Daddy's Tahiti trunk

All of us girls got together again last Saturday.  We decided we needed to step up the going through, cleaning out adventures as we were definitely running out of warm days and there was still some work to be done in the out buildings.

First we had to talk over some more serious matters though.  Brenda has been getting a lot of calls  from people wanting to look at the house.  She has been over several times to show it and there have been three people who have given us serious offers.  So now we needed to decided what to do.

One of the offers was from the son of one of mum and daddy's good friends the Flammers.  He has four little boys and wanted the big yard for them to play in.  He said he was fine with the condition of the house and wouldn't be tearing any of the buildings down.  He sounded like the perfect buyer...then he said he would have to sell his house first.   ( he also added all these stipulations to the written offer that were kind of dumb and wanted us to pay the closing costs...which brought the price way down.)\

We had another offer from a guy that lived in Providence who is a developer...he offered quite a bit less, but said he had cash.  He was kind of rude though sooooo, hes out.

The last guy had come over to look at the house with an older man and Brenda thought it was the older man who was wanting the house.  Come to find out, he was just a friend of this guy, who was going to help him with any renovations that needed to be done to the house. 

He made a good offer and what really made us all hope he could get the house was this letter he wrote along with his offer.  He said he just lives west of mum and has had his eye on the place for years.  He said with the help of his friend, they want to restore all the buildings to the best condition they can be.

Since the old house is on the historical registry, he wants to restore that too and have it be a show piece.

This friend of his has done this with several of old homes and historical buildings.  He said he loves to do landscaping and yard work and his wife loves flowers.  It really sounded like an answer to our prayers.

We had a few questions we wanted to ask him, so Brenda called him to see if he could come over and talk to us.  A little later, we were just coming out of the old house and there was this young guy...he looked like he was about 25?  walking up the driveway.  I went up and met him, and was very surprised to learn that he was the guy who wanted to buy the house!  He really seemed young!  But as I talked with him, I could see that he knew what he was doing and seemed like a real nice guy.

We asked him about moving the time back when we would have to be out of the house...there is still so much to do, and Faith and Aaron will be there till the middle of December.  He was fine with when ever we said...he said he does not have to sell his house right away and will just work on mums place as he lives in his house.  He has 3 little kids and was excited about the prospects of a fun yard for them to grow up in.

We told him we would talk some more about it and get back to him.

 So with that done, we went over to the old house to go through what was left over there.

There were some fun things...

A ton more old books.  Most of them were uncle Boot's.  Man I don't know how he ever read so many books! 

We found bags with the Easter baskets and some plastic eggs with all of our names and our kids names on them. That sure pulled at my heart....I have so many wonderful memories of Easter growing up and when our kids came along too.  Mum and daddy always made it special.  Hunting for Easter baskets was always so fun and kind of magical in that huge yard.  We would spend hours looking!

Daddy would give hints if we started getting discouraged.  There were so many places to hide a basket!  When it rained, he would find places that would keep it dry, or in one of the buildings. 

We went through all the shelves and cupboard in the tiny kitchen...there are a lot of old records and games and puzzles.

I even ventured down into the cellar.  Super creepy. They had a two year supply of toilet paper and a really old stove top and an invention of daddy's we couldn't quite figure out what it was for!

There was a bag of mum's old craft stuff...little pieces of felt, sequins, pompoms, glitter...took me back to the days when mum would do fun little crafts with us...we would rarely get bored or watch tv...she would have us doing mosaics or noodle art or paint by numbers or mod podge or gather flowers and leaves and dry or press them flat and make pictures with them.  Wow, how lucky we were to have such a great childhood.  I thank my Heavenly Father every day for the blessing of being born into such a wonderful family.

We saved daddy's trunks he brought home from Tahiti till the last because we wanted to savor every piece in them. We decided to take them over to the house cause it was really cold in the old house...even with the heaters on, you could see your breath.

We were pretty amazed at the stuff he had brought home from his mission.  So many really cool grass skirts decorated with beads and shells.  Lots of head dresses made of shells.  Really cool embroidery hand work...some with Daddy's name on it and some other tahitian words we were trying to figure out.

 This umbrella was about the coolest thing.  It was totally hand made and in perfect condition.    Lots of handmade bags and purses...

Really pretty necklaces, belts, bracelets...some cool carved wood little pots.

This turtle shell was really neat...I remember we used to have one he brought home that he had made into a light cover in the living room.

This dolly was my treasure.  There were lots of coins, bead necklaces and sea shells too...really pretty shells! These trunks had preserved all these things perfectly!

We were wishing daddy would have shown us these things and told us their story before he died.  He would let us get out the hula skirts and some fans and shells to take for school reports and other presentations, but most of this stuff, we had never seen before.

 I had told KC I wouldn't be late this time because Brenda and Leslie had a stake meeting they were going to that night.  We had good intentions, but didn't get on our way till about 7:00. 

Gosh I sure do love my sisters and find the hours we are together more precious each time we are together.  Soon we will be finished with this sweet task , the home will belong to someone else and this part of our lives will be memory. 

We won't have this place to come to to meet, laugh and talk and reminisce about our lives growing up there.   I think that is what makes me makes me most sad.  I know we have to let go and move on...I'm trying, but my aching heart is telling me it's going to take some time.