Life Update (April 2022)

For years this blog was my place to post cute pictures and tell the world about the adorable or obnoxious things my kids were up to.  Now my baby is 17-years-old (as of a couple months ago) and kiddie antics have been replaced by teen angst and our mid-life woes. In other words, nothing very exciting, unless you're a therapist trolling for clients. 😂  That's okay though. As I mentioned in my last post though....my family loves this blog.   So here I am again, posting an old-fashioned and super boring life update that absolutely no one (including my own mother) will care one iota about.    

Glen--  Glen has recently passed the year mark of working at HS1 and, happily, he still enjoys his job.  It's one of the better functioning companies he's ever worked for and that makes the stress seem that much more manageable.   His mom has been in failing health recently, so we took a quick trip to Denver for Spring Break to visit and to lend a little help.      It's hard watching our parents get older! 

   

Lara--  Speaking of aging parents, mine have both had falls in the last month or two.  My mom tripped over an uneven part of the sidewalk and broke her pelvis.  My Dad got displaced from his recliner and walker by Mom's acute injury and, being out of place and off-balance, he fell and hit his head on the coffee table. Several staples later and both of my parents are quite hobbled currently.  On another note,  I am still very much in the throes of a mid-life identity crisis, where I've been for the last few years.  I feel like, at my age,  I *should* be working or doing something more productive in the world, but I also really feel like I need to be home for Ellie right now.   Now that she's in school part-time, I really need a creative hobby or a work-at-home job, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what that looks like. I keep hoping I'll find the "next thing" and get excited about it, but right now that passion seems elusive to me.  I really like to do things with design, but then I remember that I'm self-taught and really not that great at it, so I can't imagine anyone wanting to pay me for what's only been a church based hobby up to this point.    And no one here knows that I like to do it anyway, so I'd have to toot my own horn... something I'm not great at either.  I keep thinking I have a better chance at succeeding at writing for a job, but writing requires concentration and time, both of which are in short supply with Ellie's back and forth schedule at school this year.  Not to mention, I have no idea what to write about.   So there you have it...I'm aimless and lost...and stressed about getting older.   Feel free to inspire me! 

Spence-- Spence is working a job that pays his bills, but that's about it.  I think he wishes for something  with more growth potential, but he is still working on figuring out what that looks like and he has some exciting ideas up his sleeve.  His dog, Kiwi, is a year old now and she is very much attached to Spence.  She's mellowed out a bit, but she's still quite a handful and the house gets quite loud when they visit.  We love living close enough to him to see him regularly.   

Cami, Garrett, Lucie--  Garrett graduated from medical school a few weeks ago and he was matched with an internal medicine residency program at the University of Alabama--Birmingham.  We were disappointed that it wasn't in Utah, but we're happy that they'll be somewhere affordable and close to family (Garrett's brother and his wife and daughter are at the dental school there at UAB as well).    Cami  still has a semester of nursing school left after this one {yes, she's had a long circuitous path in her education!}.  Blah!  I'm trying hard not to be anxious for them living separately for 10 weeks while she finishes up.  I wish I could just swoop in and make it all easier for them, but, alas, I never have mastered the Easy button in life...plus I still have a kid at home that needs me here.    

Emma--What can I say?   It's been so much more lively and fun around our house since she returned home  from her mission.   Ellie is in heaven to have a sibling home again and I love how the house is filled with loud singing, much giggling, movie nights, and better food!  She's been working part-time and recently finished a phlebotomy certification training, so now she's looking for a job to put that to use.  She plans on taking a class or two at BYU this summer before she starts full-time in the fall.  . 

Adam--Adam finished up his freshman year at BYU, got hired as an FSY counselor for the summer, and received his mission call to Portland, Oregon.   He made some great friends at BYU and is super excited  about the other adventures he has coming up.  He is in the middle of FSY counselor training right now (June 2022)  and is loving it.  He may have been a tiny bit disappointed that his mission call wasn't to a foreign country, but that disappointment was fleeting and he is very excited about serving in Portland starting in August. 

Ellie--Ellie finished her junior year up at a local private school.  I wasn't sure about sending her to school after so many years of homeschooling, but it seems that it's  been a good fit for her and I'm frankly not sure I could have handled another lonely year like we'd had in Pennsylvania.  Finding  homeschool connections is NOT easy and I didn't have it in me to put the effort in to start from scratch yet again.  She went to prom with a friend and  Ellie is looking forward to an exciting summer ahead with a week at FSY and two weeks in Malawi for an HXP trip.

In other happenings-- My sister, Kristina, and I  flew out to Birmingham to househunt with Cami.   We were hoping to find a house that would be our first foray into owning an investment property that Cami and Garrett would rent, but, alas, while  the market is much more affordable there, it is still insane.  We did enjoy spending the time together exploring their new city. 

A couple weeks later, Cami and Garrett surprised us with a visit to Utah.  They had come for Garrett's sister's graduation from BYU, but we were happy to be close enough to enjoy the visit as well.  We were excited to introduce Lucie to my parents and grandmother, meaning we had five generations gathered together in the same place!  

We love our little Lucie! 

We Love Lucie!

I started this blog back in 2007, which means I've been keeping this up for  FIFTEEN YEARS now!   Wow, that seems like a long time.  I haven't been that great at it over the last few years, but, whenever I think about giving it up altogether, I remember what a treasure this photo-journal has been for our family.  My kids will still go back and look up stories they kind of remember, so they can refresh their memories.   I will use it when I write talks and sometimes I just like to reminisce back on simpler times when the kids were young.   Now 4 of the 5 kids are high school graduates and off having their own adventures, which weirdly don't usually include me. 😂😂 With a much emptier house and kids that do way less cute things I want to document, sometimes I don't feel like I have that much to write about.  Then I remember something....  

Now I am a grandma!   

Sweet Lucie is 3-1/2 months old now and I've decided that this blog needs waaaaaaaaaaay more pictures of her, so this post is an effort to get that started! 

Lucie still lives in Austin, so we don't get to see as much of her as we'd prefer, but Cami is good at sending pictures our way.  This post is a mix of shots that I've saved from our family group text and ones I took when I visited in person last month.   

She is getting so smiley and interactive now. 😍

 Most of Cami's pictures are taken in the "live" mode, so sometimes I'll watch them again and again and again to watch her in action and feel more connected to her. 

I visited Austin in mid-February to help them with childcare while they finish school.

I really, really enjoyed the opportunity to spend some one-on-one time with Lucie...

And I had fun pulling out old outfits my kids had worn when they were babies and trying them on Lucie. I don't know where any pictures of my kids wearing these plaid overalls are, but I have very sweet memories in my head of them wearing them! 

This picture of Cami (on the left) was in her baby book, so that was an easy find.  

We did lots of snuggling...

...as much snuggling as possible! 

And we played lots too, so I could eat up that sweet smile...

This girl is so loved...

And I can't wait for my next visit....

In the spirit of this being a photo-journal of our lives, here are a few tidbits about Lucie, so we don't forget: 

1.  She is a good eater and is quickly growing chunkier by the day
2. Her body doesn't seem to like it when Cami eats dairy products, so she's cut them out of her diet completely while she's breastfeeding
3. Cami and Garrett are back to school this semester.  This is Garrett's final semester of med school, so his schedule is very light.  Cami has one more semester after this, so she's been very busy. 
4. She is a great sleeper--waking up just a couple times a night to eat, then going back to sleep.  I hardly ever noticed her in the middle of the night, even when sleeping in the next room.
5. She is just barely beginning to figure out how to use her hands.  She swats at things and loves to suck on her fist.
6.  She doesn't love her tummy-time. 
7. She LOVES being outside.   It's an instant soother for her when she's fussy. 
8.  She also loves being naked, which is a little funny considering this little blurb Cami wrote (at the end of the blogpost) when she was young.  
9. She is starting to grow attached to her special blanky and will hold onto it when she's stressed or upset. 
10. She's got a pretty easy-going personality.  Basically, if she's crying, then she needs something.  



Stay tuned for more Lucie updates in the future!  

 

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!