leading up to christmas

As mentioned in my previous blogpost, this Christmas has felt a little more scattered than usual.  I felt more like I was in survival mode than even the usual chaos zone leading up to Christmas.   I'm still stress eating too much junk, having trouble sleeping, and still fighting off a variety of  bugs...including a cold sore that arrived just a few days before Christmas Day.   Having said that...we did accomplish some fun Christmasy things along the way.  Here's a  little glimpse at the last few days leading up to Christmas this year...

We had a little treat making party with Emma, Ellie, my sister, and Mom at my Mom's house...

Emma tempered the chocolate and Emma and Ellie made the truffles...

Heather made the caramels, Mom was the ingredient gatherer, and I was on fudge duty.  I do make a mean fudge, though this year's was a little more "decorative" than usual with my helpers adding sprinkles and marshmallows to the top.   If you like a creamy delicious fudge that's not as sickeningly sweet as most, then try my recipe.  I spent several years getting it "just right" and am quite proud of it, though I do tend to eat too much of it when it's around.  

As you know, I LOVE Christmas cards.  Love getting them, love sending them, love thinking about them.   I was a little less on-top of things this year than usual, but I am happy to say that they were all sent before Christmas at least. 

I do my Christmas card sending in phases every year.   Phase #1 is  the bulk of the cards, phase #2 are the people I need to doublecheck addresses on, phase #3 are the locals, and phase #4 are the people I need to spend a little more personal time on.    All in all, I sent about 230 this year, but likely will send a few fewer next year as there are quite a few people on my list I haven't heard from in several years.    

In case you didn't know or didn't remember, this past summer I went as the Trip Mom on an HXP (Humanitarian Experience) trip to Thailand with Ellie.   It was a life-changing experience for both of us and I feel so blessed to have been able to be a part of it.  This past week, one of my Thailand "kids"  had a mission farewell that I was thrilled to be able to attend (one of the perks of living in Utah now).   His decision to serve a mission was solidified while he was in Thailand and I felt like we had a small glimpse into him opening his heart to the idea while we were on the trip. 

Elder C is on his way to Florida now and we loved being able to hear him share his testimony with us...

As part of this mini-reunion for the farewell, we hosted a few people at our house for a couple nights.  Somehow the hair bleaching went down at our house when we were out of the house for all of 45 minutes.  😑

It was great to see them again and remember what a special time that was for us...

Last but not least, after spending 3 weeks in a row with Lucie, I was feeling very deprived in those couple weeks leading up to Christmas.  I missed my "Cici" (her self-picked nickname) snuggles, the storytimes, the silly singalongs, and just feeling like I was making a small difference again.   I clung to every picture Cami sent me and delighted anytime they had a chance to Facetime...especially when Lucie asked me to read her a book over the phone or to sing her a song.  I really do love being a Gigi and can't wait for a new little one to join the mix soon. 

Hope all you, dear readers, had wonderful holiday filled with many happy memories.   Stay tuned for a post on the actual Christmas holiday coming soon...

Hepworth Family Reunion June 2022

Every summer the descendants of my maternal Great-Grandparents {Clarence Joshua and Rose Ellen Hepworth} hold a family reunion.  Clarence and Rose had 10 children--including 2 sets of twins--one of which is my grandfather! Of those 10 kids, most of them also had large families as well, meaning that Clarence and Rose have A LOT of direct descendants.   I've never attempted to count them up myself, but I hear that it's over 1000 these days.  

To keep the family reunion running smoothly for so many years, they take turns rotating through the descendants of each one of the original children of Clarence and Rose to be the host family.  The host family chooses the location and date, and plans all the details.    This year it was the descendants of  Fay and Florize Hepworth {my grandparents} that were the host family, which meant that my Mom and a couple of her sisters were the ones that had the reins.

As you know, my Dad's health had been very poor leading up to his death on July 13th.   This reunion took place on June 18th, which meant that things were pretty dicey at my parents' home during that time.   I wouldn't really call myself much of an event planner by nature, but I do hate to see an event fall by the wayside due to unfortunate circumstances, so I decided to step in and help make things happen. 

I created flyers, helped plan the food, planned some activities, collected the RSVPs, and answered questions from people interested in coming.   It felt a little crazy in the moment with all the other things going on in my life at that time (namely...my Dad's worsening health, a bridal shower I hosted the day before, the houseful of guests that were at our house that weekend to visit my Dad for Father's Day, and scrambling to get Ellie and Adam out the door for their summer activities), but I thought it came off beautifully! 

Two of my  aunts, my sisters, and some cousins stepped in and helped the details come together.   Here are some of the activities we did: 

1. Family trivia game garnered from information my sister, AnnaLisa, found in family member's obituaries found online.
2. Family bingo game (trying to find family members that have certain characteristics)
3. Food was homemade cafe rio salads that we provided.  The rest of the food was potluck style.  
4. We collected advice from people, then combined all of the tidbits of advice and created a document, which we shared afterward.  
5. A couple of my cousins brought some physical activities for the kids

 Here is a glimpse of who was there and how it turned out....

The reunion was held at the church right behind my parents' house, so we brought my Dad down for a bit.

For as distracted as I was, I felt like it all came together well and I loved the opportunity to get to know so many "long lost" cousins, which I'd never met before.  I'm also grateful my Mom got to connect and spend time with so many relatives before Dad passed!   Family is awesome! 
 

Randomness from August

The problem with not blogging as regularly as I used to, is I get gummed up with lots of things I still want to blog about, but don't want to devote an entire post to.   I wonder if there will come a day when I give it up completely (or that I'll blog more regularly again), but for now, I see what a treasure this blog has been to my family and I am still drawn to keep it up at least on a minimal basis.   

So, I'm making this a random post with a little glimpse of August in the Goold house!  

Cami's mission started using Facebook to share the gospel and it's been fun to see her smiling face occasionally beaming out to us among the drivel that fills my normal Facebook feed!

My cute Ellie liked this sign at the grocery store! 

My dad had a stroke right after his birthday.  

The stroke was on the minor end of things as far as strokes go,  but he had to spend a few weeks in the hospital and rehab before he was allowed to come home, so it's been a tough time for him and my mom.   He's doing better than the doctors expected, but we were sad that it caused them to have to cancel their trip out to visit us in September.  I decided that was my cue to buy a ticket and go out to see them in a couple of weeks.   We are also heading there for Thanksgiving. 

When Emma packs food for a trip, she goes all out.  These are homemade Larabars she made.

We stopped by Busch Gardens on the way home from seeing the solar eclipse.  

We hadn't been in a couple of years and it was fun to have one last hurrah before school started again!

Me and my cute hunny! 

One day I noticed a little trail of blood all over the kitchen.  I totally got mad at the kids and demanded that they take care of whatever injury was leaving such a mess.   They all denied having any injuries, then randomly pointed out that my toe looked to be bleeding.  Oops!  I didn't feel a thing, but I had quite a little chunk of skin off the top of my baby toe and bled through several bandages (and made a much bigger mess before I finally got it under control)! 

A white dove hung out around our house for an entire day.  I had never seen one in the wild before and haven't seen one since, but I took it to be a good omen and a sign that we need to powerwash  our gutters. 

I found this cartoon when studying for my psychology class (that I'm teaching this year) and it totally struck my funny bone.  My dreams usually involve being unprepared for something and babies that I forget about.   

A random butterfly that we came across one day. 

And with that bit of randomness, I will declare myself officially caught up on blogging through August.   Now onto September!