We convened at my dad's again on Friday. We didn't finish going through everything, but I don't think any of it is going anywhere. Later in the afternoon, when he was finished working, Adam and I went to Marianne and Robert's. I took my mop/vacuum on the road again and I cleaned part of their floor and Marianne did the rest. After that we visited a while. We came home and had dinner, then Marianne and Robert and Clarissa came over to play games. (Olivia and Edgar had gone fishing!)
We played Five Crowns, which is almost entirely luck and I won almost every hand. If I were a gambler, it would have been a good night to hit a casino. We enjoyed being together and I was happy that Adam got a tiny bit of leisure time because he hardly ever gets any.
Saturday morning Marianne was busy, but I met Olivia at my dad's for a walk. My dad and Olivia were whispering in the sun room when I got there because Ammon and his girls were there and sleeping. Ammon came downstairs and came on our walk with us. It was nice to have him join.
My dad had a few things he wanted taken. Olivia had left by then so I asked Ammon if he wanted any of them. He took a small framed picture of Grandma Jaynes, but he picked up another frame and asked, "Who is in this picture?"
I was shocked. It was our Great Grandma and Grandpa Wood. I remember them so clearly. Ammon looked on Family Search to see when they died. He was a few months old when Grandpa Wood died and two when Grandma Wood died. (I was ten and twelve years old so I remember them.) That Ammon is just a young'un!
Mark went to the temple with his cousins and Adam and I decided to go to town to get a few things. None of it was exactly urgent, but Adam said, "I have time now." Fair point.
One thing we wanted to do was get a replacement for a bi-fold door that broke a while ago. I googled it to see if they had it at Home Depot. I learned that you have to buy two doors and all the hardware (rails, etc.). We only needed one door, because everything else was fine. I saw out the window that my dad had brought Lucette over in his buggy to visit Ammon, who was mowing down by the barn. I decided to enlist my brain trust and see what they thought about it.
Armed with this picture, I walked down to the barn.
They peered at the picture on my phone, shading the sunlight with their hands. Ammon described what I could do with a block of wood and glue and clamps. They came up to the house for further inspection. My dad looked at it and said, "I can put a piece of steel over it." I gave him a tape measure and he quickly measured it (didn't write anything down, which impressed me because I would have forgotten).
We went to town to buy the other things we were needing and when we got home, the door was fixed. My dad is a wonder. He just had a piece of steel, made it fit, drilled a hole for the pin, attached it. My entire life, my dad could just fix anything. I don't know. Everyone is talented in some way.
My dad seems extra.
While my dad and Ammon were over, I showed them the latest (three-dimensional this time) installation in the Thelmoma.
We had three chairs in our school room when I homeschooled our kids. One was blue and two were red. They had been relegated to the basement, but finally gave up the ghost a few months ago. They were just falling apart. Adam was going to get rid of them, but he knows me. He said, "Do you want to do something with these?" Homeschooling our kids is one of my favorite things I've ever done. It was hard and intense at times, but like a lot of parenting, my memories of it are cozy and nostalgic. I took a side piece of each chair and hung them on the walls.
They make me happy.
Otherwise on Saturday I napped, made gluten free brownies for Sunday for Mark, packed up a lot of stuff to take home and tidied up some. We were going to make frozen pizza for dinner, but it was hot and I didn't want to turn on the oven. We had dinner under the bridge as my mom used to call it: every man for himself.
Adam and I went over to my dad's and visited with him and Ammon and Melanee (who had arrived by then). Olivia came for a little while and it is just nice to be close and be able to drop in and out of each other's homes so easily.
Sunday was such a nice day. Marianne and Robert spoke in church (and Omar was the youth speaker). Also, Clarissa and Hyrum sang "I'll Go Where You Want Me to Go." I had this image pop in my head of me walking into the Utah Cancer Specialists. Heavenly Father has a plan for each of us, the point is what we do with the path before us.
Sacrament meeting was so good. I felt inspired and a desire to be better. I don't know what else you could ask for.
We went home and got our house all packed up. It is more of a process in winter, but it is also a process in summer. We stripped the beds and gathered up all the towels/laundry. We packed our bags and cleaned out the fridge and cupboards. We covered all the furniture and replaced the mousetraps.
Marianne hosted about 70 people at her house, like you do. Of course she did it with aplomb and everyone was happy and well fed. I enjoyed visiting with people and had a really interesting conversation with my aunt Olivia and asked her about her experience being a teenager when my grandparents were mission leaders. She also told me about a time she borrowed a car from a stranger who wasn't home but left the keys in it!
One really delightful thing that happened on Sunday was meeting our second cousin Ken. (Ken Dahl, which is also delightful.) Marianne and I knew his brother and sister Harvey and Amanda when we were in college. Marianne has connected more with Amanda since then and they are Facebook friends so Amanda knew about Marianne and Robert's homecoming. I guess she told Ken and Ken came. He brought two of his children (Mark and Emmeline). Another Mark Dahl! They live in Springville and I enjoyed talking to them and getting to know them a little. When he found out we had bought my grandparents house, he asked, "Harvey and Margaret's house?!?" I said yes and I offered to show him around before he left.
Adam and I drove over and they followed in their car. He looked around and said, "I remember this!" He told me about a time at a reunion that there was a snake and my grandma killed it with a shovel and he was in awe. I told him I possibly threw crabapples at him at a reunion because Lincoln had deputized all of us and we climbed the Big Tree House. We pulled up the ladder so no second cousins could join us and then we threw crabapples at them. Ken seemed to forgive me.
We talked about the brick house and I showed him a picture. He told me that he and his wife had decided to name their oldest son Alexander at a reunion there when someone told a story about Alexander Dahl immigrating from Norway to Salt Lake City. He got emotional telling me about being there and singing "Families Can Be Together Forever" as a big group. He pointed to the spot under the trees and said, "Right there." He remembered he was standing right next to his dad and hearing him sing. (His dad passed away around the same time as our mom.) He said, "This has been really healing for me."
I loved it. I love connecting with family and sharing happy memories (crabapple throwing notwithstanding) of a place and heritage that matters to us. He put a pin on his phone for where it is. (He said, "I would never be able to find this again!") I told him to come again and bring his other kids. I said, "Mow the lawn when you stop by."
I am grateful that that sacred place, where I feel so grounded and like I know my place in the world, is still in our family. "Harvey and Margaret's house" means something to a lot of people, because they mean something to a lot of people.
