The Current Happenings

 So what's been happening lately?  

You know besides having a houseful of people for Thanksgiving...

having a miserable stomach bug on either side of  Thanksgiving  that raged through everyone but Ellie and Glen...

sending off a missionary in two weeks....

and you know the minor task of  getting ready for Christmas...

oh yeah...just an emergency appendectomy for Glen CAUSED by the colonoscopy he'd had the day before.    Apparently it's a very rare side effect, but one that his doctor acknowledged as the likely cause of his appendicitis.   So to sum up, that was him fasting/purging on Monday, his colonoscopy on Tuesday, sending Cami and crew back home and appendicitis symptoms on Wednesday, and emergency surgery on Thursday.  

In other words, he is exhausted and in pain, but thankfully recovering well.  

Now back to our regularly scheduled Christmas chaos and ugly festive sweaters.

My Baby is Leaving Soon!

 This blog has been around since Ellie was 2-years-old, which means that all of you, dear blog readers, have been able to see more glimpses of her growing up years than any of my other kids.  She is now about to head out on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I'm going through a bit of a mid-life crisis acknowledging that I'm sending my baby out into the world for the next 18-months!  Of course, I'm thrilled that she's made this decision to serve a mission, but I'm also just kind of sad realizing that this raising kids stage of my life  is pretty much over.   

Don't get me wrong, after nearly 30 years of hands-on parenting, I feel peaceful that this progression is the natural course of life and I'm proud of who my kids are and the paths that they are on, but I have to admit that I do miss the little people they once were.  Call me nostalgic, I guess.  So today, I'm just going to post pictures of Ellie, because I'm going to miss her in a couple weeks.

Here she is in the missionary photo shoot my sister, Heather, took of her:  

My niece, McKenzie, came along too and was a good photo stylist!  I was grateful for her and for Heather for taking the pictures and saving us a bundle of moola! 

The other day I sent her down to the storage room to find something and before long she was trying on my wedding dress!   I wasn't that much older than her when  I got married and it made me feel kind of old, to be totally honest.   I've got a family full of full-grown adults now!  

  Ellie hadn't had her hair cut in over a year and really wanted to get it freshened up before she left on her mission, so here are her BEFORE pics....

and her AFTER pics....

For the record, yes, it is normal for us G girls to go a year or more without getting our hair done. I am low-maintenance and I think all of my girls take after me in that department.  

Speaking of low-maintenance, Ellie has been doing lots of thrifting lately, to get her mission wardrobe in place.  I don't really love shopping, so I've been grateful for siblings that have been willing to thrift with her.  

I've enjoyed finding little fashion shoots like this on the camera roll!  :)

She's ALMOST done with her shopping now and she has begun the process of STARTING TO PACK, which is making it feel extra real that she's leaving soon. 

We stopped by to visit my Nana the other day, so Ellie could say goodbye before taking off on her mission.  It was a good day for Nana, who is suffering with late-onset dementia, and  we were thrilled that she remembered all of us and was excited to see us. 

Ellie ate up her time with Lucie and Oliver while they were here for Thanksgiving...

It was a sad goodbye for her when Cam and kids had to head home...

And pretty soon we'll have our own happy/sad goodbye, but here is a picture of her with a pear-shaped potato to make us smile in the meantime...

With that I'll just sign off with a reminder to myself that this right here is what I dreamed about 30 years ago.   I can do this! 

A Miserable Adventure!

 Once upon a time, Glen was out of town and Ellie decided to join me for my morning walk.  It was sprinkling very lightly with temperatures in the mid-40's when we left.  We had put on a couple of light underlayers with our rain jackets and winter hats and expected it to be like 99% of Utah rain"storms" and continue to sprinkle.   Alas,  that was not the case that fine morning...

When we were more than 2 miles from home, it suddenly started raining harder.  Then the wind started blowing.  Then the temperatures dropped.  Then it started snowing.  

It was kind of fun at first, but before we knew it, we were completely drenched to the bone and shivering. 

I don't say this lightly, but the last half of that walk was one of the more miserable walks I've been on in my life.   How miserable was it?     (This was the view as we rounded the last corner to home.  You can see by all the leaves in the road how much the wind had been blowing. )

So miserable that we were this close to hitting 5 miles by the end and didn't even consider for 2 seconds extending our walk to get in that last .08 to make it even!   That is an exceedingly unusual thing for me not to do when I'm that close.  Haha! 

It took a long, hot shower and a couple hours before I could fully feel my hands again!  

Note to self:  Next time it's sprinkling when leaving on a walk...check the weather app and make sure a storm isn't rolling in!  

A Gathering Place

One of the best parts about living in Utah is that it seems like we are living at a crossroads for lots of our friends and family.   People are always coming and going from here to attend weddings, drop kids off at college, and visit family.  Most of the time, people are busy when they come here and have a million other people to visit, but on those times when people do have time for a visit, we LOVE it!   We also love that we have the accommodations to host people  more comfortably now, so when they do visit, we can set them up well!  

Having said all that though....this post is not about any long-lost friends coming to visit...it's about living 5 minutes away from my Mom and the family we get to see more frequently as a result of that proximity!  

In early October,  Nate came to stay with Mom for a couple weeks while Heather was out of town.  Nate is only 13-months younger than me, so we have a lot of shared history in the family and it was fun to be able to spend some time with him.   He lives in Tennessee and we do not see him as often as we'd like and I loved the conversations we were able to have!   Note:  You can also see that my darn eye issue (still ongoing) was in full swing back then!

Then Kristina and family came to visit from California during that same time.  

We always love having K's family around and I extra loved that this trip Jesus seemed like he was craving some one-on-one time, so he'd stay here with us while everyone else left for Mom's house.  We read lots of books together and he doted on Denali as much as possible.  It was absolutely delightful and  it felt a little sad when they left for home. 

My niece, Madeline, had some friends over one night and, as per usual, lots and lots of Legos and cars were played with while the K boys were here! 

One night while everyone was still here, Emma, Adam, McKenzie (my niece who is a BYU freshman), and Eva (McKenzie's roommate and one of my Thailand peeps) came over for dinner and a rousing game of Super Edited Family Version of Cards Against Humanity.   I might need to do a whole post on that game sometime.  lol

It was quite fun and I think it's so fun that Eva and McKenzie are now friends!  Eva is from Kentucky and this was the first time Ellie and I had seen her since Thailand.  

So, in summary, and to remind myself about why living in Utah is good: 

1.  We live close to our college kids (and my college age nieces) and get to see them regularly
2.  We get to spend lots of  time with my Mom and sister 
3.  We get to enjoy the relatives who come to visit my Mom
4.  We get to (sometimes) see long-lost friends that make their way through here
5.   We have this view out our back window. 

My Social Life

On an introversion - extroversion scale, I find myself right in the middle leaning a little towards the introverted side.   I definitely like attending social events, as long as I don't have to plan them (and as long as they're not too big)!   The problem with not enjoying planning, though, is that it puts me at the mercy of my friends, who are also mostly introverted and don't love planning things.   And it doesn't help matters that I married someone with even lower social needs than my own, which means I often have inertia working against me as well.   In other words, I like being social and usually am quick to accept when invited to one, but most of the time my social life is a little less active than I'd prefer.   My ideal social life would involve a mix of small group social events with the occasional large one...all planned by other people, of course!  

Do I think you all really care that much about my social life?  Probably not.   But I do want to capture a few social events I've recently been a part of and make sure I don't forget them!  
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Postcrossing meet-up:  You all likely know that I am a complete postcard geek!  I love hunting for them,  collecting them,  and sending them.  I generally send 10-15 per week and that's when I'm at home.  When I'm traveling, it's even more.   Mostly I find that this hobby is viewed as a little "out-there" by most people, but I AM NOT ALONE!    Back in September, a bunch of us Utah based postcard aficionados met at a library in Salt Lake City and talked postcards for two hours!   It was fun to be surrounded others who share the same interest and I very much enjoyed the chance to just gather with some like-minded people.  

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Lunch with postcard friends:  In addition to the Postcrossing meet-up in September, I also recently had lunch with a couple other local postcard loving friends I've met through the community.   Kelly and Alison both live within about 20 minutes of me and are about as geeky as I am.  We even have an ongoing "ugly alphabet" postcard exchange between us, where we take turns sending ugly postcards to each other in alphabetical order.   I have no pictures from the actual lunch, but here's a shot of the most   recent postcard I sent out in our ugly alphabet exchange.  We are on our second round through and I got the letter D this time.  💩

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Virginia Gatherings:  There are times when I feel like I'll never really have good deep friends here in Utah like I did in Virginia, but I sure am grateful for my friends from Virginia.   We've had a few gatherings recently that have meant the world to me.  A few of us (Linda N., Heather P., Karen H) met for breakfast a few weeks ago.  I also loved that the Palmers recently moving here meant that some get-togethers happened amongst Vienna Warders that might not have happened otherwise.  We met at the park a couple times and just enjoyed catching up with old friends.   Since we had a pit-stop in Pennsylvania between Vienna and Utah, I think some people forgot that this is where we landed, so it's good to have some Virginia friends close-by to add a little pull!   I also met with a friend (Christina) recently who was here babysitting her grandkids.  I enjoyed catching up with her and getting to know the cuties that are the kids of one of Spence's best friends. 

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Book group:  It's been a while since I mentioned my book group, but this is my one exception I have about not planning things.  I LOVE my book group discussions and people so much, that it's worth it for me to overcome my dislike of planning social things, and just making it happen!  I wish I took more pictures of these awesome ladies, but book group is something that keeps me sane.  I host every month AND make the refreshments every month, since that's what made it more likely for people to come.  Tonight we will discuss,"The Last Days of Night" by Graham Moore and I am making Lona's famous popcorn from my PA book group.  I made it last time and generated some excitement with it, so I'm sticking with what works!   

Other upcoming reads include:
Jan:  "Becoming Beatrix:  The Life of Beatrix Potter and the World of Peter Rabbit " by Amy O'Quinn
Feb:  "The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry" by Rachel Joyce
Mar:  "The Personal Librarian" by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray
Apr:  "A Long Way from Chicago" by Richard Peck
May: "Madame Tussaud: A Novel of the French Revolution" by Michelle Moran

Have I mentioned how much book group means to me?   I love it.  

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I can't do a post about being social and not  mention the Relief Society activities, which I've been planning for the last 2-1/2 years, but rarely post about. They've been taking up a lot of my social bandwidth and I'm hoping to stretch myself more in my personal life now that I have a new calling.  We shall see! 
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So there you have it--proof that I have friends and I like being social.   😇

Give me a call next time you come to town!  

Fall Traditions: Hiking and Fishing

Fall is my favorite season.   There's just something about the mild weather and the vibrant colors that makes me incredibly happy.  I love Spring too, but sometimes it gets too wrapped up in the winter for my taste and, given the choice, I'd choose the fall anytime!  My idea of a perfect autumn day is a long hike on a lovely day, followed by some great food.  The other Saturday, Glen was busy, the weather was gorgeous, and I decided to pack a bag with food and water and just walk along the Murdock Trail without a distance in mind.   I made it 10 miles and loved every minute of it!   Then I went home, ate some good food, worked on the program, and I decided that it  was *almost* a perfect day.  The only thing that would have made it better is if Glen had been able to come along too.   :)

So, that's MY idea of a perfect autumn day, and now here's a glimpse of what Glen's ideal day would be.    For the past six autumns, Glen has taken a Saturday away from home and rented a boat to embark on a day long fishing excursion on Strawberry Reservoir.   No, your math isn't off...this tradition actually began before we even lived in Utah, but was embraced with even more enthusiasm once we did!    Usually Adam and/or Spence join the adventure, along with his brother, Alex, and a couple of his boys, but this year, after several turned down invitations, it ended up only being Glen and Adam.    One of the downfalls of only having the two of them there, meant that it was sometimes difficult to manage the boat and fishing at the same, but together they still managed   to catch about 20 fish.   It was a beautiful day and they both came home feeling like it had been a successful day on the water. 

They brought home a few fish to eat and later that evening, Glen cleaned them up before storing them until we were ready to cook them.    As you probably know, cleaning a fish is not a pretty sight.  It involves chopping off the head and tail, splitting the fish in half, and cleaning out the guts.   I don't even like watching, but my little 6-year-old nephew, Jesus, was FASCINATED.  At first, I tried to keep him away, so as not to disturb him, but after a while I realized that he was very much viewing the whole process like a little scientist and I opted to just let him observe and ask all the questions he wanted.  It was very cute to see how inquisitive (and very much not disturbed) he was. 

In a few more years, Glen may even have a new fishing buddy to join him on his autumn excursions! 
 
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Ellie the Nanny

We have entered the stage of life when our home seems to be an ever evolving door of kids coming and going. It's a good thing, but sometimes it's challenging  transitioning back to an empty house after the goings have happened.    Shortly after our family reunion in Idaho and us getting back from our semi-spontaneous trek to California, we sent Ellie along with Cam and kids back to Alabama, so that Ellie could help watch the kids while Cami transitioned to a new work schedule.  With Emma and Adam back to school, our house seemed VERY empty after everyone left! 

Despite feeling a little lonely, though, I was happy that Ellie got that time with the B family before heading out on her mission and also happy that Cami got a sweet built-in babysitter who loves her kids fiercely! 

It seemed that Ellie very much enjoyed her month in Alabama and I enjoyed hearing about their escapades together.

Her and Lucie became quite attached to each other and Lucie still requests that Ellie be added to drawings of her family.  

And there's nothing quite like Oliver snuggles.  He's about as sweet as sweet comes  and looking at these pictures makes me miss them tremendously.  

I'm glad they had the time together, but I'm a bit jealous about having to watch the fun from afar.   Ellie is home now, Cami back to arranging childcare on her own again,   and I am shopping for airplane tickets.  💗