Month: December 2019

I worked on New Year’s Eve. It was nice because there were very few people in the office and the two deals we were chasing both came in to cap off an incredibly good quarter. Max on my team had a deal push which means that he will get a single promotion, not a double promotion, but I think he’ll get the next promotion by April because he performed so strongly this quarter.

While I was at work, Lydia and Mary wanted to make a tea party. Lily told them that if they were going to do that, they would need to clean up after themselves 100%. And amazingly, after their tea party, they spent the next hour responsibly cleaning up and doing dishes. What great girls!

It was so nice to get home a bit early and spend the evening with the family. I was so wiped out so I spent the first hour or so on the couch resting. Around 6:00 we had a wonderful meal that Lily prepared. Amazing crab from Harmon’s, mussels, roasted potatoes and broccoli, and chocolate chip cookies for desert.

We passed the evening by playing games as a family (race to the treasure), resting (me), reading (Lily and Georgia) and just being together.

I’ll make a brief note that Lily has been sharing a lot with me about what she is learning In Sacred Loneliness. It is actually super sad and depressing. Polygamy ruined so many lives, especially when it was practiced in its worst form, where the man did not take care of some or most of his wives at all or where very young women were thrown into marriage and sexual relations far before they would have elected to on their own without pressure or threat of damnation.  Unfortunately, some of the worst examples of how polygamy was practiced came right from Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Such messes in the LDS history. Very sad.

Mary lasted until 11:40 PM. When I woke her up at 11:55 to bang the pots for New Years, she seemingly almost rallied and then said sleepily, “no, I don’t want to do that.”

Ammon and Lydia, on the other hand, were still going strong. At mignight we went to the front porch and bang butter knives on pot lids and pans to ring in the New Year.  For a moment I thought someone other family also had this tradition (which I think we picked up from the Barlow’s in our old coldesac), but then I realized I was just hearing the ehcos of our own pots and pans, haha. Anyway, it’s a fun tradition.

Happy New Year!

On Monday, I finally scratched the itch I’d been having to start exercising again. It has been weeks since I’ve been in an exercise routine. I ran West at first, but then started to feel like if there was anywhere to get shot in Orem, it would likely be West of the Freeway on 400S in Orem. Ok, I don’t think it is actually that dangerous, but it was an industrial area that just had a super different vibe than the beautiful residential area we live in. So I turned around, headed East, and found a good route to a nearby running track it was a glorious run.

Whether the exercise was just too much for my body, or whether I was still recovering from the late night puzzling on Saturday, or whether I was just breaking down from cumulative stresses through-out the year, the fact is, I felt awful on Monday, barely functional.

Still, I managed my way through work, had a wonderful lunch with Daniel Olsen, my new friend and Mary’s piano teacher, and enjoyed my evening with the family. I put together our new shoe rack while we watched the 2019 version of Lady and the Tramp which we all loved.

While I was at work, Lydia made a treasure hunt for Ammon and Mary. She hid blue stars around the house for them to find. Mary got a “1st Place” gold star because she won the treasure hunt. They also enjoyed caramel apples which Nelly sent to us.

I am trying to finish In Sacred Loneliness before the end of today because fat books at the beginning of the year give me anxiety. I am always worried that I won’t reach my Goodreads goal so I don’t like to start the year off by reading tomes…but I am so close to finishing it that I am just trying to get it done. Unfortunately I keep falling asleep so I am taking a break and back blogging, which Abe and I have been planning to do for weeks. I feel sooooo bad for not blogging more these past couple months and missing so many precious moments!

On Sunday I tidied the house while Abe, my mom and the kids went to their last Sunday in the old ward. Abe and my mom had a lot of good conversations with friends and they both enjoyed the sacrament message about the pioneers and Joseph Smith. (Unfortunately, In Sacred Loneliness has made it freshly hard for me to see beyond Joseph Smith’s sexual predatory habits and the way he habitually ruined women’s lives, so it was hard for me to hear these faith promoting stories. But I bit my tongue and affirmed at the time.)

In the evening we all watched the 1994 version of Little Women and even Abe loved it. I love all snuggling on the couch and watching movies together. It is SO fun. The kids are stoked to see the new version of Little Women, especially since it has Emma Watson in it!

Saturday was a bit of a rocky day at first, but I did have one of the nicest morning prayers I’d had in a while. Ammon has been acting insanely difficult. Perhaps it is due to all of the neglect because of my intense focus at work to get promoted and Lily’s intense focus on the move and getting the house set up. He whines, all the time, about everything it seems. When we tell him to stop whining, he says (in a whiny voice), “I’m a bad boy” so then we have to deal with both trying to get him to stop whining and helping to have some sort of positive self concept about himself. “Ammon, you are not a bad boy, you are a wonderful boy that needs to stop whining….” etc.  He’s also been getting into a lot of trouble. He had an epic meltdown at Trader Joes, he has not been listening to instructions, and it has just been really really hard.

Lily an I were both tired, and not only got upset with the kids, but even got a little upset with each other. I think we were all tired and cranky from all the exertion we’d recently had. Lily and I made up very quickly and I got to spend a lot of time with the kids, which meant a lot to me because I’d been wanting to give them more attention.

I had the kids Saturday from about noon to 4:00. We got a lot done! I did a run to the dump to get rid of tons of trash from our garage, cleaned the rugs of lentil soup at the car wash, vacuumed the car, went to Trader Joes (where Ammon completely tantrumed) and went to Harmon’s for fondue ingredients.

So, it was a bit of a long day (though still meaningful and productive) to that point, but then everything changed when I got home.  First, I moved the downstairs couch all around and vacuumed it and under it (under the couch was crazy! We found so much stuff, including a sandal from the previous house owners).

So the couch cleaning was actually super satisfying, but the main thing that was so happy was my brother Jere came over and we did a 1,000 piece Harry Potter puzzle together.

It wasn’t just that we did a puzzle together. We had Harry Potter playing in the background, number 5 (that the puzzle scene was from) and number 6 afterwords. Lydia was also helping with the puzzle and its so fun hanging out with her. We also had the most amazing fondue of my life. The cheese was unbelievably good. With the cheese we had pickles, jalapeno stuffed pickled onions, sourdough bread, apples, grapes, and bbq smoked turkey. I had been trying to focus on eating healthy (which may have also played into my grumpiness earlier in the day), but I cast off all restraint with this fondue. It was honestly one of the most enjoyable meals I’ve ever had, and it was so fun to enjoy it with everyone.  I also used canned heat for the first time, and that was a great discovery although I was a bit worried about the leftover can and lid spontaneously combusting in the trash I threw it in.

Puzzling was so fun.  Lily later reported she was giving me lovey signals, like touching my arm, or playing footsie, and she said I didn’t notice or reciprocate and that made her sad. I feel bad, but the truth is, I must have been so engrossed in the puzzle. I was super committed and kindof obsessed. Lily wanted to turn in, but I was addicted and announced I’d finish all thousand pieces even if I had to do it alone. Well, Jere and Lily hung with me until it was done. Conversation was great, and the puzzling was just so fun, and we finished around 2:40 AM.  Man what a good time. And Lily, I will try to be more aware of your sweet gestures next time!!! Also, I learned for future reference, that to get the number of pieces right for a puzzling evening, it is wise to only have about 200 pieces for every adult helping.

On Friday Abe went to the Darais family Christmas party with the kids and my mom. I was completely exhausted and spent most of that time lying on the couch next to my closed book and listening to Kenny G. After a while I started tidying the house and listening to friends on Marco Polo. One friend talked about the new Little Women, which gave me the idea to do a Little Women marathon, starting with 1949 version that I grew up on.

Abe had a phone call for his AXB secret santa exchange, so during that time the kids, my mom and I watched this favorite version. It was so cozy.

Abe had a bad experience after the party. He had a huge pot of lentil soup in the car balanced between the driver and passenger seat. One of Abe’s pet peeves is when people go slowly on a protected left turn, so on a protected left he hit the gas and that pot went flying…all over the car. It made Abe really mad to have the soup spill everywhere. I think it was just a really stressful week in general, so having that top it off was too much. He was very nice when he was mad, though. (The only reason I know he was mad is because he told me he was mad about it multiple times. In a perfectly even and composed tone. I wish I could be mad like that.)

On Thursday we just lounged around the house recovering from the festivities. Abe and I also set up our bed and moved into what will be Ammon’s room after our room is finished. And even though it’s not permanent, I love this room. It has such beautiful views of the valley and the lake, and when I’m in bed I see trees and sky. It so full of light and actually fits Abe and my needs just fine. I don’t know what we will do with all the extra space when our bedroom is done!

I am pretty sure we didn’t do much else besides lounge around and fix up the room for most of the day. Then in the evening we had the Crofts over for dinner. It is always a treat to spend time with them. They are such cheerful, smart, interesting people. And the kids looked forward to seeing Pippa all day long. (Afterward I was horrified because I realized the sour cream in the potato salad was expired, but I Marco Poloed Betsy and she said they are all healthy and was soooo sweet about the fact that I almost gave them all food poisoning!!)

On Christmas all the kids woke up and opened presents!

Clarissa fell asleep on Tom’s lap. She looked very content there.

While Swathi, Soren and I made some Dorie Greenspan thumbprint cookies, Jere showed us all pictures from his Kenya trip on the television. He took some amazing pictures of scenery and animals!

Abe made delicious french toast for everyone for breakfast and then for lunch we had a big salad and leftovers from the past couple days.

After lunch I started cooking the sauerbraten for our German Christmas dinner, and then we cleaned the house and got it ready for our dinner with friends. At 6pm I took Swathi, Clark, Meera and Soren to the airport and at 7pm our guests arrived. I was still driving home but when I got home everyone was happily eating. It was so fun to see everyone! We had Jon, Shirley, Marea, Helena, Lesi, Chloe, Jon’s mom, Lesi’s mom, Karin, Jay and Jere over. It was a full house and we stayed up past all of the kids’ bedtimes visiting. But I think all the kids had a great time and it was so nice to see them all.

On Christmas Eve I cooked a lot because I didn’t do that at the appropriate time–which would have been BEFORE we all got together! But since I procrastinated, better late than never, right? The kids made and decorated gingerbread cookies for Santa, and they were very cute going to bed so excited for Christmas.

All of them snuggled around Swathi to read a Jan Brett book:

This day revolved around taking family pictures. Abe came home early from work and Wendy Whitacre of Blue Lily Photography came over and photographed us in the house. Then we all drove to Bridal Veil Falls for more individual family photo shoots.

Afterward we went to Cafe Rio for dinner and then came home to make gingerbread cookies while watching Elf. It was Abe’s first time seeing the movie!

My mom was not feeling one hundred percent on Sunday so Clark accompanied her to church in case she needed to go early. Abe and the kids went too, and after they came home we bundled up and headed to Sundance to snowshoe.

Lydia was feeling sick, Ammon was whining, and my feet were broken. About five minutes in (we could practically still see the snowshoe hut), Lydia was on her knees, Ammon was face planted in the snow, and I was wondering if my feet would actually survive the snowshoeing. So I took Lydia and Ammon and we had a really peaceful time waiting for everyone to come back. Everything was quiet, the kids were tired (and/or sick), and because we were bundled the weather felt perfect.

In the meantime, Soren was a trooper and did a fantastic job keeping up with everyone. Meera and Clarissa were carried and I am told they were also perfect angels.

Meera was understandably a little wary of the snowshoes at the beginning…

Also a picture of Clarissa waking up from her nap: