Pre-Independence Week

This little life update is taken straight from a letter we wrote to our missionary.  It's a nice way to accomplish two things at once!  

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July 3, 2023

Hola to our favorite missionary! 
How's life in the Farming-hood?   Tell us all about your new companion, your new mission president, and whatever else is new!  What is your schedule like today given the fact that your p-day is also a national holiday.  I imagine that you'll be in your apartment for the night long before the fireworks begin??  

Oh yeah, speaking of the national holiday upon us....

Our Independence Day will consist of wearing goofy red, white, and blue outfits,  a Ward Breakfast in the church parking lot, then a hike to Primrose Point.  After that I'm making the very iconic "Sausage Salad" for dinner {which I've never made before}.  It will be totally delicious, but whatever you do don't ask Ellie about it, because she has decided it's terrible already.  😏 

We'll probably, maybe try to see some fireworks too.  We shall see. 

Speaking of Ellie, she's dog-sitting this week and taking care of Denali on steroids pretty much.     His name is Sarge and he's as sweet-natured as they come, but he clearly likes food and doesn't exercise much.  Denali and him get along just fine.  We are not introducing him to Kiwi. 

 

 I think Ellie likes this job. 

 

Ellie has also been painting a ton lately.  She has stations like this set up all over the upstairs currently. 

Emma met us for a session at the temple on Friday....I look forward to when you can join us too.  :)

On Saturday Emma did the Muddy Dash {the name says it all}, then went camping.  Apparently she took no pictures camping, because my camera roll doesn't have any sadly.   Here's one of her covered in mud though. 

We started our  red, white, and blue clothing adventure on Sunday and looked pretty snazzy if I do say so myself!

Sunday afternoon we went for a drive on the Energy Loop (I think that's what it's called).  I think Ellie kind of liked it when Denali started chilling on her head.

We saw lots of beautiful vistas and wildflowers, but honestly I had a hard time sitting still for the drive.  I was happy to see the beauty, but was also happy when the drive was over!

I mentioned in my email last week (I think) that Dad got a rock polisher for his birthday.  It takes 5 rounds (that each last about a week) before they're done, but he was very excited about how they looked after Round #1.  I find it very cute how excited he is about it. 

I am taking advantage of the non-wintry weather {acknowledging that it's a short season here in Utah} and getting out to hike as much as possible.  I'm shooting for 4-6 miles per day {except Sundays} and mostly getting it.  I'll have to replace my shoes shortly, because I'm wearing them out fast!  

I've also been cooking up a storm.  I found a bunch of new recipes and have really enjoyed making and trying them out.  Ellie may be getting a little tired of them though {especially since I picked a bunch of peppery recipes}, but I'm having fun and I think everyone else is enjoying them!   This was a Greek filling I made to go in wraps.  They were quite delicious!

I don't have any pics of Spence {surprise, surprise!}, but Spence seems to be enjoying his new job and is still very into going to the gym every day.  He keeps asking about nutritionally dense food choices, started  listening to podcasts, and seems genuinely interested in improving his health.   You will not be surprised to hear that I approve of these developments.  

This probably is more of a surprise, but I sadly have zero pics of Lucie to share with you.   Cami worked a bunch of overtime this week.    She was also working extra while I was in Alabama and when Lucie was here, so I sense that she is quite exhausted now.  I'm hopeful she's now on a path to work more normal hours for the foreseeable future. 

So there you have it....our very non-exciting lives, which, if I'm being totally honest, is probably more the way we want things to be.  Exciting is definitely overrated most of the time...

ON a completely different note, here's a quote I came across when studying CFM recently: 

"The comforting Spirit of the Holy Ghost can abide with us twenty-four hours a day: when we work, when we play, when we rest. Its strengthening influence can be with us year in and year out. That sustaining influence can be with us in joy and sorrow, when we rejoice as well as when we grieve.

I believe the Spirit of the Holy Ghost is the greatest guarantor of inward peace in our unstable world. It can be more mind-expanding and can make us have a better sense of well-being than any chemical or other earthly substance. It will calm nerves; it will breathe peace to our souls. This Comforter can be with us as we seek to improve. It can function as a source of revelation to warn us of impending danger and also help keep us from making mistakes. It can enhance our natural senses so that we can see more clearly, hear more keenly, and remember what we should remember. It is a way of maximizing our happiness."  James E Faust, "The Gift of the Holy Ghost--A Sure Compass," April 1989

I like that and needed the reminder about how essential the Holy Ghost is to our internal peace.  

I hope you've had a marvelous first few days with your companion and with your mission president.  I look forward to hearing all about it tomorrow. 

We love you!!!!
Love, 

Mom 💗💗💗
 

A Good Friend and a Birthday

I'm going to start off this post about Glen's birthday with a little side story about our friend, Connor.    He may only be 13, but, I tell you, everyone needs a friend like Connor in their life!   He was one of our Sunday School kids, then became our Trek son {at his request}, and now is one of my greatest artists for creating artwork for the cover of the program. 

He and Glen connected over fishing and hockey while he was in our Sunday School class and they still chat about such things whenever they get the chance.   So we weren't too surprised when Connor rushed to greet Glen at church a couple Sundays ago, but we were a little more surprised that he knew it was Glen's birthday.  What better way to start your birthday in public than with a warm HAPPY BIRTHDAY from a good friend?!  

Then, after church, he brought Glen a cake that HE'D MADE HIMSELF!!!!   Isn't that the sweetest thing ever?!   After blowing out the candles and having a piece, they chatted about the best roller coasters and ended up watching roller coaster videos.   It literally made Glen's day. 

Though I think Glen would have been totally happy with his birthday at that point, we did make him a nice crepe dinner (a family tradition).    Emma and Ellie did the crepe, bacon, and egg cooking...

And I made him a carrot cake.  Yes, he got to have two cakes in one day...isn't that what birthdays are for? 

We finished up with him opening up the present he really wanted... a rock tumbler. He was so excited about it that he spent the next hour getting his first batch of rocks up and running, even though that meant arriving to SG around midnight.   

It was a low-key birthday--just the way we like them at our house.  

Happy {belated} Birthday to Glen! We love you! 

A Saturday in the Life

     Between my trip to Virginia, my trip to Alabama, then Glen working in Saint George, we've had a crazy few weeks where Glen and I have hardly seen each other.   This past Saturday, our house guests were heading home, Glen was back home, Ellie was still at YW camp, and we had this wide open Saturday right before Glen's birthday to spend together.   So what did we do? 

After waking up at 5:00am to drive Kristina and kids to the airport, we decided to go on a hike together.   And not just any hike...we wanted a long hike! 

So a long hike we did....

We were informed that embarking on that kind of hike after that crazy of week might be a little weird, but, hey, we enjoyed it, so I guess we're embracing the weirdness!    Kristina's family was flying out of the Provo Airport, so we took advantage of being in Provo and decided to hike from Utah Lake to Provo Canyon.    Don't mind how exhausted I look!   It really had been a long, somewhat chaotic week with 5 kids in the house (including Lucie who was waking up at 5:30am every day). 

The hike, though scenic in sections....

  ended up being a lot more of a roundabout adventure than we'd hoped, because there were sections of the trail closed for construction...

And other sections closed for high water...

Other sections were very very close to being underwater, but sandbags and walls kept the water mostly on the right side.

All in all, it's not a hike I'd do again anytime soon, but it was exactly the kind of time together we were craving.    Then we went out for brunch at TruReligion Pancake and Steak House in Orem. The huevos rancheros I got was out of this world good (and naturally gluten free) and Glen's biscuit was a sight to behold (and rather tasty I'm told).      I highly recommend a stop here if you're ever in town. 

Then we finished off our grand adventure at Walmart to {finally} buy some seedlings and dirt for the garden!  

A long hike, good food, and a step toward productivity....sounds like a perfect Saturday to me!

Lucie Overload!

Hello friends!   Thanks for visiting my blog today.    Can you believe I've been keeping this up {with varying degrees of devotion} for 16 years now?  I blog for all sorts of reasons, but mostly I blog to capture the memories into one place...my online journal of sorts...and I love that my family uses this blog as a resource to look up old stories or to find that one picture.  I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the  Facebook and Instagram, so lately I've been trying to keep those at arm's length and embrace the details that are better captured in blog format anyway.   Plus I also really like not worrying about how many likes or comments I happen to get.   I figure if someone's reading my blog, that means they chose to read it and not just because it popped up in their social media algorithm that day.   So, thanks for being here!  I'm glad you care enough to read.  Send me a text sometime.  Or call me next time you come to town.  

Now onto the purpose of this blogpost...to inundate all of you,  my dear blog readers, with pictures of the sweetest little 18-month-old in the entire universe!  💗

  I just spent the last two-and-half  weeks hanging out with Lucie May--first in Alabama and then here at home in Utah--and I am more enamored than ever with grandparenthood!  Seriously, I loved {mostly} being a Mom, but being a Gigi is the best of all worlds.  I get to snuggle with, play with, read to, and just enjoy being with Lucie without the hard parts of parenting.   I read a quote that said that "Grandchildren are God's way of compensating us for getting old," and it made me laugh and rang true.  😂  There's a lot not to like about having an aging body, but if getting old is what it takes to get to the grandbabies, I'll take it!  

So, let's get started on this Lucie overload.   As mentioned in a previous post, 24-hours after returning from spending 3 days at Trek, Ellie and I caught a plane to Alabama.  Cami was working some crazy hours and her sister-in-law was leaving town, so we came to help out with childcare for a bit.  It was the longest I've ever spent with Lucie all at once, so I feel like I got to know her personality more...and a delightful one it is!  

To keep this from being a 15-page blogpost (I print up my posts into books every so often) and to share as many pics as possible, I  decided to create a whole bunch of collages.  I'll write up a little blurb about each collage...

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 ALABAMA:   Cami and Garrett were both working long hours, so Ellie and I just hung out with Lucie, ran some errands, and made some meals.  We didn't do any sightseeing (not that Birmingham has that many fun places to sightsee anyway 😂).  In this collage you can see Lucie helping Cami bake something yummy {and try out some plain butter}, play at a great park in downtown B-ham, go on some walks (one of her favorite things to do), snuggle with Ellie, and just be her cute expressive self.

ALABAMA:   More walks, learning how to blow bubbles, a trip to the Birmingham Zoo {where she determined that elephants are stinky}, snuggling with her Dada, and reading books with Gigi! 

ALABAMA:  More walks, more helping Cami bake, and just chilling outside.  

AIRPLANE:   After about a week-and-a-few-days in Alabama, Ellie and I had to leave, so Ellie could get back for YW Camp.    Our flight was delayed, so we spent an extra night in Alabama, then woke up in the wee hours of the morning {we left the house at 4:00am} and took Lucie with us back to Utah.   She was clearly very tired, but she was quite the trouper and I was impressed at how well she held up with the long day of flying on such little sleep.  

UTAH/WALKS:  Being on Alabama time, meant she was waking up at 5:30am on the dot each morning.  My sister was also visiting with her 4 kids {who were on California time}, so I took her on  early morning walks most days to get her out of the house until a better time for K's kids to wake up.   She's not a super fan of being in the stroller these days, so Lucie logged a lot of her own steps  on our walks and kept our walks very much toddler-paced.  We looked at a lot of rocks, smelled (and picked 😬) a lot of flowers, and labeled every familiar sight she saw along the way.    We did get her out on a couple adult-paced stroller walks as well, but not as many as usual for sure!   

UTAH/PETS:   For months now, whenever Lucie and Cami Facetime, she asks to see the dogs, so it was with extra excitement that Lucie actually got to spend time with Denali.  She was a tad nervous about Denali's energy at first, but she  grew quite attached by the end and watching their interactions was very sweet.  Denali has the perfect temperament for small children (just as Rocky did)  and she seemed to rather enjoy the extra attention Lucie was eager to give.  She also enjoyed meeting my sister's cat.  We kept Spencer's dog, Kiwi, completely separate, because we were quite nervous about how she might react to a little person. 

UTAH/FAMILY:  As I mentioned previously, my sister, Kristina, and four of her kids were staying with us that week as well.  That meant our house was full of LOTS of noise, LOTS of mess, and LOTS of fun!  Lucie LOVED all the other little people around and all the extra people to beg food off of!   The boys were a little wary of Lucie, but they were also sweet and tolerant of her at least.   Isaiah decided that offering Lucie food and eagerly awaiting  her to sign "Thank you" was his love language.  Manuel would let Lucie hold his toys and hand them back to him.  Jesus wasn't sure about her at all, especially after she pinched him a few times, so he mostly kept his distance.   Kristina absolutely loved having a little one to dote on and my Mom, Nana (Lucie's great-great grandmother), and sister, Heather, loved spending time with her as well. 

UTAH/FOOD:  Lucie is a very food oriented girl, which isn't much of a surprise considering how strongly the genes for that trait run on our side of the family.  She loves her meal-times, figured out quickly where the popsicles were kept, and would eagerly steal food from whomever happened to be eating at that moment.   She even ate dirt from a plant once!  

UTAH/LEGO HAIR:  With 3 Lego loving boys in our home, our house literally looked like a Lego bomb had gone off while they were here.  Luckily Lucie is mostly past the stage of putting everything in her mouth (though we definitely had to watch her still).  Here's a funny little story:     She was sitting in her highchair waiting while I got her food and was playing with a Lego guy.   She pulled the hair off and handed it to me to fix.  I said, "Oh, did the hair come off?  Let's put that hair back on," then I gave it back.  She heard me say, "HAIR," so she promptly began brush her hair with the Lego guy.    You do have  to admit that Lego hair doesn't look much like real hair, so I can see her confusion! 😂

UTAH/PAPA/ELLIE/EMMA/SPENCE:   Ellie was heading off to YW Camp, so they had to say their goodbyes pretty soon after arriving back home.  Glen was taking off for work in Saint George, so he also had to say his goodbyes after only a day.   Spence just started a new job, so we got to see him in the evenings.  Emma came to visit when she could.  We all loved our Lucie time!

UTAH/MISCELLANEOUS:   Here are some more random Lucie moments I captured.  Lucie following in Uncle Adam's footsteps and trying to figure out the Rubik's cube, pretending the calculator was a phone, stopping to see the garden orbs we have hanging near our front door, finding a gallon of vinegar to tote around at Great-Grandma's house, emptying out the cupboard (and putting everything in the dryer), reading books, and trying to color sort with Gigi. 

UTAH/LARA/GIGI:  And finally, here's the last collage--pics with Lucie and me!  I love this little girl and I love being her Gigi.   💗💗💗 

 

 Now that Lucie's back with her Mama and Dada, our house feels empty and I am very much missing her {and her parents}.

Thank goodness for Facetime to tide me over until the next trip! 
 

PS  Who am I kidding?  Even with the collages, this probably still a 15-page blogpost!   😁

R.I.P. Rocky

As I mentioned in this post, our 15-year-old puggle (1/2 pug, 1/2 beagle) passed away last week.   He'd been slowing down pretty significantly the last few months and we knew he probably wouldn't be around too much longer, but it still took us off guard how hard it was when the day finally came. 😢

To commemorate his life, I thought it would be apt to share the story of how we got him:   

I'll be the first to admit that I am not an animal person!   I grew up in a home without pets and this picture shows pretty accurately how we felt about animals in my family.     My cousins, siblings, and I are sitting on my grandmother's front porch in Oklahoma City and a dog had just wandered into view.   I'm told that it was a very calm, friendly dog, but it didn't matter.   It was a furry creature, which meant that we were petrified.  I am the one in the red dress just looking nervously at it, along with my cousin (the same age) sitting next to me.  My brother (in the suit), cousin (in the stripes),  and sister (in the lavender), however, are completely terrified.   The babies remain oblivious.    

This photo was taken approximately 45 years ago, but still reflects fairly accurately how my family feels about dogs, in particular.   3/8 of the siblings remain pet-less to this day.    4/8 are now cat owners.    We are the only dog-owners.   My brother (in the suit) remains nervous around animals to this day and will not even deign to greet our dogs or any of the other family member's cats when he comes to visit.   

So....how did we end up with dogs?    First off, Glen is allergic to cats, which put all felines off the table instantly for us.   Secondly, we had a very persistent child, who decided that she really, really, really wanted a dog.   Thirdly, I married a dog-lover.     

For years, Glen talked about how he'd like to get a dog....someday.   I always told him I'd think about it when we didn't have any small children anymore.   I knew myself well enough to know that having a dog AND small children would be too much for me.   Then when Cami was a tween, she had a couple of close friends with dogs and she got the idea in her head that she really wanted one as well.      For fun, she would beg to visit pet stores, so she could ogle over and sometimes even hold the puppies.   I'm pretty sure that seeing a puggle puppy in a pet store that had a sign next to it that said, "Good with kids," was what got her sold on that breed as her dream pet.    Over the course of a couple years, we received several letters from her outlining all the reasons why we needed a dog, why a puggle was an especially good breed to look at, and what she would do to take care of a dog.    

I remained resistant until the day when figurative lightning struck.   

One day, Diane,  the Mom of one of Cami's good friends called me and told me that a good friend of theirs was bringing their 1-year-old puggle to the shelter because they didn't have a fenced yard for him.   He was already house-trained, was great with kids, and they were willing to give him to us for free.  Glen and I quickly  discussed and decided that if we were ever going to get a dog, this was the way to do it.  We were saving him from having to go to the shelter, he was young, but already house-trained, and it was Cami's "dream breed".     So we decided to go for it. 

The kids and Glen were instantly smitten, but I won't lie....it was a rough adjustment for me.  Rocky was sweet and gentle, but he was also super barky, shed a ton, was constantly figuring out ways to escape our fenced yard, and loved to get into mischief around the house.   I was mad at him A LOT....especially those first few years we had him.    But he somehow wiggled his way into our hearts and here we are 14-years later mourning that a piece of our hearts has gone.   

Kids generally adored him, especially the last few years when he stopped being able to jump up on them.  Though his bark was loud, he was truly gentle and loved being close to his people.    With all his old-agedness that plagued him the last several months, he never lost his appetite and you could set a clock to his barking when dinner time arrived.  Between his age, his struggles to walk, and his final symptom (blood dripping from his mouth without any visible injuries) we knew that he wouldn't be coming home from the vet, so we made sure he got to eat some of his favorite foods (cheese and yogurt) before bringing him in.  It felt apt that he was well-fed, had a day full of snuggles,  and was being held by his biggest champion (Glen) when he left this world.    He will be missed.  

     Here are some picture collages with some of our favorite photos of him.   

Here are the mementos we received from the vet's office:  

Rest in peace, Rocky!   We miss you!  

(Read here for my very first post about Rocky and here's another one all about him a couple years later)