Treasures from Idaho

Will and I have been going through some boxes of McAnulty family treasures from Idaho. There are many pictures, photo albums, documents such as his parents' wedding invitation, his birth announcement, and both of his parents high school graduation announcements. I love all the pictures of Will and his immediate family, from a baby picture of his mother to his parent's wedding pictures, and childhood pictures of Will and his sister growing up. There were even pictures of our own precious little boys that I hadn't seen before!

After several boxes of pictures and papers, it was very exciting to open a box of carefully wrapped glass items, where I unearthed some very special treasure. I love china teacups. Imagine how much fun it was to unwrap one cup and saucer after another, matching them up until I had 11 cup and saucer sets!

Will's sister Sue says their mother worked in the china department at the Bonn in her youth, where she bought some of them, and others were passed down from their grandmother.

Sue has special memories of these, saying, "If you were feeling low, a cup of tea was the trick. :-) I don't remember too many times drinking out of the finer ones tho!" As far as I'm concerned, they are all very fine ones! When Sue comes to visit she can take what she wants, but in the meantime I will display some of them and enjoy their beauty.

Another treasure was some beautiful crystal vases with dusty old silk/dried flower arrangements. Apparently they were from something special but Will didn't know what. So I thought his mother would like for me to use the vases, but I took a picture to preserve whatever memories these might have. I threw away the flowers, and awhile later when I washed the vases I noticed the little sticker on the bottom that said "D&L McAnulty wedding". I felt horrible when I realized I had discarded flowers from his parents' wedding. But then again, a few years ago in a coldly unsentimental cleaning frenzy, I discarded all the flowers I had saved from my own wedding. It just seemed pointless to have them stored away.

So I'm glad I took the pictures, and we will have happy thoughts of his parents when we see the vases.