Nine Mile Canyon

Between the craziness of moving for the third time in 2 years, buying a house, sending one kid off to college,  adjusting to life with just one kid at home, welcoming a new missionary home,  Glen adjusting to a new busy job yet again, finding all new doctors...again, etc.; we frankly haven't done too much in the way of getting to know our new hometown since we moved here. You could even go so far to say that we've been quite the homebodies over the last several months.     People would tell me about interesting things we should do only to act on them too late, if ever.   

  Finally, after one too many weekends in a row of doing house stuff yet again,  we spontaneously decided to forget our to-do lists and take a little road trip to Nine Mile Canyon.   It's about a three hour drive each way, so we  we packed up some snacks and brought along Denali (who unlike Rocky randomly really likes car rides) and made it into an all-day adventure!

The main attraction in Nine Mile Canyon is all the well-preserved petroglyphs along the way.   Petroglyphs are fascinating to me and I loved the idea of seeing a glimpse of some pre-historical messages from the past.  Apparently there are over 1000 petroglyphs throughout Nine Mile Canyon and it's often referred to as the World's Longest Outdoor Art Gallery.   Historians believe that these particular petroglyphs are about 800-1100 years old and  were made by the people in the Fremont tribes of Central Utah. 

 There is little cell coverage in the area, so my sister ( who had been there several times before)  gave us good directions and a head's up on the best ones to stop at.

Here were some of the highlights of our petroglyphing/roadtripping adventures:  

"The Great Hunt" is one of the most famous and well-preserved petroglyphs in Utah, if not the world.   I had definitely seen pictures of it in history books before and it was a cool thing to see in person. 

Most of the petroglyphs do not have names (as far as we know) and we just enjoyed looking at them and speculating as to what kind of message they may have trying to communicate.  Or maybe they were just doodling.  Who knows?! 

This section had some modern rock art mixed in with the ancient...

I'm not sure what this one was called either, but we had fun trying to guess what that creature? was in the bottom right corner...

We also very much enjoyed the scenery....

This one is called the Buffalo Panel.  

 The effort it must have taken to create this art seems like it would have been pretty immense.  Combine that with with the fact that these were created with prehistoric tools and it's pretty crazy when you notice all the details!

This owl panel was one of our favorites.  As any of you long-time readers knows, we love birds...and owls are one of our favorites!  

This was another favorite of ours!  It's called "Pregnant Buffalo" and if you look closely at the buffalo, you'll see a baby one inside!   It made us smile.  

Denali did great on our drive and we very much enjoyed getting out and exploring somewhere new.   Now we just need to do it more often.  :)  

Walking Through the Mud

Anyone who knows me well, knows that getting out on daily walks is a hugely important part of maintaining my mental health.  Besides the boost in endorphins I get from getting my blood moving, there's something about being out in the sunshine that seems to lighten the woes that weigh me down. When the weather is poor, walking on the treadmill is an option I'll reluctantly take so as not to miss out on moving my body, but I definitely prefer a  walk outside any day I can get it!  

Most days I walk with Glen around the neighborhood before he heads off to work, but on Saturdays we can often talk Ellie and/or Emma into joining us as well.   Our favorite Saturday walk is from our home to the Horsetail Falls Trailhead...about 4 miles total.  It's all uphill on the way there and all downhill {with a gorgeous view} on the way down.   It's perfect for getting our heart rates elevated and for feeling like we actually got in a good workout.   

Our Horsetail hike is way too taxing for our "old man" dog, Rocky, who spends 90% of the day lazing around the house and the other 10% of the day being annoyed at Denali, who likes to run circles around him.  Denali, though, is another story.  She's full of energy and has no trouble keeping up with us on our walks.  It's been fun to take along a dog who can actually keep up with us. 

A couple weeks ago, we decided to explore a new trail on the way down and we ended up in quite the patch of  thick mud along the trail.   We squelched our way through it, with Ellie only panicking slightly about how messy her cute white shoes were getting, but Denali had a hay-day.   She was happy as can be in mud up to her knees and one time even sat down in it to get something out of her fur.   

It wasn't long before we realized that a bath needed to happen ASAP upon arriving home.   

So...we picked her up at the front door and brought her straight to the tub, where the mud started flowing the second the water hit her fur.   

She definitely wasn't thrilled with the whole bath thing, but, unlike her big brother, she did not fight taking a bath either.   It made for a MUCH more pleasant experience than it ever was for bathing Rocky.   We laughed at how little she looked with her wet fur and honestly almost like a different dog.  I'm not sure we could have recognized her had she been in a line-up of other soaking wet doodles. 

She was very happy when bathtime was over and she enjoyed the extra snuggles as Ellie dried her off. 

Pretty soon she was chilling on the couch, fresh and fluffy as ever!   

We have become quite enamored with our Denali girl...mud and all! 💕

 

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
**************************************************
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 💗💕💖💗💓