We have a dog!

We have a dog. I can't believe we have a dog. This all happened very suddenly. Geoff was looking at goldendoodles online, a mix between golden retrievers and poodles and we saw one we thought was cute. Geoff called the number and we waited to hear from them. I imagined we'd go meet the puppy, see if we liked her, and possibly consider buying her. Well, it didn't quite happen as I imagined. I got home from work 2 days later and Geoff told me he had good news. He had spoken to the owners and purchased "Gracie!" I wanted to know why I couldn't meet her first and he said he had a very good reason. It was: she was in Indiana. She was scheduled to fly to AZ in 3 days time. I was in shock.
Geoff picked her up last Thursday and I have to admit she is a very sweet dog. Geoff is remembering how challenging it can be to train a puppy, but it helps that she is very good natured and follows commands well. She has had several accidents in the house, but my good husband always cleans it up. And she doesn't shed! We took her on a walk tonight and she just walked right along side us, didn't pull on the leash or try to sniff every tree. It was very relaxing.

She's a beautiful dog, too. As you can see she's growing on me. I never imagined I'd be a dog owner, but Geoff is very good with dogs and has promised to train Gracie well. She's a little bigger than I would have preferred, but Geoff says that's so she can go on walks with me and protect me. (I actually doubt she'll be much of a protector because she's so good natured!) I'll have to keep the blog updated with Gracie news.

Trip to Utah

Our nephew came home from his mission to Italy 2 weeks ago and we went up to welcome him home and spend some time with Geoff's family. We also got to go to the Salt Lake temple, which is beautiful. I'm always amazed at the skill of the craftsmen who built it without the benefit of all the tools we now have. It's pretty cool thinking of the history of the temple, too, that it took 40 years to build, that the prophets walk the halls. Pretty amazing.

Geoff with sweet little niece Jill, the youngest of the nieces and nephews on Geoff's side.

We spent a lot of our time playing the wii. Here is Geoff with brother-in-law Ron. I don't know if you can see or not, but notice which level they are playing. Hee hee! It had been a while since Geoff had played so everyone that played him gracefully played at a higher level to give him a chance. Of course, that didn't stop him from trash talking when he won! (his level 1 beating someone else's level 6!) I of course was creamed by everyone as I had never played before ever. It was still fun, though. I especially enjoyed the hoola hoop competition! I took a video of Geoff and I'm tempted to put it on here! We'll see.












We went to a yoga class with the nieces and I remembered how inflexible I am! When you look at the picture of me, just imagine that my knees are very bent, because that's what's allowing me to reach anywhere near my toes!
Geoff tried to keep up with Hannah (on his right) and complained of soreness the rest of the weekend!

Ode to pears

So our ward took on a project from the humanitarian center several months ago to color books for children. I took one home intending to color it within the next week and return it. Well, it is now several months later and I'm just finishing it. I only have one page left to color! I was held up partly by the fact that I did not have colored pencils and would forget to purchase them when I went shopping. Of course, I don't like shopping, so that further delayed the acquisition of pencils.
I eventually did purchase the pencils and have been dutifully coloring my book: 2 ice cream cones; 4 turtles; 8 kites. I've enjoyed choosing colors for each page, trying to make it interesting for the children.
Then I got to number eleven: 11 pears. Now, how do you make 11 pears interesting? How many colors can I actually use for pears? Couldn't they have chosen something like "11 balloons." That would make it easy to use a variety of colors. No, it had to be 11 pears. So I picked the obvious colors, yellow and green, and recalled seeing reddish pears somewhere, too, and I colored several pears. Then I decided to make it interesting and really see if the kids were paying attention. "One of these things is not like the others...." See if you can pick out the random pear in my picture. Hee hee! Oh, and I'm not done yet. All of these pears have noses. What color is a pear's nose? Should I not color them at all? Should I color them black to show signs of early decay? (that's "Missy 2.0" talking as Geoff would say!) What color is a pear's nose? Please, feel free to send your suggestions.