all sorts of pipe work many years ago in Hawaii. They are the best of friends....he now lives with his wife in Vancouver, Canada. I wish they could move here. We could use some good Japanese guy like Aki in Nauvoo.

He can figure things out that no one else can. He's made a dictionary translation of Japanese/Aribic.......worked in so many interesting jobs. extreemly creative mind.

Progress on floors and other shots.

2009-11-07T06:58:00.000-08:00

well, this is what it looks like WITHOUT A LOVELY SKYLIGHT...and the sound inside is not the same either. yep, I was covered with homeowner's insurance and I pay my dedutable of $250. and they will pay for new skylight, shipping and installation. I'm getting two bids on this. I should be in by THANKSGIVING, but I don't think I'll be moved in by then. The floors will put me back some, but all worth it to me.
all this wood and 6 hours more of Chop sawing.........dat's me, "Irene the chop saw queen".
Here is a big cedar log that Dave Hardle had cut for me....beautiful, eh? yep, that's the loft up there and it will be finished before I move in as well. the area below goes into the Kitchen.
my ceiling in my bedroom with a SKYLIGHT. I waw Jerry Brown's skylight above their bed and said that is what I'm going to do too. DID IT. yeah, thanks again for this wonderful idea.
another shot at my lovely cedar tree, yep, I hug her often. you see, wood lives on.
AHHHHHHHHHH, MY AWESOME LOG....that holds up the loft....I love this log....and I hug her often. found her thrown away on the side of the road...had her put up on Vicki's place until I needed her. you can see here also a pile of stuffs that we move around to make room to work on floors. whew....Glenn's photo
my lovely swinging front door.....yep, gonna do something with the glass, maybe put in a stained glass? still thinking on this one. Glenn's photo
more lovely floors. Glenn's photo
bedroom floor going in. yep, there will be 3 varithane coats going on...Glenn's photo
piles of wood ready for flooring...yep, I chop sawed all of these. and again, Glenn's photo
Here is the floor in my sewing/spare bedroom. here the one year old played with scraps of wood. Glenn Hawkes took this photo. and some more here.....same same
Ceiling in our bedroom. yep, Madison Hales did this work....barnwood. I LOVE RUSTIC, can you tell that?
You can see that we need to still do some more chinking. I think that Madison did the barnwood work above the porch opening above here. He really is an artist in woodworking and I hope that he'll do more of it after his mission. Glenn Hawkes photo
This is from a BIG CEDAR TREE that Dave Hardle took to a local mill guy....and oh how I love th smell of these woods in my house....there will be stairs that will go up after the living room floor is done. and yep, there will be "box car siding that will be for the ceiling under the loft here....but electrial light here ready for put light in.....laters.
POOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR HANNA THE VANNA....yep had to be towed AGAIN. I went through a HORRIBLE rain puddle, where the policeman says........."oh we keep telling the road commisoner that we need to get this road fixed that every time there's a BIG RAIN....someone has to go through it and then their car doesn't start and gets stuck going UPHILL and we have to call a tow truck". The tow truck guy says the same thing...HRUMPH. she still sits in my driveway, not been able to start for a week and 2 days now. yep, this was the same bad storm that sucked out my skylight that was not latched down as it should have been. more HRUMPH.
Tomasi and I have been sooooooooooo grateful for the Peterson Family....he suggested that we have a little Luau for them....first but not last cook at our place. Here he is telling Sterling Peterson on how he's making this fire and food for our lunch yesterday, 6 Nov 2009
good use of the scrap woods after the cut off for the flooring.
HUGE STACKS OF WOOD...each weighs about 1,000 pounds. I've had them stored in Jack's little wearhouse from July 2009. I'm grateful for Jack....JPK construction.
Here are THREE PALLETS OF WOOD.....and you can see they are just cut off planks of the same hight....sooooooooooo they are put into stacks and then cut to one of 5 sizes.....so we can use as much of the wood possible. yeah, no rain for a few days.....so we become a processing plant.
mountain of saw dust in one day's working these dado blade and the router bits.
THE CHOP SAW QUEEN.
This is too serious a picture.....I'm laughing at this one.
Here are two of Clark's children....Joseph and a married sister that just loves doing this work...can you believe? She has a darling one year old that was born on Bob's new baby's date....
I LOVE how the sun comes in the afternoon on this floor and kitchen. What a pleasant room to prepare meals in. The stove is in the other room that has a finished floor. I need to get some "coasters" to put under her legs and then hopefully, I'll get the gas man up there to hook up the gas and get her all going GOOD. you also can see my dishwasher that has a plastic cover on her for protection. yep, she's black....looks good.
the kitchen floor is done...oh what a beauty.
Clark working soooooooo hard....BAMB and and a floor nail is IN. they glue all the boards, then nail every third row.
SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET.
AND HERE IS MY SWEETHEART....feeling good enough to be here. We're saving all the cut off wood for our fireplace and the sawdust we'll let rot for a while and use on our garden next year.

new ace worker

2009-11-07T06:38:00.000-08:00

Here is Clark putting in the floor and it's HARD WORK....bambing on this floor nailer....
Here is Stirling Peterson working in the very hard corner of my kitchen. yep it's done now.
this is showing my kitchen sink that I got early on a trip to Utah in 2008 on our return trip...saw it on the side of an antique store and went to find the owner and got it for $50.00. It's in beautiful shape, and just the kind of sink I really want. I have a marvelous view out my window there. plumbing not hooked up yet, I got a wild story about that later. I've decided NOT to get a garbage disposal, but get a little composter instead. a waste of waste....should go into the garden and plants..............not in a fancy septic tank.
my lovely stove in her place...also not hooked up yet...but will be soon.
you can see my lovely Hickory cabinents that are below the lovely cabnet counter tops that Clark made for me. no easy task. The floor brought up the Stove some...more photos coming later on that....

this is a randome picture up close that I took last Sunday of the latch on the blown off skylight. yipes, this was never latched....THAT'S WHY IT BLEW OFF by that heavy wind last Friday....but I'm blessed that I bought home owner's insurance and my dedutable is $250.00 and they will pay the rest.

How can I be soooooooooo lucky....Clark (Kent) Peterson has a brother that was living in MO...and he also was in construction and was very much out of work. I said, "send for him" and he came in 3 days. He also is a ACE WORKER and a wonder on these saws that are making the tongue and groves on all this cherry wood for my gorgious floors. ooooooooooooooooo wheeeeeeeeee.

wood that is stacked up on the porch, then brought in to the person that is working the CHOP SAW, that's me. and for some strange reason, it's "therapy".....I love working that saw, and seeing each and every piece of wood be all squared off. yep, we got wood that can't be used on the floor, we'll use in our Napoliean fireplace.

this is the wood all done and ready to be put in floors. ahhhhhhhhh, it takes A LOT of wood to make floors, but oh sooooooooooooo worth it.

Madison Hales

2009-11-07T05:45:00.000-08:00

It was called to my attention that I didn't have Madison Hales, my ACE STAR YOUNG WORKER on my blog site. He worked for us during this summer earning money for his mission. He lives in Las Vegas with his family and he worked soooooooooo hard.....it would be so hot putting up the roofing.........he took on the job of carrying up the shingles....hooooooooo boy....he would sweat like he just got out of the shower. Here we'd just poured the cement on the porch and I put in these little rocks that Madson gathered for me. He would do anything I'd ask him to do. I have to say this, his parents did the raising of this young man marvelously. He's going to leave on his mission soon....
Here is Madison stomping the cement down with these big boots on...Vicki at the corner here. ahhhhhh, the summer was just a short distance away, right?
yep, here he is stomping that cement. I need to take a picture of the art work that he did with some barnwood that we got in a heap....he put up the porch ceiling.....very nice work. His mom said, "I didn't know Madison could do that kind of art work!"....we are all suprized what our awesome children can do, right?
Here he is standing on the rafters of the back part of the house. this was one HUGE PUZZEL to put together. He and Aki did a lot of this work....ahhhhhhh, I need to put up Aki's picture too. I know I need to put up more pictures of Madison when I find them in my computer. Thank you Madison for all the mountains of work you did for us.....I'm extreemly grateful.

Vicki putting in cement in the planter

2009-11-05T19:45:00.000-08:00

Vicki's nephew, Mike Bolen has been WONDERFUL to spend time...........working at the building of my house. This is the tree that got planted....and he told me when I came to look at her in her permenent spot. "I named your tree".............I said, "that's great, what's her name?" He said, FRANKIE..................tears welled up in my eyes, my mother's name was Frances and her nick name was Frankie......soooooooooooo my mother welcomes you to my home as well. This is a Ficas tree.....and she'll grow very tall. My mother would like that, she was only 5'2". Vicki has made these planters in her houses in Las Vegas and I so admired these live trees and plants there. I'm also going to get a canary to sing his little heart out in this lovely house as well....
Here is Vicki putting in some cement around the planter that will hold a tree and other plants. She's planned this for me as I soooooooo love trees and plants. This house will be happy to hold plants as the lighting is so good. It has an automatic watering system and a drain. this is from my cell phone...forgot the camera at this time. The photo above was from someone else's cell phone and WOW, what a difference. The next time any of you get a cell phone, get a good camera with it. so easy to send to other folks.

Summer going to Quincy 2009

2009-11-05T19:32:00.000-08:00

I've written about falling in love with Illinois while driving to Quincy for those 6 weeks (five days a week) for Tomasi to take his radiation treatments...well, this is just one of the flowers....and these smell lovely as well.
and the Water lilies or really these are Lotis blooms on the Mississippi outside of our house.
This is what my dashboard on Hanna the Vanna looks like. my Hula girlie (Ma'ata made the lei) and visor when I need it. Do you see my little tiny angel up at the top? Lynn Conklin gave this to me years ago. I've heard the saying, "don't drive faster then your guardian angel can fly".....
this is a old wagon that is in someone's front yard in Lima, Illinois. I just love it that they planted all these around this wagon. wayyyyyyyyy cool. yeah, I know these are late, but wanted to put them in my blog anyway. I loved stoping at the roadside vegie stands and the rolling green hills. I guess I don't have a lot of pictures as I was the one driving all this time. although in the beginning, Tomasi would drive in and I'd drive home. Quincy is about 50 min. south from Nauvoo.

2009-11-05T19:26:00.000-08:00

Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen. 2009

2009-11-05T19:18:00.000-08:00

Here in Nauvoo, they have a tradition of carving around 200-400 pumkins. yep, folks come for all over and it's a big crowd that shows up. and they are all lighted. I took many more but you are lucky, I didn't post them here.
this is Amy Andrus, Vicki's youngest beautiful daughter, 19 and attends a college in Keokuk, Iowa. She also works at the only little grocery store in Nauvoo. She was all dressed up in a 30's outfit and I thought she looked so beautiful.
this was my favorite pumpkin....I sooooooooo love trees.

MY FIRST UKULELE

2009-11-05T18:39:00.000-08:00

I made a uke for Larry Osler. He used to work with Tomasi in the Provo Temple. He and his wonderful wife came over to our house and he tried a few of the insturments that I had in the house, took the dulcimer home........brought it back and said that he wanted a Uke....one like I had on the wall. Well, it's really a mandolin and I just made it into a 4 stringed insturment and used nylon Uku strings. I've begun putting the Nauvoo star on my instruments. more fun. yep, "made in Nauvoo". I used some ideas from a Uke book that I got that showed more ornate peg heads and decided I'd have some fun with it. sure did.
you can see the inlay on the sides. This is made of Cherry wood.
Mahaganoy soundboard.

Larry Osler here, and I asked him to smile, he said, "this IS my smile". cute yeah? He also plays the banjo and something else. We shall miss these folks a lot. They have served here in the Nauvoo Temple for almost 2 years.

Friends to visit....and Tomasi working outside

2009-11-05T18:24:00.000-08:00

We had some old friend come to visit from Green Valley of long ago. Scott Glouser...this photo is in front of one of the houses Vicki built 2 years ago.
another shot.
Scotts business partner.
Tomasi is burning some leaves in the back yard. yep, a lot slimmer.
Tomasi is doing very well and is beginning to gain back "his time"....doing more writing and reading and for me..........playing his music. I'm soooooooo blessed to have him forever.

house update 1 Nov 2009

2009-11-01T08:22:00.001-08:00

this is the hole that was planned in the beginning and so it's being "refined" to Vicki's plans. some board thing here, she's got a automatic drip system that is in place. AND a drain .....Yes, the tree is in....but need to make more pictures.
this cement post was tooooooo big for Vicki and so it was cut some and then jack hammered and well, got to the point that Vicki wanted it to plant the tree in.....
Even Vicki used this jack hammer.....WHAT A WOMAN.
No easy job I tell you..and the noise in this round room...hoooooooooo boy. I asked Vicki if there was something that I could go and get at Menards..............the large hardwear store in Birlington, Iowa, that's about 1/2 hour from here. yep, I got a list and went happily there this day. yeah.
Here on our front porch is only ONE PALLET of wood that somehow got DUMPED instead of laid down right...oh well again..............but Clark's wife was making grooves on the wood to be ready to lay the floor down. Now I've got all that wood organized so we can use the "pattern" pieces to have 3 different sizes.
Because I bought this GORGIOUS LOG BED that Dave Hardle's son made for $450.00 (yep, it's in my basement gonna sand some more and varnish before taking to new house)...it's 6 feet tall, 7 feet wide, 8 feet long.......................Vicki had to bump out the bedroom wall and add some to make my bedroom so it could be more then a BED INSIDE the room. ha. so this is the treatment. It's been painted lately, but didn't take a pic. yet of that lovely moss green. Do you see the skylight above the bed? ahhhhhhhhhh, someday stars at night above our heads.
These are the three windows that look out from our bedroom. ahhhhhhh, lovely Pella windows. Their factory is near here....good buy on the windows that move lovely and open. yep, bot screens, but won't put those on till we move in.
My stove was being set to where we wanted it, now I have cabinets and need to take pictures of that, and tomorrow I'll do that....okay? well, we'll see how long it takes to put on blog with so much else going on in my life as well. oh well....this is wellllllllllllll....
Mike Bolen and Clark's son Joseph. interesting how the "orbs" in here show up. seems it's the dust in the air? maybe?
living room is now the place for cutting and sawing and what a mess, but no can create without chaos.

the beautiful sewing room all drywalled in.....yep, what you see above is the barnwood ceiling that will be rustic as well.....I love the mix of it all.
Clarks' son using the hardwood floor nailer that Mike Bolen sent for. WAYYYYYYYYY COOL.
yep, a pile of angles that would drive most other folks NUTS...but not Clark (Kent) Peterson. What a blessing to have him and his family come into our lives at this time. He loves putting in this floor. Remember when I wrote of the 5 pallets of cherry wood that I got delivered to Jack's storage place down the road from me? Well we got one pallet and Clark said it needed to be tonge and groved....and and that is what we're doing with these pieces. yep, a challenge, but after I went to get a DADO blade kit (whew, expensive, but worth it to the max)....then this went much faster. This room shown here is done, then they've also done my sewing room also. I LOVE THE LOOK OF RUSTICNESS. to me, perfect. I went to see a friends "perfect cherrywood floor" and it was very beautiful, but this floor I'm getting is wayyyyyyyyy more gorgious to me. On Monday, we'll be working on the kitchen.
Clark has laid floors like this before and knew just what he was doing. yep yep....and said that after we sand it down some and put on 2-3 coats of polypaint, it will be more then marvelous. I love all the different colors of Cherry wood, and where I got these palets of wood was from the Amish folks that make LOTS of furniture in Shipshawana, Indiana. these were cut as perfect as could be done for those maticulous crafsmen.

globblins blowing HARD.

2009-11-01T06:45:00.000-08:00

here is the small latch that came with the skylight.
a close up of this hinge. aluminum framing....small hinge....this is not all that heavy and I can see the flaw in this design. I wanted to have a open and shut skylight and this is how it came....We thinking it a wise thing to be able to open and shut the skylight as we had that choice when ordering our roof kit.

On Friday, we worked at the house and all was well when we left. I went into Keokuk an met with some appointments. Then it started raining and storming like crazy and even my poor Hanna went through a puddle and I had to call a tow truck and have her towed home. She's still not started. BUMMERS. We didn't find out about the skylight blowing off till Halloween night when Tomasi went up there to check on things @ 6 p.m..................found the skylight on the ground. came home and called me and it was too late for me to go and see. sad............took pictures this morning 1 Nov 2009.

Summer 2008 Tomasi and I playing music

2009-10-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

This one here, Tomasi and I were at Vern Kai'eakamanu's fairwell concert in June 2009. This was before we knew that Tomasi had cancer. Vern plays the uke and banjo and Tomasi and Vern would get together often, not often enough I can say that. Betty (a haole like me) and I would just love it when they would play music together. Wonderful family. We miss them lots.
this was the harp I had in 2008 at that same little "fair" in 2008...fun fun.
A real fun guitarest joined us for a few tunes as well....love doing music. He was a missionary on the "flats" and has gone to his home already. We find soooooooooo many friends here in Nauvoo and more come every year. 2008
I must have been explaining a song. ha. funny face. I now put my dulcimer on a table as it's a wide dulcimer? not really, I just look better playing it on a little T.V. wooden tray I got from Walmart. ha. 2008

Okay, folks, here are some pictures that our good friends took while they were here in Nauvoo in 2008. There was a little "fair" in the courtyard and we were playing music and having fun. He sent me these via email. yeah, I was able to put in my blog. oh my sooooooooooooo much to learn. eh?

music and dance at the MAYO

2009-10-09T20:05:00.000-07:00

yeah, I know, this looks pretty WILD, but this was a couple that have won national compititions in dancing and the others were dancing later. a beautiful japanese girl with a latino guy. this dance troop did a toe taping show. yes, this is the MAYO clinic at the lunch hour.

ahhhhhhhh, I loved these Japanese girls, they work here and also perform. Our family used to have one of these little tiny blow into it keyboard. Well they had a lovely way of playing this thing. classical music and the little blow keyboard would take the lead and it sounded fantastic.

On Wednesday night after I came home by taxi, this BLUEGRASS BAND was playing in the lobby/restruant where I stayed. talk about cheering me up!! yep.

This was my lucky day.....Yesterday, 7 lap dulcimer players and 3 guitarest's played in the Cafeteria.....and I stayed the whole hour. (while Tomasi slept).............. marvelous, but they are very sweet and soft. I sat close. they have these little stands for their music. yep, more soft when they have them on their laps then on the little table I play my dulicmer on. I loved their choice of music. all over 50 and all so serious when playing.

Today he beat me in Scrabble.

2009-10-09T19:52:00.000-07:00

he beat me in Scrabble today and walked 4 times. wow, what a difference a day makes. He'll get more tubes taken out tomorrow. yeah.

when Tomasi first came out.

2009-10-09T19:50:00.000-07:00

Well now, He was pretty groggy, but I asked him if he wanted me to take his picture. He said, "okay" and nodded his head. I have other pictures, but these will do for now. this was taken on Thursday 8 Oct. 2009.

sooooooooooooo many tubes.

lastest House photos.

2009-10-04T18:47:00.001-07:00

Dave Hardle gave us a "recipe" for the mix for the chinking. yep, pioneers did also use cement chinking when it was available to them. this mix has a color to it. this is Clark's wife and daughter, Hanna and Vicki is doing the mixing. Look up closely at the logs behind them. yep, beautiful. When we're at the right time and ALL the chinking done, then I'll spray a clear varnish on all of it and the color will REALLY come out. beautiful old logs that I wish they could talk and tell me their ancient story of where they grew up and when they were made into a log house in Pennsavania in 1750.
and did I say that I love this family? I wonder why my camera has "orbes" in it? I see them as I look at my blog site. Maybe my lens needs cleaning? somebody tell me.
this youngest boy, Jans, is only 9 and what a joy to be around as well. He's in charge of picking up after his dad and brother....sometimes he does it....I see him through the windows playing pretend games as my boys used to do.
I am amazed on what our new worker CLARK (Kent) Peterson can do in one day. he put in the whole messanien floor and it's all done......now to get STAIRS up to this place. ha.
This is Clark's 14 year old lovely daughter, Hannah. what a jewel. This family came in to work at my house, the Dad his hired, she wanted to "work with the mud" and became a ACE chinker.
this is the 14 year old son, he's a great helper to the max. This family homeschools their children as the dad, Clark, was working all over the country building MALLS, that are not being in the building now a days. This family has just moved to Hamilton, Illinois, a town 15 min away from Nauvoo.
this is Clark Peterson. I've nicknamed him Clark Kent (this was Superman's hidden person) Clark here can do anything. He's hooked up the electric power to the house, done insulation, very fast in sheet work, sooooooooooo self motovated...and when working with his kids, he's so kind to them and teaches as he goes along. His wife came also and helped chink the inside of the house....I LOVE THIS FAMILY.
This is Clark and his son, Joseph, putting up the drywall around the windows. awesome. no easy task and I know it, but they made it seem easy.

Kapua, Angelita and Irene, the happy mom

2009-10-04T17:34:00.000-07:00

This is after Angelita surprized me at the airport and we dropped off Sue with her friends and we went to the Kahokia Indian mounds. this was our first photo....I was still shocked....ha. I'll go to these mounds again.
Angelita playing my little harp. I have a harp in my shop that I"m almost done with, but this is what's in my living room.

I don't know if Vicki would appreciate this photo, but this IS A SMALL SEAT...and we're laughing at us both squeeeeezing in it. ha.
and the dulcimer player...

On Sunday, I took the girls to this bench on Mulholland street downtown....I love the looks of this trumpet vine....yep, I know it's a dangerous one, but it was too pretty to pass up.

seat too small for three.
this last summer, Kapua and her daughter Tehani went to Fiji and had a marvelous time...and she brought back a bunch of songs that she sang to Dad and I with one uku we had here.
Kapua and Angelita really did help me one day while they were here and I didn't get a picture of them cleaning up the whole job site and burning old stuffs and yeah, so I asked them to come and make a "photo shoot".....Mike Bolen was here and he (along with many others) were fasinated with geodes. so this became the "work" that was done this day. ha. but they had a lot of fun and that's also good. Mostly Kapua is looking for a house to buy while Tehani goes to Nurses's school in Keokuk, Iowa. OF COURSE they came to visit with their daddy.
I love this stone bride and these lovely girls. this bridge was built during Joseph Smith's time to help drain the swamp land that the early Saints used to live on.

flash pictures and natural light. Kapua knows more about my camera then I do.
the poser.

this was such a beautiful day.....down by the arched stone bridge.
fun sisters.
such beautiful daughters....
errrrrrrrrr, and slim. I need to learn how to cut off my chunky body..ha. next lesson on Picasa.
Kapua is on her tippy toes, she's the same height at I am.

Kapua and Angelita came to visit me and as I wrote in my emails, it was TOTALLY a surprise for Angelita to come too. Here we are at the last day that Angelita was here and we took some photos. here is Kapua and I. above.

Angelita and I.

ha, we were trying to take all of us....I think this is funny.

hummmmmmmming along here. My girlies love me, yeah?

FIRE TRUCKS TO THE RESCUE

2009-10-04T16:59:00.000-07:00

Folks, today I felt bad to go to Walmart to buy ANYTHING...as I just DO NOT shop on Sundays. PERIOD...but this time the "ox was in the mire". I remembered that I had to get this "stuff for Tomasi to drink before another colonoscopy tomorrow"....and I drove to Walmart last night to get it, but the pharmacy had closed. bummers. sooooooooooo today, TOMASI'S 69th birthday.....he got a breakfast in bed of clear white grape juice and a bowl of chicken broth.........nope, candles don't work with such a liquid diet. sooooooooooo I'm off to get that stuff at Walmart and MY HANNA WOULD NOT SHIFT....OH GOOOOOOOOOOOOOD GRIEF...I'm at least at a stop light in the middle of town. after 3 light changes, and me crying and not knowing what to do.....trying to shift and shift and it would NOT DO IT....these two guys come around and say, "don't worry lady, we'll push you across the street"....and do it. I left my phone with Tomasi because it's the birthday daddy the folks would be calling.....THEN THIS FIRE TRUCK comes. oh wow...and this lady is almost 6 feet tall. I was smart to take this picture. They ask me a lot of questions, I give them my card and they are AMAZED of the 14 kid department....yada yada yada...then this gal said that they could take me to Walmart to get the prescription.

the firefolks called the tow guy and he was here in fast time. This street is usually a VERY BUSY street, like SMACK in the middle of Rochester, MN. But being Sunday, yeah, (I guess) it was not all that busy.

The lady firefighter here, got in the fire truck and then this EXCITED GRANNY and I see this jacket layed out like this. O WOW..."I live on Mulholland street in Nauvoo". She and the other fireman are going on their motorcyles and passing through Nauvoo tomorrow on a trip. ha, what a trip, they will go on Mulholland street tomorrow.

Then I remembered that I left the autoharp, dulcimer and my lap top in the Hanna that was already towed away. They said, "oh it's on our way to Walmart and we'll stop off and get those things for you". DID IT. (talk about going the extra mile!!!) I went to the pharmacy and they said it would be 20 min. before they could fill my order....I told the firefolks and they said, "that was fine and more exciting then getting a cat out of some heat vent" So we walk over to SUBWAY in Walmart and as we're making an order....THE FIRE ALARM goes off. now it was a false one, nevertheless, these guys were there. Then they DID GET A CALL and I'd gotten the prescription already and off we go in the firetruck. How fun for me really....I was just as excited as some little 5 year old kid. There was some lady at the Marriotte that had a stroke and we were zooming and making the sirons going and going and he WAS HONKING....and I could see all the wild drivers doing stupid turns to get out of the firetruck's way.....OH WILD. We get to the Marriotte Hotel and someone else was there already...soooooooooo they took me to this Blondell Motel and helped me down from that high truck and with my stuffs and I had a wild story to tell you all.

Round house new photos.

2009-09-20T09:20:00.000-07:00

Tyson Mathews has just finished boot camp for US MARINES...and is married to Becca. He does what we ask...and I'm so grateful. they are living about one hour away. They will be going to college in that town, Monmouth, Illinois. Her dad teaches there, He married well.
Here is Roy Jorgansen, my MASTER ELECTRICIAL MAN. He came from Ashland, Oregon and Vicki said he gave me MUCH more light then she planned. I'm soooooooooo very grateful.
this is the heating and cooling ducts. quack quack.
the floors were a nightmare.....a puzzel to the max.....Aki did most all the puzzle the of this floor.
I have native americans come visit......Larry and Lone wolf.
here are the electrical lines so far.....zowie, it is happening.
pink wrap. there will be insulation on the inside of this pink wrap...on the outside we have all the cedar siding to go on it. you'll see laters.
LOVELY PELA WINDOWS.
WITHOUT the mask and head gear, but I'm laughing. I sanded for 2 whole days.

HELPS IN PICASA NEEDED

2009-09-13T15:35:00.000-07:00

FOLKS, I'M HAVING A HARD TIME FIGURING HOW TO USE PICASA. IT IS NOT GRANDMOTHER FRIENDLY. A REALLY COOL SYSTEM AND ISABELLA SHOWED ME HOW, BUT THAT WAS WHEN SHE WAS HERE AND i SHOULD HAVE DONE IT EVERY DAY AND THEN I COULD FIGURE HOW TO KEEP KNOWING HOW TO USE IT. I can say this about learning these things....."if you don't use it, you LOSE IT" and I've lost it. sorry. sigh. sooooooooooo until further notice, you'll just have to see this last one....i've got a lot of pictures I want to blog about.......oh well. aloha for now,

Amy Andrus turns 19

2009-09-13T15:29:00.000-07:00

Vicki had a little suprize party for Amy, her youngest daughter. She turned 19. Vicki is awesome in making creative cakes. It's in the making here before Amy comes. We had it at the state park in Nauvoo.

update on 20 Aug 2009

2009-08-20T21:14:00.000-07:00

Okay, sooooooooooo this was a beautiful day and I took a bunch of pictures but I don't know how to find them in my computer. hrumph....they are hiding tonight and so I'm going to bed. the skylight is in, but Vicki and I are not happy with the space that the flashing is above the shingles. they are putting up the roof on the back and sides of the house.............and plumbing, air conditioning and heating....and so that's not all that exciting to show, but hey, it's EXTREEMLY important. a few days ago we had 6 inches of rain. now THAT was exciting.....We are also having one skylight in the our bedroom, so we can look at the stars before we go to bed, and in the bathroom where I'll be taking a bath in my lovely claw foot tub and in the kitchen. I just love skylights, can you tell? Now, if this computer would skylight into my brain and tell me where it hid all the other pictures that I put on here tonight....whew.

PROGRESS ON THE HOUSE.

2009-07-14T18:42:00.000-07:00

folks, I've been really REALLY busy lately and not been able to work on my blog site, so here's some pictures from quite a while back. It was really raining and sometimes cold, so Vicki had the men spray this knotty pine before cutting it into the "pies" for the roof.
this was good that we sprayed these on one side as we could tell what side was saposed to be showing...now I was told to get "car siding". ha, so I asked what was ment by "car siding". It is back in the early days when ALL RAILROAD cars were made from this stuff and it was called "Railroad box car siding". only in the midwest is this knotty pine toung and grove is called this.
Here is Dave Hardle unoading the barn wood that we'll be using later. This usually sells for $6.00 a board foot. I got it for $1.00 a board foot....1,000 feet.
more wood.
this is the trailer that Dave brought this barnwood in. Tomasi helping to unload.
in the end..........was one little mouse and her babies.....
even tiny things.......oooooooooooops, distroyed their little home. sorry guys.
even little birdies come and make nests in the eves of the house before it's done.
Vicki had the men cut the top of the roofing "pie" or "bay" as she's say....these were much easier to cut then all the little pieces that were for the ceiling.
pies cute and stacked up.
Vicki's son complained that we took over his work out room....so then these were put in plastic bags.
the men would line these up and put them in the toung and grove....and then cut. no easy task.
the first of the pie going up. whooooooopies.
I wanted you to see these coming up.
I have NO TIME to play harp now and have this harp in the Temple View Art Gallery. I thought to show this in the building of this house..........strings and wood.....this is Lara Mann is a Sr. at BYU and plays the piano extreemly well. Then she took to the harp like a duck to water...I think she played the harp in the premortal world. I just love her. I come in and play 2 or 3 times a day
Our Grandson, Johathon knows her from Utah.
Here are the bags of insideside box siding inside Tomasi's truck and Jack talking story with Vicki how this will all go up.
This is Vicki's dog Bob. He's the "construction dog".
this is one of Jack's working guys and he's a wonderful person.....musican on the off hours.
pies going up. yeah.

you can see that we needed Jack's equipment to put up these things. whew.

We all took turns putting these "in order" for to take up to the guys on the roof. As soon as we got one "pie" up.....the men would have to put the top of the roof on and cover with plastic. It was all done in June.....the wettest JUNE ON RECORD for the state of Illinois.
back rooms started.
kitchen area.
and another lovely sunset.
these are close friends that came to visit me in Nauvoo. they came up to my house and we sat around and "talk story" in my future living room. then I had my friend Ann Hawkes call me on my cell phone and I said I had a wonderful R.S. pres.....red hair bush out....and they stoped talking and said IN UNISON.........."Is her name Ann?" ahhhhhhh, yep, they knew her before she married Glenn Hawkes.
sooooooooooooo I took her friends that had lost track of her and had been asking all over town to find Ann....and they were leaveing the next day.....Oh, I just loved this reunion.
here these three women are that I love.
round windows arrived.
first window up.
roof almost done.
workers
how lovely the roof......really.

this is Mike Bolen and he did sooooooooooo much of this work. oh happy day that it was done.
here is Amy Andrus, she comes on the construction site when good looking Mickie is there. she's reading a book here......looking good. she's a student at the local college in Keokuk.
all windows are in.

Here is Johnathon and Bob Tukuafu......hauling some stuff .........
one of the men that did some chinking...........Chris Day.
Here is James' Montoya's sister passing through Nauvoo to go to the Montoya family reunion, she took Johnathon and then the whole family came back to help on the house.

now this is EXCITING. A man that Dave Hardle knew a man that was clearing some land that had a bunch of CEDAR LOGS.........the ones you make cedar chests out of. and we got these for $10.00 each. we got 17 of these. soooooooooooo later I'll put some pictures up of Bob pealing these....Johathon did pealing of these too.
load 'em up, head 'em out.
Here is the place in Hamilton, a little town not far from Nauvoo that has this lumber mill. He'd lay them down and they'd cut off one side so to be able to put the barn wood sideing up on top of that for the ceilings of the Kitchen, bathrooms and bedrooms.
t
iwayyyyyyyyyyy cool maching.

see the flat side? Here is Floyd Johnson..........Bella's husband that has been working construction in Hawaii. They are moving back here to S.L.C. and took a BIG DETOUR to Nauvoo.
squared ends......
what can I say?

roofing shingels coming up and oh my, didn't figure that EACH SHINGLE has to be cut.
now you're getting the picture of those logs peeled.
the tower is now down.
Floyd is up on the roof...James Montoya is getting stuff up there.
Isabella was finally able to come and help at the house as Felila's middle children babysat the little ones. Isabella, Tory, Felila became the BEST CHINKERS.

HERE is the pattern that Bob made to make each of the top ends of the logs that were each square cut.

Here is Vicki and Felila measureing out the sanded barn wood.

this is where they are putting the barn wood.

this is the last photo that I've taken of this news of the coming of my house. I'd have more pictures if I was not going to Quincy every day for Tomasi to take Radiation. I've got only 5 more weeks to go and I'll write about it more later.

Five thousand dollars. Here is a picture of Johnathon Montoya, James and Felila's oldest son and he's saved enough money to go on his mission. Floyd and Bella needed a car to drive back to Utah as they are moving there. They found a FANTASTIC van for half what they'd pay for it elsewhere. They were moving back from beautiful Hawaii and "took a big detour" to come and help us build this unique house. okay, so they had the $ in their account, then Bank of Hawaii wouldn't let them just take it out overnight and they had to get going to Utah....sooooooo Johnathon had worked and saved his money for his mission and he'll be going to Guatamala on his mission. He pulled his money out of the nearest Wells Fargo Bank in Monmoth, Il and Floyd wrote a check and well, it all worked out. They are leaving tomorrow. sigh, I've loved having them here. I had been given a little house for my families to stay in......Bob and his darling preg. wife, Mitzi and their dolly daughter. yep, it was wild with her two boy couzins.

playing scrabble on Mother's day.

2009-07-14T18:37:00.000-07:00

I know this is out of order......but I want to post some other stuffs and so I'll just leave it out of order, perfect for the ending of mother's day wonderful......This is James and his mother and Tomasi.

Beautiful Felila and I played dominos. I love playing this game. not much thinking and can "talk story" while playing....ha.

Felila and Rachael singing a wonderful song for me. If I was sharp in this, I would have recorded it and put it on this blog, oh well.....another time. maybe.

this is all 5 of us on this marvelous MOTHER'S DAY where the kids served us.....

Dan bathing Daniel the second

2009-07-14T18:19:00.000-07:00

Here is wonderful Dan, bathing his 5th son......soooooooooooo sweet, yeah?
ahhhhhhhhhh, sink baths, such a time......

Dan and Laura and their little one. To update all of you that might read this blog spot.....Dan was out of work at this time.....and was working at the Army National Guard translating Arabic. Instead of being gone for ONE YEAR in Iraq again.....he got offered a 3 month job in Kwajalein Islands. Laura would rather have that. So they made the decision that he'd go and when he comes back, he'll have another year of translating Arabic. We're now getting phone pictures on email. hooooooooooooo boy, Laura has her hands full, 5 boys ages 5 and under. I love them all dearly.

lunch in Nauvoo Cafe in S.L.C.

2009-07-14T18:16:00.000-07:00

When I was a senior in High School...........I worked in some burger mill across from San Jose State College. (1959) I worked 30 hours a week....and had my dinner there every school night......It was early and so I had only the little birds to eat with. This is when I began to love the birds of all kinds.......... ahhhhhhhhhhh, this reminded me of this time in S.L.C. before I went to the Conference Center to see the art show and go on the roof. It was such a perfect spring day. I got this gorgious sandwitch at the cafe that was called "The Nauvoo Cafe". and ate it outside with my friends, the birds and lovely flowers.

chunky but happy.

Spring flowers are soooooooooooooooo beautiful.

On my way to the conference Center, I took this photo looking up at the S.L.C. Temple. Can you see the Angel Moroni on top?

Art show inside Conference

2009-07-14T18:04:00.000-07:00

There was a wonderful art show inside the Conference Center, folks contributed from all over the world. I didn't take a lot of pictures, but a few here......

I was fasinated by this handmade banjo. terrific workmanship. It said that it was made with the tools of the 18th century. I find this photo interesting in that the glass on the bango case here.....reflects the windows and I still like it.

My daughter Isabella loves Turtles as I do....I like what it has to say of Divine Nature.

Conference Center and Temple Square in S.L.C.

2009-07-14T16:26:00.000-07:00

This is the conference Center in S.L.C. You can attend something inside and be with 20,000 others. fantastic performances are also held here.
I'm taking photos on TOP of the Conference Center in S.L.C. this was during my "mother's day time there". You can see all the construction that is going on in downtown. S.L.C. did not want it's old city to become like other old cities.........trashy dumps and run down places .....they are doing a good job of this....the skyline is changing. Only sad thing is that it is dwarfing the size of that awesome Temple.
a fountain on a roof, get that.....
Here is a very old tree that has been transplanted....a prairie on the roof....and the grasses and other native plants. There was an article in National Geographic about doing this all over in cities across the Nation.........to cut off the heat and pollution in cities. It's like cutting the land and just moving it up. good idea if you ask me.
I soooooooooooo love columbines. these are the flower of Colorado. I painted this flower on one of my harps that I made out of Myrtle wood. sold that harp in Ashland, Oregon.

This is just another shot and those that have been to S.L.C. showing that awesome egg shaped Tabernacle.

more to look at.

when you visit S.L.C. next, go to the conference center and take a little tour.

When I went down to the Temple square, I found all of these flowers blooming on the wall.....had someone take my photo here. I look at these and see my father's mother.....my dear grandmother Lena Jane Daniels Holmes.