Wood Chips: Spring Break

Now.
Before I regale you with the exotic tales and breathtaking photographs from our spring break I just want to be clear that though I may sound bitter, please be assured that I am not. With only the slightest tremors of jealousy do I peruse the life and times of my friends and family spring breaking in sunny and sandy climes whilst I trudge through a seemingly endless winter with grey skies, snow unceasing, relying only upon the promise of actual spring for reprieve.

Not bitter? you ask yourself. She could have fooled me. But true, I am not bitter because one fine spring, actually make that one of the dreariest of all springs I hope to have this blog stuffed to capacity with pictures and stories of my spring break delights upon the isles of the sea...or at least far enough south that I won't need a Parka...in May!?

We did have sunny spring break plans but our car needed major repairs so...anyway.

I am "that mother," since we had to make a spring break with twigs and apple cores we came up with a Family History Tour!!! I know. I can still hear the children groaning.

No, actually they were pretty good sports. Being still quite naive and inexperienced in the wonderful world of vacations. In short, they just didn't know any better, and were happy to just be with each other.

We begin our adventure where else but the Family History Center in Salt Lake City.

They have a very nice little kids section in the Family Search Library where you learn about ancestry.

We put them to work straight away on creating a page where you draw a country and flag of your heritage and list interesting facts about that country.

We set them to work right away researching the countries of our heritage.

We continued to walk around temple square talking about pioneers and our own family pioneer heritage.

We have some pretty amazing pioneer ancestors. But I will not bore (brag) you with their stories here.

We headed over to the Lion House for dessert where we each consumed a weeks worth of calories from those tiny plates.

(My grandmother lived at the Lion House during the Korean War while working at the telephone company and my Grandpa was overseas.)

While we were downtown we took a little ride on trax to the public library.

You may notice in this and other pictures that my Dad has a neck brace on. What you can't see is that he is also wearing a body brace. He was cutting down a tree by himself a few weeks before this and it fell right on top of his head. He was completely scalped (you can't see because of the hat but believe me, you don't want to) and had several broken vertebra. The most serious being a complete through and through break of C2. It is a miracle that he is alive and even a miracle that he is walking, given that he was walking around after the accident and holding his own neck whilst being driven (refusing an ambulance) to the hospital. His vertebra, though broken remained perfectly aligned therefore not damaging or even touching his spinal cord. It will take months for his bones to mend but he truly is a walking miracle.

Anyway, I wanted to go to the Library because there was an art display there.

I love art and while cats are not my favorite subject I actually was more interested in the descriptions of the paintings.

They were written by my longest and best friend Meg.

I don't know why she remains my friend, she is my superior by a vast margin.

A fact which becomes apparent when you realize that while I did get pictures of the art...I did not get close enough that her text is readable.

Even though, as I said, cats are not my favorite I really enjoyed the paintings and the descriptions.

The concept was to take famous paintings and make them cat themed.

DAY 2
After learning about ancestry in general we moved on to our family history more specifically. We headed down to Payson, UT where my Grandmother spent most of her childhood.

My grandmother grew up in what was the Payson Hotel.

Her parents owned and operated it from 1942-1947

Grandmother used to perch at the top of the stairs to watch the weddings that were held in the hotel.

The bride and groom would stand right in front of the piano...the piano that I have now.

It is now a house that is sadly, not well taken care of.

We sat and ate green apples with salt (her favorite treat) while she told us about growing up in the hotel.

They would play "There Was an Old Woman With a Stick and a Staff" just off the porch there.

They would perform plays with her Mother's costumes under the grape arbor further back.

Her brother fell from one of the large trees in the back and was taken to the doctor's house upon who's lawn we are sitting. His office was in the basement...very convenient.

When she was done making all of the beds in the hotel for the day she would go out with an apple, salt shaker, and a Bookhouse Storybook and read the afternoon away.

To this day making beds is not her favorite chore.

The initials of J.W. McIntosh (an earlier owner) can still be seen in the sidewalk.

Up the hill from the hotel is the school my Grandmother attended.

The Peteetneet School, now a museum.

One room is dedicated to the photography of her Grandfather, Orson Daniels.

His favorite subject was her Mother, Donna Daniels.

I am kicking myself that I didn't get a picture of her to put here, I have several prints in my possession and I didn't think to get one for the blog.

I mentioned before about my Grandmother's Mother, and her costumes.

She was an avid performer. She performed in plays on this very stage, with those very columns in the Payson Park while she was growing up and when she came back to Payson from California with her husband and children.

Our last stop was the cemetery to visit the grave of my Grandmother's Aunt Laura Daniels Fereday.

She died as a young mother and her husband, Horace Fereday was very grieved.

He had this monument sent from Paris for her grave.

Though he remarried again, he always loved Laura best and was buried next to her.

I really love the inscription.

The whole monument I think, is just beautiful.

I told Randall that I wouldn't be opposed to a similar sculpture...

The "weeping woman" is a famous local character.

In the first picture you can see some mineral deposits flowing down from her face as though they are tears.

They have scrubbed the deposits off numerous times but it always comes back.

Finally, a caretaker found a pin-sized hole that allows water to flow through the stone and leave the mineral deposits. They decided not to fix the hole.