Lily made a wonderful holiday card and letter this year, and I want to save it here to be remembered:
Dear Friends,
We almost died on a mountain pass this year so we are especially stoked to report that the end of 2022 finds each of us happily alive. That’s the brunt of it so if this busiest of seasons means you have no time for further reading, you have our empathy and goodwill. Happy holidays!
XO, The Daraises
If specifics are your thing, then here’s our update:
Clarissa, 5, learned who Santa is. All things magical have since suffered in her estimation. Zebras have replaced unicorns as her favorite animal. She’s charming, cute, and addicted to sugar.
Ammon, 7, lost his two front teeth just in time for everyone to sing him the classic seasonal song. He anticipates goodwill everywhere and makes new friends on every outing. He loves dance, music, legos, sticker books, imagination games, and back scratches at bedtime.
Mary, 10, continues to be head over heels for pigs. Mary loves art and the color brown, excels at the piano, corresponds with penpals, reads all sorts of books, writes funny poems, bakes the best cookies and brownies, celebrates her birthday by volunteering, and dresses practically. Normally quiet and understated, she is our feistiest child when provoked. She became a vegetarian this year.
Lydia, 11, always alert to adult concerns, has recently become obsessed with bunkers that would withstand events of mass-extinction. (Lily’s fault.) When she’s not dreaming about the end of the world, Lydia can be found reading voraciously, felting, baking, creating fun for her siblings, thoroughly brushing her braces, volunteering, and closely observing 6th grade drama. She completed writing six chapters of her first novel this summer. She loves talking with her parents and would chat until midnight every night if allowed. She has spent hundreds of hours practicing for her first national harp competition this coming Spring.
Basil, our 2-year old bernedoodle, scared off would-be intruders in July. We love him.
Lily is starting to doubt therapy will ever help her morph into the calm, unflappable type but persists in the exercise. She read 50 books as penance for the staggering amount of celebrity news she consumed on her phone. She also volunteered as the manager of the TSOS internship program, overcame her preoccupation with the Great Salt Lake’s demise, and canvassed against a local proposition. Her house was egged in the process. She made 1,200 buttons for Battle of the Books and took up pickleball with Abe.
Abe continues to be a mashup of Mr. Rogers, Richard Rohr, and Bob Crachitt. He loves practicing new stress management techniques. He also biked, fished, ran, played pickleball, played basketball, played frisbee, skied, and worked a ton this year. He is transitioning from managing a corporate Northeast team at Qualtrics to an enterprise healthcare Northeast team at Qualtrics in 2023.
We are grateful to journey through life alongside the most wonderful people–especially you!
Love,
The Daraises
What we did with our free time and money (when we had it) this year:
2022 places we explored: Death Valley National Park, Palm Springs, Joshua Tree National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Kanab (twice), Pipe Springs National Monument, Lake Tahoe, Santa Clara, San Francisco, Alcatraz, SFMOMA, Muir Woods National Monument, Point Reyes National Seashore, Golden Gate Park, Portland, Tacoma, Deception Pass State Park, Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, backpacked in the Uintas, Golden Spike National Monument, Spiral Jetty, Mesa Verde National Park, Durango, Silverton, Colorado National Monument, New York City, France, Switzerland, day trip to Germany, Grand Teton National Park, Fish Lake, Colorado Springs, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Manitou Springs, Air Force Academy, Olympic and Paralympic Training Center, and Petrified Forest National Park. We also enjoyed eating at Pasta Jay’s in Moab several times and getting to know Park City better. Lily did a road trip with her friend Jen from Utah through New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, and ended in Baltimore. They visited their friend, Ashley, and spent a night with Lily’s lovely cousins, Louie, Ginny, and their daughters, Clara and Bea. Lily, Lydia, & Mary went to Chicago with their friends Amy, Emerson, and Isobel. They worked Springfield and Evanston into the trip. Abe spent two weeks in India and Singapore for work. Abe and Lily were invited as friends of the National Park Foundation to the lighting of the Washington D.C. Christmas Tree and had a wonderful weekend there together. Many thanks to Tom and Suzanne for caring for our children and making that possible!
Performances: We saw As You Like It at BYU with Amy, Emerson, and Isobel, watched our friend Olivia Marshall in Tuck Everlasting twice, cheered on Eli in The Christmas Story, enjoyed The Lion King at the Eccles on Ammon’s birthday, and saw The Unsinkable Molly Brown with Tom and Suzanne. We also enjoyed the Utah Symphony.
We discovered the tag-along bike attachment in New York’s Central Park and have since enjoyed biking the Provo River Trail, the Jordan River Trail, and the Park City White Barn trail as a family.
Thanks to our friend, Courtney, we discovered our favorite new local trail: Primrose Overlook in the Alpine Loop.
We completed several jigsaw puzzles this year and finally purchased a puzzling table.The table is Lily’s dream come true. The holographic puzzle currently on the table is a nightmare.
Our favorite new gadget was a gift from Lily’s brother, Clark: An Aarke that carbonates our water. Yum.
Our favorite movie of the year was Wakanda Forever. Thanks to the Marshalls for renting out a theater and letting us watch it for free!
Our favorite family songs this year are: Bully in the Alley by Nathan Evans and Puppies are Forever by Sia.
We enjoyed several overnights at church camp with our church, Community of Christ, and walked our first labyrinth with our friends, the Gruwells. It was an incredibly moving experience that deepened our awareness and gratitude.
We lost a lot of money (for us) when the tech bubble burst. In the event we actually send out a card next year, this page will undoubtedly be much shorter!
Also, I recently set up an old television set (that I won from Qualtrics 8 years or so ago) in the upstairs since our regular TV up there mysteriously stopped working (and also has a crack in it that may or may not be new).
Lily and I also enjoyed a puzzle tonight. It was a gorgeous piece painted on a wood block by Gustave Baumann. I looked up more of his art, and I absolutely love his work. The puzzle was only 300 pieces, but it was still a good challenge and Lily and I only got through half. I was thinking lately about things that really slow me down and help me be mindful, balanced and relaxed and I decided puzzling and reading are two of the things that really calm me down and help me relax, process and enjoy life. I’m so glad I got to puzzle tonight with my sweetheart. It truly is one of my favorite things!
