Last night I went to bed around 11:20 because I was too tired to stay up and puzzle with Lily and Clark. They stayed up puzzling, bonding, and talking. Not sure when Lily came to bed, but I’m guessing it was around 12:30, and she had a lot to tell me. She felt so affirmed talking to Clark because he both shared and understood her angry feelings towards the church. It was especially nourishing for her to share that dialogue with her brother because in Orem, Utah, she is surrounded by so many people that can’t understand the decisions she has made. But Clark understood completely. The Church fractured their family growing up and he has spent a lifetime observing Mormons from a distance. He has observed that every family has been fractured by the Church and he feels that the message of family friendliness is actually a cover for the way Mormonism shatters relationships. He asked Lily how she handles allowing the cycle to continue with our kids, and it prompted Lily to rethink how we are raising our kids, which prompted us to discuss it later in the day. We landed on the same basic approach of raising the kids halfway in the LDS church and halfway in the Community of Christ church, with the potential to end up entirely in the Community of Christ church, mostly due to the desire to gift our children with spirituality, a thirst for God and religious practices and understanding, reinforcement of values we want them to learn, identity, connection to their past, family, friends and neighbors, and with as minimal amount of toxicity and dysfunction as possible. Even though our approach remains the same, I had a refresher course on some of the pitfalls and perils we are due for if we are not careful, and I’m so grateful for a wife that will chisel out a nuanced path with me that can satisfy both of our visions and desires for our children. I’m also so glad she could have that nourishing talk with Her wonderful brother. They also got on the topic of end of the world scenarios (environmental decay, genocide etc) and Lily was also scared out of her mind about what life will be like for our children and grandchildren. I tried to say peaceful calming things. I always love talking with Lily.
Then at around 3 in the morning Clarissa woke up crying for a glass of water, so I got that. Then around 6:20 in the morning, Lydia had a massive nose bleed and Lily and I both got up to take care of that. There was so much blood on the comforter, you would have thought she lost an arm. Amazingly, I got most of the blood out of the duvet cover, and the duvet, the bedpost, the couch cushion cover (that for some reason was in the bedroom, and the carpet (when Lydia swallowed blood, she gagged and coughed up two big blood globs on the carpet). I got very short with her after the blood globs, because I was exhausted from two night wakings, and I thought I was done cleaning blood, and I had gotten back into bed and then she yelled for me to tell me about the carpet. After I got the carpet clean, I was in a better mood and was nice to her again. Sweet girl just had a doosey of a nose bleed.
The silver lining was that I was up early (I did not get back to sleep), so I just blogged and caught up completely.
After blogging, I had breakfast and hung around with everyone, and helped to serve lunch and clean. I also scheduled our fossil adventures for tomorrow. I’m am jumping out of my skin with excitement for tomorrow’s fossil adventures.
Georgia and the girls had fun flying some toy airplanes she got for them. Here are some videos of them flying the planes:
Also, Ammon was showing me new Haka dances and Soren showed me his silly dance.
Around 2:00, we all took off for the beach. Here is Georgia waving us off:
The beach was such a blast again! Before getting into the water, I took Mary to the restroom (she has had about a week with no accidents and we think the Miralax helped clear out and restart her system). On the way back, I say this neat purple flower cactus thing (whatever it is).
Then I took to the water with the kids. To mix things up from yesterday, I bought a little adventure boat (in addition to two more inflatable stars since those were so popular) that the kids can ride around in. It said it could hold up to 120 pounds. I figured that was a loose guideline, and tried to ride it with Mary, but I got out after taking water into the raft. After that failed attempt, we stuck with children only riding in the raft, and they had such a wonderful time with it. First I took Mary and Ammon towing them on a long ride. Then I took Lydia and Clarissa (with Mary hanging on and floating on her star), and then Ammon joined in so I was pulling all four. My heart felt so full pulling all of my children on the beautiful lake. Then, to my delight, Lily came and joined us, and we had a wonderful family moment. I took off a piece of oar to make it more kid-sized, and I used it like a sword to fight hephalumps, taking a page from the Christopher Robin movie we saw yesterday. I also let Ammon squirt me with his squirter and he thought that was so hilarious when I yelled (comically) from it being cold.
I did get some good smiles with my hephalump fighting, but Clark was the real crowd-pleaser. He took Ammon and Soren on a boat ride. He told them that they were going to cross the entire lake, and then he added in extra adventure by giving them rough water. I was delighted to catch it on camera. What a fun uncle for Ammon and father for Soren!
Then I went to the beach to see this happy scene of Lydia, Meera and Swathi enjoying the beach and water.
And I was not at all surprised to then find Clarissa playing in her favorite element, water of course. Here is the video.
A great time was definitely had by all. After the adults had their fill (the kids could have stayed forever), we picked up food and drove home.
At the house, Lily and Lydia finished the national parks puzzle. Lily said it was one of her favorite puzzles she has ever done. Thank you Suzanne!
After we all ate dinner we started the festivities for Clark’s birthday.
We lit candles on little cupcakes. Here is a video of the cake blow.
Then Clark started opening presents. He got books from me and Lily (picked out by Lily) and also money from Georgia for more children’s books.
He got airpods from Swathi. Swathi knew what to get him because he is always borrowing hers. I thought it was funny when Clark says he always feels guilty for borrowing Swathi’s airpods, but the guilt never stops him from borrowing them. He loves airpods!
Then we all put the kids down and went to bed early because we have an early start tomorrow for fossil digging.
I just have to sign off with a happy birthday message for Clark. He is an incredible blend of intelligence, quiet strength and kind-heartedness. He is a deep thinker, and is well-informed. I find him to always be someone worth listening to. He is fun, good natured, and warm. It was a blast to throw the football with him today! Perhaps my favorite thing about Clark is his heart. He does an incredible job informing himself about the world and living out values that make the world a better place. He’s an amazing family man, business man, brother to my wife, son to my mother-in-law and friend to me. He’s pleasant, strong, humble, insightful, fun, and steady. Always a joy to have around. He has certainly found his match with our brilliant and loving Swathi, who I also can’t say enough good about. Clark, may your 35 year be your best yet! Also, here is a birthday card Mary made for Clark that I captured:
