Merry Christmas 2016

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Goodales! 2016 was a bit of a wild ride for all of us, but for us we can summarize it in three words: travel, wedding, and babies!

Standing in front of a mustard field in Vaudoy-en-Brie, France, about 40 miles east of Paris.

     Now for details…

     We’ve had an awesome tradition in our family where Dad takes each of our six kids 1:1 to Japan for their 16^th birthday (one exception being that both Brianna and Andrew went with Dad a few years back). March of this year was the last of those trips. As it was the last of those trips, Steven agreed to have Mom and Grandma come along, as well. For a little more than a week right around Easter time we thoroughly wore out our Japan Rail passes and explored Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Hiroshima, Miyajima, Nagasaki, Nagoya and Toyota (where Dad served for 10 months back in 1986). What an incredible time we had (see photo album here)! We’re pretty sad these trips are done, and already thinking of the next great travel tradition we need to establish.

At Ootorii Gate at Itsukushima Shrine on Miyajima Island, Japan.

     We have that great Japan tradition from John having served a mission to the Japan Nagoya mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints from 1985 to 1987, and Michelle has had a lifelong desire to take the entire family to France after her having served in the France Paris mission of the church during that same timeframe. In May 2016 that dream finally came true! We took 14 people to France and man was it ever the trip of a lifetime! After an overnight flight across The Pond, we had a 10-hour layover in London en route to Paris. Even the jet lagged grandbabies did a great job on our whirlwind tour of London, seeing the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the London Eye, and all kinds of London landmarks. During our week in Paris we stayed at a beautiful, quaint converted farmhouse about 40 miles east of Paris, and used that as our launching point for Versailles, Normandy, Mont Saint Michel, Disneyland Paris and of course Paris itself. Of course, we went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, strode the halls of the Louvre and did all of those great things; however, probably even more memorable will be things like trying to find cover around the Eiffel Tower in an absolute downpour, squeezing our 14 people in to small Parisian cafes, and getting separated on metro cars or even in our two rental cars across hundreds of miles of French countryside. It was an awesome trip that will be hard to top! You’ll find pics here.

Grandma Nancy (Cotter), Kathryn Wheeler, Justin, Julia, Brooke, Caroline, Christopher, Brianna, Vivian, John, Michelle, Andrew, Mark and Steven at Buckingham Palace in London.

     In July, we welcomed another member to the Goodale family, so welcome to the “wedding” part of the year! Andrew and Leslie got married and we’re thrilled to have Leslie as part of the family; more updates on their section of this letter, later on.

Welcome to the family Leslie!

     Michelle and I have had a lot of titles over the years, but by far our favorite titles have been “Grandma” and “Grandpa” – the best jobs ever!!! It’s been so fun watching our two granddaughters continue to grow up this year; Vivian and Caroline are the cutest! Just this month we welcomed a grandson.

     Rounding out the “travel” part of this year, Steven did an exchange trip to Germany and Brianna is currently doing a semester abroad in Spain. The young tech startup that John had been working for ran out of money and shut down in September and he has been doing some consulting work since then. One of his consulting clients sent him to Vienna in November. Michelle went along with him, and Brianna met up with them while they were there. They spent some time in Prague and Vienna and had a great time; pics here.

At the State Opera House in Vienna, Austria.

     We hope that 2016 was great for you, and wish you a joyous 2017!

Justin & Julia and Family…

     Justin and Julia and their growing family have had a great year! They like to travel, and their passion is the national parks of the U.S. Two-year-old Vivian has seen more national parks than 50-year-old Grandpa Goodale has! They got to see a ton of Colorado and surrounding area while Justin was doing an internship in Colorado Springs this summer. They didn’t get to see as much as they would have liked to as Julia was still pretty sick with morning sickness, but still they got around a bit. That’s right… I mentioned morning sickness. Julia went through most of 2016 pregnant, and on December 2^nd, Ivan Wesley Goodale was welcomed in to the world. He’s such a cute new addition to our family! As soon as Ivan got out of the hospital, it was right back to finals week for Justin, as he’s in the ROTC program at Utah State University and doing well there.

Christopher & Brooke and Family…

     Christopher and Brooke had a busy year, juggling work, school, and raising darling little Caroline. She talks, walks, runs, climbs, is learning sign language (it’s adorable!), and does the cutest animal impressions. The regular Army took all of the National Guard Apache helicopters this year, so for his job at our local Gowen Field Christopher had to be re-classed to doing the avionics on the Blackhawk and Chinook airframes. They loaded up their little car with as much as they could (including a cat and 2 dogs) and drove across the country to Fort Eustis in Virginia for the summer. They had a fun road trip both out there and back. While juggling full time work, working their big property (and Christopher’s workshop – he loves it!) in Nampa and now raising horses (Brooke inherited two horses from her grandfather in October), Christopher is majoring in Construction Management at Boise State and is enjoying that, as well.

Brianna

     Brianna is close to wrapping up her studies (Spanish major) at Utah State University, and this semester is doing a semester abroad at the Universidad de La Rioja in Logroño, Spain. She is absolutely LOVING Spain. She loves her host family, she loves her classes (even her French class), she loves the food, and she loves having so many new friends from all over the Europe (and indeed all over the world) participating in the exchange program there. She has seen much of Spain, has run around Portugal, was able to visit Michelle and I in the Czech Republic and Austria, and this Christmas break will get to spend some time in Corsica and Italy. Her experiences there have given her an even greater love for all cultures, people and languages! She worked her tail off during the Spring semester earlier this year and over the summer to finance her adventures, and is looking forward to getting back to Logan in January and finding work while continuing her studies there.

Andrew & Leslie

     July 7^th was a big day for our family! Andrew married Leslie Jenson. She is originally from Lewiston, Idaho but graduated from Boise State University (they met through BSU’s Singles Ward) and works as a Certified Paraoptometric at a local eye doctor’s office here. She can tell us anything about our eyes (and a good deal more that we probably don’t want to know!) and she’s just great! Andrew is going to school full time at BSU, and working nearly full time at Fred Meyer (a local grocery/retail chain store part of the Kroger family) working the graveyard shift. Leslie and Andrew are really great for each other, and we’re really happy to have her in our family. Welcome aboard the Crazy Train Leslie!

Mark

     Mark has had a busy year studying International Business at Boise State University while working several jobs. All year long he has been the Idaho State Chair for the Young Americans for Liberty (YAL). He creates and develops chapters for this diverse network of student activists within YAL and like-minded organizations. He attended their national conference in Washington, D.C. this summer and really loved that. In the Spring he also coached the J.V. lacrosse team at Centennial HS. Mark continues to be a Manager at Peterson’s Concessions when they do events around the Treasure Valley mostly during the summer months. Then in September he got a job as a Sales Associate at Best Buy and is really loving that (even during the crazy retail holiday rush); he continues to be one of the region’s top performing associates and has been identified as such by management at the company’s HQ.

Steven

     Steven is in his junior year in high school, and has had a great year. He enjoys serving on the Student Council, and has particularly enjoyed his German classes throughout high school. This past summer through the German American Partnership Program (GAPP) he spent nearly a month in Rutesheim, Germany. He stayed with a family there, whose 15-year-old son we hosted in our home the previous October – it’s so fun to be friends with these families in other countries! He loved Germany and would definitely like to spend more time there in the future. On the way home his travel group also spent a day in Reykjavík, Iceland; what a cool experience that was! So this year Steven has been to Japan, England, France, Germany and Iceland. It’s also pretty cool that videogaming helped with those experiences. More than once when we were visiting the beaches of Normandy he said, “Hey I’ve defended that church in Call of Duty.”