Today I woke up and fulfilled a promise to Ammon and played legos with him. It is such a win-win because legos was one of my favorite childhood games and I honestly enjoy it as much as an adult. While I played, Lily was doing another hard workout in the basement. Lydia really helped out the family by walking Basil. After playing legos, I got ready for the day and then got all the kids ready for church and loaded them in the car while Lily wrapped up her workout and got ready. We were close to on-time to church! Lydia really wanted to be on-time once we told her that in her class they were going to perform spiritual exegesis on The Hunger Games.
Church was amazing. In Sunday school we talked about Christ’s example of being non-violent, yet standing up for righteousness and goodness. During the main meeting, we had a great sermon about being audacious in our efforts to love (using this poem) and we washed each other’s hands as a sacrament to strengthen our connections and vulnerability with each other.
Afterwards we had a potluck lunch. It was so wonderful mingling with our beloved community. People in our community are walking through some very difficult things including death of a spouse, as well as divorce. It is so beautiful to all be together and carry each other’s burdens together. Lily especially was able to comfort some people in pain today and that made me really happy. We also have a number of friends that continue to grow closer from our church both for me and Lily, and for the kids. I’m so grateful for the role, the Community of Christ is playing in our lives.
After the pot-luck, we all drove to Lagoon. I wanted to take the kids this summer and I plopped it on the calendar for today. Going after church would mean not as much time there, but I checked online and saw they were open until 9. I was also hopeful that the had some half-day rate for latecomers like us. We especially wanted to make it happen because earlier in the week Clarissa had asked for a roller-coaster for her birthday.
When we arrived, we saw a sign that said Lagoon closed at 7:00. “No problem” I thought, we will still have just under 5 hours. Then we parked and walked up to buy tickets. Not only were the prices crazy (over $80 for an adult ticket), but there were no half-day prices and all, but Clarissa counted as an adult (how does that work?). When the lady rang up the total and told me $490, I felt a pit in my stomach. I just stood there, thinking. Then I called to Lily, but she was a bit far away with the other kids in the shade. I then almost just made the call myself and paid for the tickets, but I couldn’t do it. Sales have been low this year, and we followed through with our France trip because of all the planning and preparation Lily put into it and because it was a bucket-list thing to do for our family, but we are now in the position of really needing to make trade-offs around what to say “yes” and “no” to. I told the lady she could help the people behind me and that I would be back. I went to consult with Lily and we both agreed $490 was just too expensive. We decided to reschedule our rafting trip down the Provo river (which was scheduled for tomorrow) to today and do that instead. Fortunately we were able to make the reschedule. We could tell Clarissa was about to have a major melt-down, so we made our way back to the car without lingering more than necessary while we talked things over.
In the car, Clarissa completely burst. She cried dramatically for a solid half-hour. All of our hearts were broken for her. We even passed right by the wooden roller-coaster and saw people having fun on it on our way to the ticket booth. Clarissa LOVES roller-coasters. To add an element of comedy to the heartbreak, Clarissa was making extremely compelling socialist arguments around the price of Lagoon. For example, she wailed repeatedly, “DON’T THEY CARE ABOUT US? IF THEY CARED ABOUT US, THEY WOULDN’T MAKE THE TICKETS $500!! DO YOU HAVE TO BE RICH?” It was really adorable and sad. I felt sad that Clarissa was disappointed and that I was the source of letting her down (I should have researched and prepared everything in advance and learned we weren’t going to go before getting us all the way to the ticket booth), but I also felt a bit grateful that Clarissa had the experience of learning that sometimes we need to say no to things that we can’t afford, and that it’s ok to not get what you want sometimes.
Eventually Clarissa calmed down, and then even started feeling happy when we gave her a phone to play with.
Rafting was SO FUN. After getting our life jackets, we took a bus ride to the start of the route. At the end of the bus ride, we went down a steep and very bumpy dirt road. Our driver was so fun and turned that that experience into a pretend Indiana Jones ride at Disney Land.
Once we were in the water, everyone had so much fun. Lily was in heaven and kept commenting how much she loved the experience (adding to my theory of where Clarissa gets her love for water). Lydia and Lily had oars to help steer in front. I steered in the back, Clarissa was our water girl to pass around the water bottle, Mary was our photographer and videographer and Ammon was our greeter. As we passed by people he would say things like, “Have a nice rafting trip!” or “I hope you catch a fish!” In one case, we passed a group of very lively young women, and they complemented Mary on her glasses, said all the kids were cute and gave us a heart sign with their hands. Ammon returned a heart-sign with his hands to them, and the girls went nuts.
After rafting, Lily and I praised Clarissa for being able to still have such a fun and good day after not getting what she wanted in such a dramatic way (getting all the way there and then being told “no”). We also praised the other kids who were disappointed, but didn’t complain and were mostly just sad for Clarissa. We were so so pleased with our children today!
We then had a delicious meal at Olive Garden and then went home for bed. What a wonderful wonderful Sunday!
