Darais Days

We got the house clean on Saturday, and Lydia had a German group lesson and then we actually did leave for Goblin Valley (unlike yesterday’s false alarm).

On the way down to Goblin Valley, we listened to The Great Brain. It is a young adult book about a family growing up in Utah. It is hilarious. The premise is that the protagonist has a brother who is brilliant, cocky, scheming, yet warm hearted and always coming up with crazy schemes that either cause a lot of trouble or completely save the day. It is so entertaining. It reminds Lily entirely of Tom Sawyer.

We arrived around 9PM and had delicious s’mores on the camp fire. Then we all played a fun game where we made up a story together using game cards.

Here are two videos and some pictures:

Then we tucked the children in. This is about an hour or more before Clarissa actually went to sleep. She was up well past midnight, I assume due to her late car nap and all her excitement.

Clarissa was still up, but Lily and I killed some time sitting by the fire together while Clarissa was in the Yurt, at one point looking out the window at us. It was so healing to just sit and stare at the fire next to my love. We went deep and talked about death. It was very cathartic to process that topic with her in such a serene environment. The stars were perfect and breathtaking against the rock walls that ran into them.

In fact Lily even woke up a lot at night, and she said it was because the stars were so pretty, she just couldn’t sleep deeply. One of my favorite things about Lily is when her joy is so powerful, that it robs her of sleep. I love that woman :).

While I was at work today, Lily spent time with Sarah and helped keep an eye on her kids so she could get ready for their move to Hungary. Sarah is a great friend, and we hope she and her family have a wonderful time there!

From what I gather from the below video and picture, it seems like the kids had a great time together!!

When Lily returned, and when I finished work, we packed the car and loaded everyone to go to Goblin Valley. While everyone was in the car (except me), I checked the reservation to see what Yurt site we had, only to learn that I booked the Yurt for Saturday night and not for Friday night. Yikes!

We all got out of the car, and left it mostly all packed for Saturday.

I’m doing this entry a week later, so I don’t remember what happened, but here is a cute video of Ammon and some cute pictures of the kids.

The video says it all 🙂

I’m writing this over a week later, so I will stick to the highlights that I remember.

First of all, I had an unbelievable lunch, largely due to the roasted pumpkin stuffed with wild rice that Lily made a day or two before. I eat so well in this home!

During work, I took Lydia to her first therapy session with Vhari to help her with her anxiety. Vhari did sand therapy with her. She has hundreds of Play-mobile pieces, and a sandbox, and she lets Lydia act out parts of her life in the sandbox with the Play-mobile figurines and props.

I was in and out of the session due to work calls (I’m glad Lydia has both time alone with the therapist and time with me there to learn too), but what I did catch was that Lydia told all about her trip to Bear Lake, and she started to discuss the anxiety she has at night about not being able to fall asleep. If Lydia doesn’t fall asleep right away, she can feel very stressed about the fact that she’s not falling asleep, and that can keep her up even longer, thus causing more stress etc. The session seemed very positive. Lydia has such a beautiful heart, and I smile at her sweetness and the familial love we share when I look at the Bear Lake scene she created:

After work, Ammon had a soccer game. He often will announce he scored 2 or 3 goals when a game is done. It’s possible I wasn’t paying attention……but I usually feel pretty sure he didn’t actually score, at least that many. In this game, he actually DID score a goal, and I got it on camera!

Lydia was at the game with me and drew cute pictures of Ammon, and wrote a journal entry about her sand therapy.

Today the three oldest kids had dance lessons. See videos below!

Later in the day, the three oldest kids formed a marching band.

When I was done with work, Lily took the three youngest kids to play on the playground while I did a 40 minute bike ride with Lydia on the Murdock trail, which we both loved very much.

Life is so full of joyful family moments right now!

Today I took Lydia and Mary to church in person. It was so lovely. One lady bore her testimony about the beauty of being knit in worship with a community, and I felt that beauty also. We had a very nice chat with Niel Giles, our neighbor and minister afterwords.

Later in the day, we all visited Georgia. I thought it was adorable how the children unintentionally lined up in front of her window in order of height.

After visiting with Georgia, we had a wonderful walk through Cascade Springs.

This morning we all went to watch Ammon play his soccer game at 9am. He scored a goal!!! We were all so proud, but Abe, who actually cares about sports, seemed extra enthusiastic. We all made a really big deal about it until by the end of the day Ammon was announcing jubilantly to everyone who would listen that he scored two goals! (He actually only scored one, but the ball hit him on the way in in the second case, and he is completely convinced he hit it in himself.)

After soccer we drove to a fun park in Pleasant Grove next to the Murdock Trail. Lydia and I biked for forty-five minutes while Abe and the other kids played. That was such a gift. I know biking is one of Abe’s most favorite things but he was so insistent that I go with Lydia, and that was such a kindness. Lydia and I had a peaceful, gorgeous ride. My favorite part was biking behind her, seeing her small frame, her pink bike, and the ribbons trailing from her handlebars as she happily biked along. The ribbons reminded me to cherish the passing moment of childhood, and Lydia is such a beautiful child.

Then Abe dropped me off at a spa to get a massage while he took the kids to lunch. When I was done we swapped places and he got a massage. It was my first day on Zoloft and on my period, and I didn’t sleep much last night so I was exhausted when we came home. I also have some pretty intense nausea that I assume is probably a side effect from the Zoloft. So after giving Ammon and Clarissa a shower (because they had gotten really dirty from eating in the car), I put Clarissa down and flopped on the couch. Pretty much for the rest of the day.

I have spent the rest of this day watching Der Spiegel news videos in German and reading German articles and feeling horrified at the little percentage I understood. QAnon has a presence in Germany and I could not believe my eyes and ears at their protests. Also, Nazis have been emboldened by all of the fascist world leaders, which is almost too much to comprehend.

Honestly, when it comes to handling Covid though, I don’t know what to believe. I am grateful my kids get to go to in person school because they both are so thrilled to be with friends, and I am thrilled not to have to juggle four kids all day. I feel much less personally stressed now that my girls are in school and Ammon and Clarissa go to preschool for two and a half hours twice a week. And I’m grateful we can use playgrounds and parks and do extra curriculars and see friends a bit more now. But I don’t personally know anyone with Covid, I haven’t lost anyone to the disease, and we haven’t come down with it ourselves. With how lax we’ve become it’s probably only a matter of time until we get it, so maybe I will be singing a different tune when that happens. But even though Utah politics drive me kind of semi-insane, in this one area I feel presently grateful for the fact that the state is as lenient as it is.

This is a picture and a video of Clarissa trying to convince me to give her ice cream after her slice of pie:

After the girls got their after school stuff done, I fed the kids early. I halved pie pumpkins, seasoned and roasted them, and then stuffed them with wild rice pilaf and manchego–which they, miracle of miracles, ALL loved. Well, Mary objected to the manchego, but the rest of them gobbled that up. Then it was baths before watching the new Mulan movie while Abe and I puttered and tidied.

Then we put the kids to bed and my friends, Heidi and Courtney, came over. We sat around talking until 1am. We were all shocked at the time. But let me just say, that time flew. We had a lot to talk about, and they are both such intelligent, sensitive, morally grounded women. I felt so lucky to share the evening with them and Abe, who always chimes in with awesome insights of his own.

Thursday was a beautiful day, temperature wise. Ammon had soccer practice and right after the girls had tennis practice. Ammon didn’t want to participate so he spent most of the time practicing monkey bars–and he did it!!! He made it all the way to the end!!! I was in awe, having never accomplished this feat myself. Lydia was so inspired that the very next day she, after having tried daily at the monkey bars for a month, finally made it to the end herself. We were all so proud of Ammon. Also, he scored a goal during his soccer practice–the first one he’s ever scored in the right net!! We were all very excited for him.

After the kids were done playing Abe and I played a little but not much because my knee has been hurting. I gained ten pounds last month and my knees are not happy. So back to the intermittent fasting drawing board.

After the kids were down I attended my virtual book club on Braiding Sweetgrass and loved it a lot. I feel like that book and those discussions are changing my worldview in major ways. It is one of my favorite books I have ever read.