Ballroom Competition, Cute Clarissa, Church Video, Secrets of Dumbledore, and prepping for Easter

This morning I was at my computer by 7:00 getting caught up on work after being behind from my travels. I then prepared for recording a video on my thoughts on generosity (which the Community of Christ asked me to do). After that, I went on a run with Basil and Mary, which was the highlight of my whole day. She really wants to be a runner and she did such a good job. She was sweet to take in my tips and tricks which were so fun to share!

While I was running with Mary, Lily was getting the rest of the kids ready for their ballroom dance competition. I got myself ready and then pitched into help, but Lily, who did the lion-share, was seriously stressed out. Also, I was confused about the time we needed to be there and that didn’t help the situation. I tried to take the kids myself with the idea of giving her some time away from the chaos, and even stay home to take a break, but I forgot some dresses, so she had to drive out to Taylorsville to meet me and was not happy at all about how the whole morning had gone, which was totally understandable, especially given the fact she just did almost an entire week on her own while I was traveling. That started off what became a very rough day emotionally for both me and Lily.

I made a big deal about being two hours early because the sheet said we needed to be and Lydia said they practice before-hand. Turns out, we mostly just sat around for two hours, and being that early seemed completely unnecessary. At any rate, Ammon got to pal around with some of his dancing buddies.

The performances were so fun to watch. Clarissa got a pair of clip-on earrings and went absolutely nuts. In the below performance, she spots me in the audience, and then points to her earrings that she is so excited about.

Before Clarissa’s second performance, she kept pointing to her earrings from side stage as she waited for her performance to start. She was so excited about them. And then, as you can see in the below video, as the show ended, Clarissa, instead of exiting with everyone else on her dance team, walked towards the front of the stage pointing to her earrings and swishing her dress with her hands. It reminded Lily and I of her James and the Giant Peach performance when she walked to the front of the stage at the end, when she was supposed to exit the stage with the rest of her group. Lily and I laughed so hard, and it was such a nice moment to share together as we having a rocky day together.

All the kids did so great, and here is Lydia in her dances below!

After the ballroom dance competition, Lily took the kids home and watched the second Grindlewald movie with them. I drove to the Community of Christ building in Salt Lake and recorded my generosity video and helped them set up tables, chairs and decorations for Easter.

At home I finished watching the movie with everyone and then bought tickets so we could all go watch the Grindlewald movie. Lily suggested we get a sitter for Clarissa. I thought we would be fine. We were not fine. Clarissa and Ammon were both wiggly and difficult, so I took them out of the theater to drive them home, trying to figure out the best way to get Lily home when the movie was over. Then we saw our neighbors Todd and Mikayla, who were able to drive us home, so Lily could have the car. What a gift!

I put the small kids down, had a late dinner, and cleaned poop from the backyard, and then when the rest of the group came home, I helped Lydia and Mary set everything up for Easter. They were such great helpers!