Salt Lake City 2009, The Alpine House, 2 weddings and a couple birthdays!

This past summer we took a trip out to Salt Lake City for two weddings, my sisters and our nephews, and John's mothers birthday. John's mothers birthday just happens to be a day before my fathers. My father passed away in 2006, but that didn't stop us from celebrating with him. We went to our favorite bakery (Glauss in sugerhouse), we bought our favorite cake and visited his gravesite and had cake with him. It was nice to be able to be with him on his birthday.

Here I am thinking about my dad.

We had a wonderful time with family, although we kept it low key because we were there for only 5 days and had so much going on in that 5 days. However, we did find time to visit Alpine, Utah. Rumor had it that the home my parents designed and built had been torn down and a new home put it in its place. My heart felt a pang when I heard that. I was 2 years old when my parents designed and built it and we moved in, my family and I lived there for 8 years. We had to move because my father had gotten to ill, he had just fought cancer, had heart disease and it was about that time that he was beginning to have symptoms of Inclusion Body Myositis; which originally was diagnosed as ALS. He was a fighter and he put his heart and soul into this house. I have lots of fond memories of that home and the memories it held for us. As we drove up our old street in Alpine and saw the tractors and work trucks in front of the home, I was afraid it was all true and sure enough there was a new house in its place. Tears welled up in my eyes and I think I jumped out of the car before John could even stop the car. I went up to the workers and asked if the owner was at home, I just wanted to see if he had preserved any part of our house. The new owner of the home was so gracious and kind and offered to show us around and sure enough he had preserved parts of the house.
Here is the home when we lived in it, then below that the owners after us painted it white?

and now finally it was almost completely torn down and this home was put in its place. I have to say the new home is amazingly beautiful and is a big improvement to the original home, although I still am very sad to see it go.

As we toured the home, the owner showed us what was original. He kept our pool, the one I learned how to swim in, oh so many memories!! And yes, that is me jumping in, with my little sister Yvie waiting patiently in back, so how many of you rember the red tank top unitubes?? Anyway, here are some before and afters...

He kept the original storage rooms, part of the lower patio in the back, and he put new walls in their original locations in the basement, he had to tear the original walls down because of termite damage. Most of the house had a similar layout to the original one, which I was glad to see. And finally the back of the home before and afters. My favorite part is what he did with the backyard and accenting the river.

When I lived there our backyard was mostly made up of trees and weeds and weaving through the trees was a river, beyond the river we owned another acre of land (I don't recall ever venturing beyond the river, though). The people we bought the land from back in 1977 had built a makeshift bridge accross the river and my sister R'lene and brother Kyle tried to make it safer to cross by adding more 2x4's and plywood accross the top. It still was not very safe, I was never allowed to cross by myself, nor did I want to. The current owners kept the bridge in it's original location and built a beautiful bridge in it's place. I recall in the winter my brother Kyle and I would play on the frozen river. There was one frightful day though that I won't ever forget, Kyle was walking accross the ice and fell in, we were able to get him out and he was safe, but I will never forget the fear and disbelief I felt.

Here is the new

backyard, isn't it stunning!

Then we went to my sisters wedding and Hugh the 3rd's wedding. Here is my sister and her new husband and then some cute pictures from Hugh's wedding.