Month: October 2019

On Halloween the babies went trick or treating four or five times(Clarissa=4, Ammon =5). The older girls went three times. Everyone got lots of candy.

Round one at the Provo Mall with Blair, James, Hannah and their friends:

Then after naps I picked the kids up early from school and took them to Qualtrics. Abe arrived fresh from the airport and met us in the parking lot. He took the kids in while I rested in the car.

Then we all drove to Provo’s downtown and trick or treated there before getting pizza from one of the restaurants on Center Street.

Then Eliza met us at home and joined us for the pizza. After she took the oldest three kids trick or treating in the neighborhood while Abe hung out on the lawn with Clarissa. I went inside after a short while because I got cold. Clarissa busied herself unwrapping twenty lollipops while Abe chatted with the neighbors and trick or treaters.

Then we put Clarissa down and took the older kids and Eli trick or treating in our new neighborhood. That was truly fun. Abe and I were so happy and Eli made all of our kids laugh and laugh and laugh. It was seriously so, so fun.

Happy Halloween!

On Sunday I checked out St. Mary’s Episcopal church in Provo. My friend, Michaelann, told me about it. I have long loved its red door and traditional architecture. It’s right across the street from the church Lydia’s homeschool co-op used. I absolutely loved my experience there, and it was so fun to have Abe and the kids join in for the last bit. The church ordained its new priest–a woman!–and I felt like I was breathing oxygen every time I looked to the front and saw women leading the congregation.

At the same time, a lot of the text is still biblical and patriarchal, so I have to translate the pronouns in my head and do some acrobatics to make the wording kind of work for me right now. But I loved the community and will definitely visit this church again.

We took it really easy in the afternoon. We had braised brisket, lentil salad, squash, and peach cobbler for dinner. Abe started a great family discussion from Come Follow Me, and Lydia told us how she deals with gossip. She will say something nice about the person being talked about or just say, “Let’s change the subject!” That warmed my heart.

And she also told us one of her biggest fears is being different from everyone else. I feel so much respect for that girl’s propensity to introspect. Ever since she could talk, she has been able to tell us when and why she feels jealousy, fear, anger, joy, delight, or emotion of any kind. It’s amazing.

After that discussion, Clarissa threw a tantrum (she threw tantrums all day long) and we let the kids melt their brains to puddles in front of the television while the adults worked on a puzzle. It took us about three hours, but Abe and I finished it by 10:30.

Lily and I slept in this morning, which was amazing. Lily suggested we stay home and catch up on things instead of go to Cedar Breaks, which turned out to be an amazing suggestion. We did a lot of cleaning on the house, put away the girls’ summer clothes, so there is room in their closets for winter clothes, and now we are catching up on blogging. More things will happen today sure, but now is when I’m blogging, so that’s all I’ll report!

Today was a good day. I have been quite sick, so I’ve been at about 50% capacity, but there has been so much to be happy about. First of all, work is going very well this quarter. We are in first place for a sales competition and if my team wins, we will get $15,000 for a team trip.  We have to hold the lead through December, but it is exciting to be in the running. After a very hard quarter last quarter, it is so nice that a lot of business seems to be coming through this quarter. Sales is certainly up and down. There is also starting to appear the chance that I would promote at the end of this quarter or next. The reason why that is significant (aside from the money), is that then I would no longer be working two jobs (sales rep and manager) because I would only be managing at that point and my team would not even get much bigger.

I went to my car to rest and read Richard Rohr partway through the day because I was feeling so whiped out and on the way out to the car, I couldn’t help, but to admire the beautiful trees in our work parking lot.

I made it through the day, but I really had to push hard to make it to the end. I have a new system at work that is really helping me. It is that at the beginning of each work day, I decide the three most important things that need to get done that day, and I make sure they happen, even if it means cancelling meetings, dropping other balls, postponing or neglecting e-mails and chats etc. I was very tired today and only did 2 of my 3 things, but it was a productive day.

At home, we all ate an incredible shepherd’s pie dinner that Lily made and then she left for a while to get her hair colored. It turned out so amazing! Here are the pictures!!

While Lily was gone, I was doing my best to parent while feeling incredibly exhausted. I think it was a combination of work stress, some hard things that happened at work, still feeling sick, overexerting at work, potential allergies and the weightiness of my faith issues right now.

It was probably an evening in which the kids could have gotten away with anything on me because I was just too tired to regulate the kids effectively.  Clarissa took full advantage of my state and jumped down from the top of the couch over and over and over (sorry Georgia). I did, however, have the presence of mind to grab a video!

After the kids went down, I napped for an hour from 8-9, then I lay in my bed delirious with fatigue. I was so tired that I didn’t want to get up, and I just reached for something on my bedside and I found myself reading Better Homes and Gardens….which is not really my cup of tea. Although I do love gardening. I finally compelled to get myself out of bed and I planned next years garden with the mistakes of this year all fresh in my head. I’m going to plant only one thing per box, give plants way more space, plant my carrots one at a time so I don’t need to worry about thinning, and hopefully be more intentional about soil nutrients.

When Lily made it home we finished the battle against the White Walkers in Game of Thrones.  I admit the series is a bit intense with its content, but the story-line, characters and execution have all been incredible, and it has been a very fun show to bond over with Lily.

 

 

Mary had an assignment due on Tuesday to record a fairy tail on video for the class.  Lily and I were both so tired on Tuesday after the trip (and wanting to bond over Game of Thrones), that we asked the teacher for an extension.

Tonight, was our night to get it done, and Mary, Georgia and Lydia are the heroes. Unbeknownst to me and Lily, those three prepared a beautiful story. Georgia typed it out and edited while Mary dictated, and all three worked on costumes and acting parts etc. They announced to me and Lily that they were ready, and we couldn’t believe what a wonderful production Georgia helped them to produce. Georgia is such a patient, involved and loving angel.

It took us a few takes to get it right, but finally we got it! Here is the video!

 

 

 

We don’t have any photos for Wednesday and as far as I can remember it was pretty plane. It was a half-day for Lydia, and the last day before fall-break for all the kids in school.

I was still fighting a cold at work and feeling down about my faith struggles, but three things helped cheer me up:

1. It was my mom’s birthday, and I had a very lovely chat with her. She is so sweet and just recovering from the corporate tax deadline that just finished the day before her birthday (she runs a tax practice).
2. It was “bring your own dish to the lunch-line” day, and I went to William-Sanoma on my lunch break to buy a plate, a bowl and a fork so I don’t waste paper with every meal now. And I qualified for a free cookie!
3. Lily has been over the top sweet to me and telling me she loves in various intentional and touching ways.

Mary had a performance class in the evening. I’m guessing Lily and I also watched Game of Thrones.

Lily spent more time with Ammon than I did on his birthday and she’s sleeping now, but I’ll do my best to recreate his birthday (feel free to add, if I miss anything Lily!)

First, Ammon woke up to find balloons and presents downstairs on the table. He wanted to open up all of his presents right away, and so that is how he started the day.

After watching him open up some presents, I went to work, but then Lily made a French Toast breakfast with candles to blow out for him.

While I was at work, Ammon got to play at the kid’s area with Clarissa at the Toyota dealership while our car received maintenance. I’m not sure what Lily did with him after that, but she may have taken him to the park.

I left work a bit early to take Ammon to the arcade. It was so much fun! I loved it every bit as much as he did. It was so fun to pal around with my little man. We played a motorcycle game, threw balls at the clowns, played ski-ball, and even played “Let’s Make a Deal”. But the best game of all was a shooter arcade game for kids. You shot Zombies and your gun actually shot streams of water on the screen. We kept paying more and more until we beat the game because Ammon loved it so much. I had a great time too! Ammon, I look forward to many more fun father-son times with you.

 

At home, we had a yummy dinner from Sushi Burrito. Then we had a Baskin Robins Ice-Cream cake. Clarissa blew out a couple of candles (uninvited), and I eventually removed her from the table because she was distressing Ammon.

In the end, I think our little guy had a wonderful day. His favorite present was this shark blanket that also acts as a dress-up. I think that one may have been from Georgia.  He kept insisting I call him Sharky and not Ammon.

There are a couple of things I want to capture about sweet Ammon at this age. First is that he is EXTREMELY outgoing.  This comes out especially when we travel. He will walk up to any dog and start petting it and start talking to the owner about it. When we were in line for fry bread at Taos, he went one by one to the three people in line asking them what their names were. To our waitress at Pasta Jay’s in Moab last week, he unabashedly declared, “I love you!”. He is so warm, sweet, friendly and outgoing, and he makes so many people smile by his open sharing of love.

I also want to mention how sweet and sensitive he is. He often is bullied by Clarissa, but he wont fight back or hit almost ever. He’ll just take it and cry and he started to get use to Clarissa just always taking his stuff until Lily and I started doing better at enforcement.  Also, when he fell down at Meow Wolf, he landed on someone, and he turned around and said, “are you ok?”. He’s very aware, and sensitive and sweet. I love my little Ammon.

Oh, and that is another thing. He is always falling, and getting hurt.  The first day of our New Mexico Trip, he was skipping or running on the trail at Ghost Ranch and he tripped and scraped a ton of skin off his cheek. Lily was amazing to get doctor’s instructions on how to treat it so it went away mostly in a week, but it was really bad and could have easily gotten infected if we didn’t treat it so well.  By the age of four he has gotten staples in his head, gotten lost and has CPS called, many many bumps and scrapes and bruises. He is just very very active, innocent and curious, and I love him all the more for it.

Ammon, thank you for being in our family and bringing us so so so much joy!

Today was a very very good day. I was completely exhausted and a little sick from the trip, however, I got a ton of good news at work. We got way more credit for a deal that billed than we expected, and some criteria changed for my next promotion that might make it easier.

Below is a picture of a tiny jamboree. I’m not sure what it is, but Lily got it and Lydia on her phone:

 

After work we drove through the Alpine Loop to see the fall colors. We drove up to the summit and then parked and ate the crepes that Lily brought from the crepery. We were probably two weeks too late (the very end of September or the very beginning of October is probably the best), but the colors were still very pretty, even if a bit more muted, and we still felt like we were doing fall. The air was crisp and beautiful and it was a very fun way to pass the evening with the family. Below are some pictures, not of which do the actual scenery justice:

 

In the morning we went to Richard Rohr’s church and heard him preach. He gave an amazing homily that addressed humility, immigration, and perspective. Abe and I were wowed. I spent the rest of the day considering converting to Catholicism, despite the fact that I don’t believe in it at all and it has an even longer history of corruption than Mormonism. But I just love Richard Rohr so much. Maybe I will enroll in his living school.

As we left we saw the international balloon festival balloons floating all around the sky. It felt like New Mexico was sending us back home with a colorful party. We loved this trip so much.

We hardly stopped at all on the way home, although we did have dinner at Pasta Jay’s in Moab. We adore Moab and have so many memories at Pasta Jay’s. It was delightful.

When we got home, we hung our chili pepper wreath on the door. We brought New Mexico home with us!

In the morning we went to Carlsbad Caverns where the girls did the junior ranger program and we explored the incredible caves.

Then we drove a couple hours to White Sands National Monument, and on the way Abe took this picture:

At White Sands National Monument we slid down the sand dunes and played in the sand. The sand is white because it’s made out of gypsum. I think this might have been one of our favorite experiences on the trip.

After White Sands, we drove to Albequerque and found a hotel near the church where Richard Rohr preaches.