Month: June 2021

Early in the day, the kids had ice-skating. Lily told me that Clarissa really took to it and learned quickly:

In the evening, I was referee for Clarissa’s soccer game. It deteriorated to chaos quite quickly. But Clarissa did a great job focusing and even scored some goals!

We also watched Ammon and Mary play. We didn’t catch any footage of Ammon, but here are a bunch of videos of Mary. It was amazing to see her running with kids, some of whom may have been twice her size. She was shy about kicking the ball at first, but around halftime, her coach gave her some instruction, “Mary, I want you to kick it. I don’t care what direction, just go kick the ball.” After that, Mary jumped in and got a bunch of kicks on the ball. Great work Mary!!

The kids had a full slate of activities today. First, Lily took the kids to Dance class. Ammon did such a good job in his class and was brave even when one or more of the classmates commented about him being the only boy.

After work, Lydia had a volleyball game and the rest of the other kids played soccer. I was a referee for the game for Clarissa’s team along with the other team’s coach. Clarissa didn’t focus much (mostly stood next to me or sat in the grass), but she had some great kicks when she was focusing.

Clarissa’s game went very fast (we ended early because the three-year-olds were losing attention very very…very quickly) so I had time to watch the others. First I watched Ammon, and I was so so so impressed with how he played. He was a particularly good (and fast!) defender. He stopped many many drives from the other team. He also had some great offensive kicks and was a great goalie. Here is a video of him making a save:

Lily saw Lydia’s volleyball game (not me) and Lydia won her game.

I didn’t see much of Mary’s game because when I sat down to watch her, Clarissa announced she needed to use the bathroom which was a 15 minute round-trip. From what I saw, I was very happy to see Mary right in there playing with some kids twice her size.

I’m so happy all the kids are in such great activities. Thank you for coordinating Lily! Also, a thank-you to Lexi, our new nanny who helps us a couple hours each day Monday-Friday. There were a lot of crazy logistics with all the games today and she helped it all work out!

In other news, Lydia inherited the fanny pack Lily bought in Las Vegas which does not fit her wallet. Lydia loves it!

Lily and I are doing the 75 hard challenge. It is 75 days. In a nutshell it is doing the following for 75 straight days:

• Maintain a diet
• 2 daily workouts (45 min each, one is outside)
• Drink 4 liters of water
• 10 pages of non-fiction reading
• 5 min cold shower
• Daily progress photos

Lily added some other things like no swearing, while I was busy creating rules like I get 5 freebie days. Maybe I’m more intimidated by the challenge haha. But in all seriousness, Lily and I both agreed that we loved doing it together. We did a great job on our goals. We felt it focused us in a positive direction and it was fun to do it together.

In other news, Lily took Lydia to volleyball and felt so proud of her. Lydia has been practicing on her own and really trying to apply herself and get good at this new sport. Lily loved watching her for some of her practice!

Back at home, we had an amazing shiskabob, salad and couscous dinner (thank you Lily!) and Clarissa had dressed up like a flapper. She was so cute, and was very distraught when anyone tried to tamper with her outfit (like remove her shoes when they kept falling off or when it was time to take off her dress at bedtime.) She loved her dress up and I can’t blamer. Doesn’t she look cute!

Today was very very busy. In the morning, I took care of more house chores, and then we had Lydia’s volleyball practice at 9, Ammon’s soccer practice at 10, and I coached Clarissa’s soccer practice at 11:15. After Ammon’s practice, a lady backed into me in the parking lot, so I will need to get the dent fixed now.

Clarissa’s practice was a bit more difficult this time, in part because halfway through, the majority of the team was memorized by a patch of mud they found by the field. When I asked the kid who seemed to be the leader of the group to leave the mud and come focus on practice, he plaintively said, “no”. Ha ha. Eventually parents came to help, but it was a more distracted session for sure. Still, I enjoyed it. Lydia, Mary and Ammon waited patiently while I coached.

It was super hot, and the kids were all very good for all of it. To reward (and hydrate) them, we got slurpees after all of it.

I took a nap back at home because I was feeling exhausted. Also, my allergies have been going haywire and my eyes itch a lot. I have a full battery of attack for my allergies (nose spray, eye drops, zyrtec, and a netti pot) which is helping me survive, but this seems to be peak season for me because it has been rough.

After my nap, I blogged a lot to catch up, while the kids watched TV and were around the house. Mary and Lydia also did some music practice.

Then we all went to celebrate my uncle Norm and Aunt Judy’s 50th weeding Anniversary. What a milestone! I had an incredible time. The kids were perfectly behaved and played a lot in Danny and Jennette’s yard (where the party was hosted). I got to catch up with my dad, Chris, Dallin, Andrea, Stacey, Norm, Judy, Ed and others. It was a great reminder how much I love my extended family and how special they are to me. The music, weather, ambiance, and company were all so wonderful and I felt very very happy there.

Also, I just have to say that having Lily gone has given me so much respect for her every day. Managing the kids all by myself (which she does every day M-F) is totally insane! I’ve just learned that I have to pick a few things from all the things I want because it is literally impossible to do everything I want. What I mean that is I can either a) be pleasant b) accomplish a task c) give attention to Clarissa d) give attention to Ammon e) give attention to Mary f) give attention to Lydia g) give attention to Basil or h) do something for my sanity. If I’m really feeling great, I can do two things at a time on this list. Meanwhile the house is falling apart, I’m not cooking any meals (yay door dash!), I didn’t do real music practices with the kids (like Lily does), or do a reading lesson with Ammon, dishes and messes are piling up, laundry is growing exponentially, the girl’s hair is growing tangles (Clarissa’s hair hasn’t been brushed since Lily did it before she left), I’m getting grumpier by the minute (Clarissa cries for Lily just about every time I’m stern with her), and losing hope on any sense of getting ahead. Additionally, late in the day today I had the horrifying realization that I fed the kids garbage all day. Clarissa didn’t eat breakfast, and I missed that fact since I wasn’t paying attention. Then They all shared giant slurpees after activities. Lunch was chick fillet (chicken and fries), and dinner was the treats at Norm and Judy’s Party which was grapes, cake and cookies. Panged by guilt, I was shoveling carrots and cucumbers at all of them just before bed, and they didn’t go down until 9:30 because of how late we got home. Wow, I was so tired that I decided to go straight to bed even though I had every intention of folding the 4 baskets of kids clothes that still need folding. I realize that Lily runs this rat-race every day, and that I’m almost entirely unavailable during my work hours (which have expanded lately). Anyway, all of this is to say SO MUCH RESPECT for Lily and all full-time parents. It also give me greater empathy and desire to be a better partner having had this experience. Apparently one of my kids told Suzanne at the park that Lily does most of the parenting in our house. The kids must also have been empathetically aware that I was in a little over my head these past few days! Lily is such a good parent and it is very hard to fill her shoes when she is gone!

Here are some more scenes from Lily’s Vegas trip:

Also, here are the before and after pictures of the house we are selling in a couple of weeks. We think Moroni did a great job!

Today was totally nuts, but also a lot of fun. In the morning, I blogged a bunch (catching up), then got ready for the day, and helped the kids get ready and loaded the car. We went to church at the Community of Christ. The church was all decked out in rainbow flags, and the lesson was about Paul’s sermon from 1 Corinthians 12 about how all the body parts are important in a body, just like all people, with all their diversity are important to the body of humanity (Paul calls it the body of Christ). I almost cried at the end when people shared personal thoughts and stories about things like being rejected because of their sexual orientation, and the importance of providing safety to those who are different or marginalized.

After that we went to subway (finally, I gave them healthy food!) and then I visited with Ed for a bit while all the kids saw Isabella, Ali, and their guinea pigs and fish.

Then we all went to Lindsey Gardens in the avenues while we all ate lunch and I had a zoom chat with my AXB friends. My dad and Suzanne came, which was great timing because it allowed me to finish my call while they watched the kids at the playground.

Then we all went for a walk in Memory Grove and everyone (even the grown-ups) enjoyed walking in the stream. Clarissa was particularly thrilled. It is also fun to know we were grounding, which my dad is really into right now. He was telling us about it.

After that, I drove home and met Lexi who had just arrived and was helping to tidy the house. I blitz cleaned and folded laundry with her to get the house in order so Lily didn’t have to come home to a mess.

Then I had a wonderful time visiting Georgia, who was so sweet and felt bad that she didn’t feel well during our visit, but we still had very nice conversation, and it didn’t diminish how much I liked seeing her in the least bit. She is so sweet.

After that, I went on my long-awaited bike-ride. The kids were awesome the 3.5 days I took care of them, but I felt my fatigue and stress growing each day. My bike ride was an incredible release. Biking back from South Fork canyon, I saw the sun setting on Mt. Timponogos.

When I arrived home, Lily and I caught up for about an hour. We told about each of our respective adventures, and it was so so fun to catch up with her. She truly is my best friend, and I was so happy to have her back, not only to make life better and easier, but also, I just missed her wonderful companionship.

Today the kids had their swim lesson with Aubrey. With Lily out, I’ve been taking the kids to their activities and let me say there are a ton of them. They have tons of different swim lessons with different people (Lily’s #1 goal this summer is to get them all swimming), Lydia has volleyball and voice, Mary has soccer, Ammon has soccer, Clarissa has soccer, and I’m sure I’m forgetting things. That’s on top of the regular music lessons for all of the them and tutoring that Mary has.

Lily put in a ton of effort to sign everyone up, coordinate schedules, write down when and where all the practices and games are etc. I was a bit overwhelmed by it all (and thinking about the budget), and felt like maybe Lily was over-scheduling them. But I had a big lightbulb go off while I was the one running them around. THEY LOVE THEIR ACTIVITIES. Lydia loves volleyball so much and even practices at home. She also told me she was so happy to be in voice. Ammon told me his personal swim class was a highlight of his day, and also when I think about the alternative option to not doing activities is just having them at home, which is great, but they already have plenty of that, even with all their activities. The truth is that it is overwhelming a bit taking them to all their various things in the right outfit toting all 4 kids and a dog. And it does pinch the budget. But one thing I have come to learn about Lily is that she will stop at nothing to give our kids the best possible childhood, even if it strains her or us. She will take that on if it means she can add beauty, magic, education and experiences to our children’s childhood. That attribute is one of my favorite things about Lily.

After my work day, I started on a project I have been wanting to tackle for over a month, and I spent 6 or so hours organizing the garage. I stayed up late, but enjoyed the project and loved listening to U2, Aaron Neville and Journey. Here are pictures of some things I found in the process.

Finished product of garage (there used to be a mammoth pile of junk there)

Also, Lily and her friends got temporary tatooes in Las Vegas.

Also here is a video of a drummer she took.

Today Lily left on her Vegas trip with her girlfriends. Fortunately, I had a fairly flexible work schedule today, and was able to juggle everything with the help of our babysitter Eliza. At 6:00, I coached Clarissa’s soccer practice. Lily signed up all the kids for summer activities recently, and no one volunteered to coach Clarissa’s team so I agreed to let Lily sign me up. It’s a bit overwhelming considering all I’m juggling, but at the end of the day, I know I don’t have to take it that seriously (the kids certainly don’t!) and the reality is, I absolutely love doing it. Here are some pictures from tonights practice:

Jess arrived in town tonight in preparation for a girl’s trip she and Lily are going on with their other Thrive group friends. We love Jess so much because she is not only a very grounded, good, and capable person, but she is always hilarious, cheerful and warm and always lifts our spirits when she’s around. Come to find out, her brother Elliot Woolsey is a stand-up comedian (who I loved when I checked out his stuff), which does not surprise me at all because Jess is also so funny.

After picking Lydia up from volleyball, I took her to Leatherby’s because she got a free ice cream certificate for her good grades.

Can you believe this was the single scoop?

Lydia was so appreciative on her whole outing with my. The thanked me for taking her to the sporting goods store where I bought her shorts, she didn’t whine when I didn’t buy her a second volley ball when she requested it, and she sincerely said thank you for her ice cream. Lydia, you are such an angel!

I think the picture below is Mary’s soccer practice, and it seems to have happened earlier in the day. Kids summer activities are upon us!

I had a hard time getting started in the morning, and unfortunately that meant Lily did almost everything getting the packing and the kids ready. As I was doing my little part, I felt bad about both not being more helpful, and also not taking more pictures of the beautiful house we stayed in. I snapped some photos even though the house wasn’t put together during during our unpacking just to capture the essence.

The drive home was difficult for both Lily and myself. We’ve both been feeling some intensity and frustration at this period in our lives and we both needed vent a little. Being next to each other in a car for 8 hours, we vented at each other. We are particularly concerned about Lily’s arms which fall asleep at night, as well as her frequent hand pain. I researched it when we got home and I think it is carpal tunnel and some arthritis. She’s seeing a doctor in a couple of weeks to check things out. Also, I was trying to solve her problems in the car ride, rather than listening and empathizing, so that added to the difficulty.

Anyway, while Lily and I were having a rough go, the kids were being perfect, angelic, and absolutely adorable. They created a pretend passenger named Bob, and spent a fair chunk of the car ride home laughing, joking and talking about Bob,

Lydia and Mary also made this cute stop-motion video:

We got home in time for Lydia’s volleyball practice at 6:40