She's Home!!!!

 On January 11th our sweet sister missionary returned home after 545 days (18-months) of serving the Lord in the Salt Lake City-West mission. 

Here's my Facebook post from that day:  "WELCOME HOME, EMMA!!! In the past month, we’ve welcomed our first grandbaby, visited the grandbaby twice, adopted a new puppy, celebrated Christmas, gave talks in church, hosted my sister and her family for a week, got COVID, quarantined for 10 days, marked the 10th anniversary of Spencer’s cancer diagnosis, and today welcomed home our missionary after 18-months of serving the Lord! Now time to take a deep breath and enjoy our sweet girl being back in the nest again for a while! So proud of you, Hermana Goold!" 

She was originally called to serve as a Spanish speaking missionary in the Toronto Canada mission, but was reassigned to serve in Salt Lake City-West while she was still in the Home MTC.  We thought for sure that she'd eventually make it to Canada, but, alas, the Canadian borders didn't open up until just after she'd been permanently reassigned to stay in SLCW just after she passed her year mark.   She was a little nervous when we told her we'd be moving to Utah while she was still serving, but we promised her up and down that we would never try to see her and we kept that promise.   We did hand-deliver  a couple packages to the mission office, rather than sending them through the mail, but we made sure we delivered them when we knew she wouldn't be around!  

It was crazy that we just got to drive less than 30 minutes to her mission president's home to pick her up...no airports or public transportation needed!  We LOVE having her home and love that Ellie doesn't have to be the lonely only for a few months!   Between the arrival of Denali onto the scene...

 and Emma's return home...the volume level of our home has increased significantly over the last few weeks! 

 (see video for  Exhibit A)

We appreciate the example she set by consecrating a year and a half of her life to bringing people closer to Christ and we love having her home now. We love you, Emma!  

How We Got Denali

So, we did a crazy thing.   

Back in October my good friend, Natalie, posted that her poodle mama had just had a litter of 11 goldendoodle puppies.   Now anyone who knows our family well, knows that I have a 16-year-old daughter who is OBSESSED with dogs, so it was with great excitement that she planned a trip to visit the newborn puppy nursery!   

We arrived for our visit when they were a mere 2 days old and they were sooooo tiny!  Their eyes weren't opened yet, they didn't walk, and they mostly just slept and nuzzled around looking for more food from their mama.  

It was a pretty special experience to be in the presence of such young and fresh life...

and, Ellie, in particular, was pretty smitten from that first visit.

It didn't take long before there was a full-court press to adopt one.  We kept going back for visits and Ellie narrowed it down pretty quickly to the purple, the pink, or the black collared one.

Natalie's family went to great lengths to care for all the pups for the several weeks they were in their care.  The pups were weighed multiple times a day, were well-socialized, were exposed to a variety of noises, and her family performed  early neurological stimulation exercises with them daily.   Ultimately, we decided that there was never going to be a better opportunity to adopt well-adjusted, healthy puppies and we decided to go for it. 

Natalie was gracious enough to let us keep visiting and it wasn't too long before we settled on this sweet pup...

   

After some family discussions, we called her Denali and prepared for her to come home with us just before Christmas.

In the meantime, we brought her home for a couple of home visits.  Rocky was very tentative about meeting his new baby sister....

We introduced her to the far away family members over Facetime...

And mostly just loved on her as much as possible...

Here are her parents....

Champ is a 15 lb. goldendoodle.

Mia is a 40 lb. purebred poodle.

They expect the pups will grow to be somewhere between their two sizes. 

On December 22, we finally brought Denali home with us!   As excited as we were for her to finally be an official member of the family, the first couple of weeks were honestly pretty rough.  We had houseguests that meant that our house was chaotic and out of routine.  Then we all got COVID and her energy proved to be extra challenging to keep up with.  The whining all night while we crate trained her was the hardest part of all.   I actually blame being sleep deprived from her whining as one of the contributing factors to us getting COVID in the first place...but things got better eventually.  

Fast forward a month and we've finally gotten to a better place with her presence.  She now sleeps all night in her crate without whining, she is on a good path to being house-trained, and she only annoys Rocky some of the time. 

She is still full of energy and loves to chew everything in sight, but it seems that she is a *little* more chill than some of her litter siblings.  We love the fact that she often sleeps on her back...something Rocky would never do in a million years.  

Having a puppy is a lot of work, but, for the most part, we are having fun with Denali!  She is cuddly, energetic, and loves belly rubs.  

Need some puppy therapy?   Give me a ring! 

 

Sick Brain

 LETTER WRITTEN TO OUR MISSIONARY 1/2/22
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Hola Hermana!

Only one week and one day until you come home! Hopefully you'll feel better and we'll all feel better by then. Dad, Ellie, Kristina, and I have all developed fevers and feel pretty much like garbage. Dad got it first, so we did have Dad tested for COVID, but we haven't heard yet. If Dad tests positive, then I'll probably get us all in to get tested, just to make sure. It would be super random if we all got COVID the same week and we aren't even together. I hope you're feeling totally better now and that quarantine hasn't been too bad!   😷

NEWS FLASH:  A puppy in the best of  circumstances is stressful, but a new puppy with 7 extra people in the house and most of us feeling like crap is totally knocking our socks off.   She is terrible at sleeping at night, not very good at housetraining, and super energetic...not good combinations when you have a houseful of sickies that need lots of sleep and don't have the energy to keep an eye on a hyperactive puppy 24/7.  Hopefully we'll get this puppy training thing figured out soon. 🐶

Speaking of the extra people in the house, I am totally exhausted.  The K boys are sweethearts, but they  also make ginormous messes. Their flight home today ended up getting canceled, so they rented a car and drove home this afternoon instead.  Of course, with the aforementioned new puppy, the holidays, and the extra guests,  the house is a total wreck and my energy level is almost zero, so here's hoping we'll actually get it cleaned up before you get home. 😫

  

I don't have anything significant to say and my brain isn't really working very well right now, so I'll finish up with a few of my favorite pictures of Lucie from this week.  

And here's a random meme that struck me as particularly funny this week.   Like laugh out loud funny...yeah I  know I'm weird. 

And to finish off this bit of randomness that is my feverish brain...here is a hair-do I attempted on Ellie this week. 

We love you and can't wait to see you next week!   Hope you're feeling better!  😘💕

Love, 

Mom 💗💕💖💗💓

Christmas Card 2021

With it being yet another year with a missionary out serving, we decided to to try an artistic rendition of our family this year for our Christmas cards, instead of a collage.   (2016, 2017, and 2020 were also missionary years)

We found an artist on Etsy who did the family picture and the frame.  I designed the card and had it printed at Smartpress.   I am kind of obsessed with the way it turned out...

We also enclosed this birth announcement for Lucie, which I designed myself, got printed at Walmart in Austin, then enclosed them with the cards and sent them from Austin...

This was our newsletter, which I had great fun designing ...

I may be a little obsessed.   Hope you had a lovely Christmas! 

Gigi Life (letter written to our missionary)

LETTER WRITTEN TO OUR MISSIONARY    12/19/21

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HOLA and FELIZ NAVIDAD, HERMANA!!!
I am writing this email from balmy Austin, Texas. It's only in the 50's here, but compared to Utah lately, it feels balmy! I'm here with Dad, Adam, and Ellie and we are just here for a super quick trip. Spence wanted to come too, but ticket prices jumped quickly after we made our plans, so it didn't work for him to come on this trip. He is hoping to join you on a visit sometime in January. :)

This was the original trip we planned for everyone to come meet Lucie briefly before Christmas (since it's not our turn to spend Christmas with C&G). I am very much enjoying my Gigi time!

It's been knocking my socks off to travel TWICE at Christmastime, but not actually FOR Christmas. I got our Christmas cards sent off (because that's one of my favorite parts of the season), but that's pretty much the only thing I feel pretty confident about and otherwise I feel pretty scattered. I'm hoping that I don't forget anything significant and that I'll start to feel a little more put back together by the time you get home. Hopefully. 😐

Speaking of Christmas cards....aren't ours AWESOME this year!? I'm quite enamored with how it all turned out and they're going to be extra hard to create next year, because this year's turned out so well. Can you spot ours in the mix?

So, I don't think this was the original plan, but Cami and Garrett ended up blessing Lucie today. I think they decided to do it because we were in town and because it wasn't too hard for Amy and Travis to come up spontaneously. They just did the blessing low-key at Patrick and Aleisha's house (Garrett's aunt and uncle). We were so happy to be here for it. Lucie wore the same dress that Cami wore for her blessing day.






Of course, Lucie May's blessing was the highlight of the week, but here's another glimpse at our happenings over the last week:

Monday--was pretty boring and normal. I ended up running a lot of errands and trying to recuperate from traveling the week before!

Tuesday--I have no idea what specifically I did that day, but I know I stayed busy. I did go to a RS dinner at the church that night in our new ward. I know it doesn't sound that exciting, but it was the first RS activity I'd been to in over two years and I was absolutely thrilled to be in a ward that actually has them. It was so nice to just have the opportunity to chat and be social! Yay for being in another new ward! It snowed a thick heavy wet snow overnight.

Wednesday--Dad had a big presentation at work and Adam finished his first semester finals! They were both happy to be done afterward! Adam also saw the new Spiderman movie a day early and got us all excited to watch it too. We also shoveled A LOT! It was only about 4-inches, but that snow was heavy and wet!





Thursday--I hosted a 'goodie exchange' at our house! It was the first official meeting for book group and I think it went super well. I think it's going to be a great group and I'm looking forward to it. Here are the goodies we got....



And here's a closer look at my Rocky Road fudge, which I think I *finally* got to a good texture and sweetness level...YUM!


Friday--Dad fixed the chicken coop (that partially collapsed with all the heavy snow), we packed our bags, and left for Austin

Saturday--it was our 28th wedding anniversary and we spent a rainy day in Austin, baking with Cami and snuggling with Lucie as much as possible.

Sunday (today)--we watched church with Cami and Garrett from home and headed to Patrick and Aleisha's for the blessing. This was the goody plate we brought! Rocky Road fudge by me, dipped Oreos by Ellie, gingersnaps by Cami, and peppermint frosted brownie cookies by Cami. There was a gluten free version of everything for me. YAY!!!!

And just because, she's so darn adorable....here's some good Lucie spam for you




Kristina made this ornament for Lucie....


Fresh out of the bath....


More adorableness....


Blessing day....









And in other adorableness....Denali will be a permanent resident in our home as of Wednesday!



I can't wait for you to meet her too!

Well, I hope you've had an awesome week! I love and miss you like crazy!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!
Love,
Mom