Sunday, June 29, 2014

Dear Kids,
          We enjoyed visiting with everybody who came to the family reunion yesterday! Charley volunteered to be in charge of the next one, which will be in two years. Let’s see what he will cook up! Whatever the agenda, it’s always fun to see people and catch up on news and gossip.
          After the reunion, Dad and I followed Tom and Kim to Daynes Music in Salt Lake, to "help" them look at pianos. Dad and Tom and I took turns watching the little kids while Kim talked to the sales people and tried out different pianos. They finally decided on a 5'8" Essex piano, made by Steinway, but inexpensively, by robots. The demo model had been sold and was going to Wyoming, so they have to wait a week or two for theirs to come in from a warehouse. That’s going to be exciting. To me, nothing else is as much fun as playing a really good piano.
          Last week I went to Delta Stone in Heber and ordered a new rock that will say "River Bluffs." (They old one was hauled away by Ferell Knight, who said he could use it.) I was thinking of having a picture of a river under the writing, and I didn’t like anything they had, so I looked up Suzette, who is a really good artist. She lives in Midway, right by the Homestead. The picture of the river didn’t work out, but since she’s always driving around looking for things to paint, I told her to come up to our house and paint the view. The next evening she showed up. She set up her easel and umbrella right on Hilltop Road, and started painting. People stopped to ask her what she was doing. Dad and I were raking dirt and hauling rocks in the yard, but we kept walking over to see the picture. When she was done, she gave it to us. She said she’ll probably come back here to paint again.
          Oreo hasn’t been interested in cat food lately. Could it be the little bunnies we’ve been seeing by the edge of the road? They’re so cute! He can’t be eating them! Hopefully he’s finding rats and mice instead. Since they graded our yard, he has to go farther away to hunt, but I think he’s finding better prey now. Xena just sits in the garage on her box all day long. She’s 14. We don’t know how much longer she’ll last.
          We’re looking forward to Paige’s baptism July 12th. Hopefully we’ll see a lot of you there. Love, Mom