Month: June 2020

The other night when Lily and I were doing our walk, I mentioned Lily turning 38, and she informed me that she was only turning 37. That was amazing news, because I thought I was 37, and that meant that I’m only 36!! Somehow I lost track of my age, but I felt sheer joy feeling like I just gained a year. Time sure is moving fast, and that was one moment when I felt like time was on my side haha.

Lily and I dictated to each other what we wanted on our special days this weekend (for me Father’s day is tomorrow), and we agreed that is a great way to go. It takes the guesswork out of giving a wonderful day to each other. I love Lily soooooo much. She broadens me, puts so much into the children, loves me, forgives me, comforts me, inspires me and gives me sooo much happiness. Giving her a happy day was such a joy. Here is the report.

First, Lydia made popovers for breakfast for everyone. Lily took time to herself in her room most of the morning. Mostly, she was working on reviewing a book of poetry for our friend Kathryn Sonntag. Both the poetry and Lily’s review are outstanding. Here is the link to Lily’s review that was published by associationmormonletters.org: http://associationmormonletters.org/blog/2020/06/sonntag-the-tree-at-the-center-reviewed-by-lily-darais/

For lunch we had Mobetta’s Hawaiian food. We are all pretty sure it is not very healthy for us, but we are obsessed with how yummy it is. Given today was Lily’s birthday, I thought it was a perfect choice.

Over lunch, Lily opened her presents and nice notes. Lily self-selected my gift to her which was some fancy lip balm.

Here is a video of Lily trying to go through her gifts while Clarissa is going crazy waiting for her to open the present she wants her to open.

In the afternoon, Lily went to her favorite plant/decor shop on state street called Sun River Gardens. It is literally one of her favorite shops on the planet. It is perfectly curated and it seems everything there is beautiful and tasteful. Georgia gifted Lily some money for plants as a birthday present to help with the purchases and Lily came home with a beautiful selection. It was so fun to help Lily tidy the house, admire her new plant arrangements and “play house”.

For dinner we had Fat Daddy’s pizza, and red-velvet strawberry icecream cake. We are all crazy about that cake, except for Georgia who has sworn off chocolate (so she didn’t partake), so she had vanilla ice cream we got her from cold stone. Lily and I agreed we both loved the food we had throughout the day.

Lily also got a massage from me. Honey, I hope you had a wonderful birthday. You are the love and light of my life, and you work so hard for our family, and I hope you felt our love today and that the pampering gave you a little more wind in your sail. WE LOVE YOU!!

Today the kids had their swim lessons!

After swim lessons the children learned all about Brazil. Lily is continuing teaching the children about 26 countries this Summer (one for each letter of the alphabet) and today was a Brazil day. The children watched videos of Carnival, made their own carnival masks and watched Rio with me and Lily. We also had Brazilian food for dinner (that might have been yesterday, I’m writing this 4 days later), which was delicious!

Today I was very busy in the morning with work, but I ended work early to attack the mess that has accumulated in the garage for six hours until it was night time. So I didn’t see the family much today and I’m making it a point to spend more time with them tomorrow. While I was busy with all my work and projects, the family had a wonderful day. Lily and the kids have been so happy with the new home routines, books, and playthings. It is truly a heaven on earth right now.

Here are some cute pictures of Clarissa!

Ammon, Mary and Clarissa were making birthday cards because of Lily’s upcoming birthday. Clarissa made hers for me. She gave it to me and I was so touched and gave her a big hug. How did she know I’m only 40 days away from my half birthday?!?!

Then Lydia decided to make a chocolate cake. It seems she’s always baking. I’m so proud of that girl for developing her love for cooking. She makes a big mess, but lately has been so good about cleaning it up, and the food she makes is so good! I loved the pancakes she made the other day.

Here are a couple videos of kitchen scenes:

Video 1

Video 2

Even Ammon, Mary and Clarissa helped!!!

The result was so delicious. I had a sizable piece, and then another sliver, and then a bite of someone else’s, and then I was picking off frosting from the platter……yeah, I loved that cake. It was so moist and the flavor went perfect, and it was to die for in combination with milk. Thank you Lydia!

Organizing the garage was like a walk down memory lane. I listened to one of my childhood Bob Marley CDs and bumped into all sorts of things from the past. Here is something I took a photo of, a missionary picture of Georgia with our old G St. house address on it. We love you Georgia!!

In the morning Abe and I attempted the 500 workout, only for us it was more like a 350 workout. We did seven ten rep increments of push-ups, burpees (I hate those), squats, sit-ups, and supermans. By the end Abe was late to work and Clarissa was crying so we had to cut it short.

A little later Lydia had fun taking a selfie of herself in Nana’s chair.

For home preschool Ammon and Clarissa worked with pincers to sort some plastic fruit into a pie, and then they started fighting. So I put Clarissa on the iPad and worked with Ammon on letters, spelling and reading. When I tried to read him a book, he interrupted by reciting it to me. The True Story of the Three Little Pigs as told by Ammon is so adorable and I should have caught it on video. But I was so appreciative that he assumed everybody would want to witness his feat and repeated it for whole family at lunch time. It was so cute.

After lunch we did a couple more hours watching videos about Australia and talking about Australia. Each kid researched the country separately and then took turns teaching us all what they had learned. The girls were enthralled with what they were learning and Ammon’s imagination has been captured by Australian animals and the cultures of Australia’s islander neighbors. He especially likes the New Zealand Haka and the Fijian fire dancers. Also Lydia kept getting up to eat more Vegemite. She has a very adventurous palate.

Here is a video.

Ammon wanted to take pictures and told me to smile for the picture below.

After we were done researching we all went up to watch Jack Randall interact with Australian animals. Ammon has every part of the shows memorized and narrated to me everything that was about to happen the whole time. I loved cuddling with my kids.

Then Mary had her piano lesson, and when Abe was done with work, he took Ammon, Clarissa and Lydia to fly kites. The wind was good and they got two kites up and had a good time.

At home I organized the pantry and was salivating over everything because I did a twenty one hour fast on the heals of a 24 hour fast today. I was DYING. So when Abe came home I decided to eat–a LOT.

After that I read more of Bill Bryson’s Down Under to the girls and did a relaxation narrative with them before heading out to walk with Abe. He is so fun to walk and talk with, and I love that time so much. He is going through a lot with the end of quarter work pace stress but he is such a graceful, kind, and thoughtful person–even when things are stressful for him. I love him so much.

This was my favorite kind of day, and I am so excited for tomorrow!

Today, I woke up and went on a run (Lily biked and did yoga at home) and then got ready for work. I admittedly was sluggish today, however, I attribute that to the amount of exercise I’ve had lately.

Around 1:15 PM , I got a text that our condo sale closed, and I checked and sure enough, the money was in my account. I am so thankful to Lily (for persuading me to sell the condo), to Clark, Georgia, My dad and Suzanne, and Jere (for floating us money….yes that many people floated us money), so that we could buy this home and finish the basement before selling the condo, to God (for helping us find the right buyer at the right price as Georgia often prayed for), and to my amazing real estate agent, condo association contact, and attorney. There was a point in time when selling the condo (which needed complicated repairs) during Covid felt daunting and scary, but it all worked out and that is a burden lifted.

Today while working, I peeked outside and Lily was surrounded by children as she was engaging and teaching them. It was a beautiful scene and I think she is and will be an awesome homeschooler. She’s thinking she’ll homeschool the two oldest daughters this upcoming school year for a variety of reasons (Covid precautions being a major one). I am so in love with my family, and that was a heavenly scene to see.

Apparently, while I was working Ammon and Clarissa were painting……which was very brave of Lily to allow 🙂

The only other thing I want to highlight today is that Lyda and Mary played beautifully for most of the evening with their stuffed animals. They LOVE stuffed animals. They built forts for them out of cushions and furniture today. To give you an idea of how much they loved stuffed animals, Lily and I recently put a bunch of smaller ones with sparkly eyes that Lily thinks are ugly in a DI bin. We figured the girls wouldn’t really notice. It turns out some of their stuffed animals have important roles, and we had thrown out the choir!!! The girls were devastated, especially since I wasn’t sure if we still had them, and they were super relieved when I discovered them still in the DI bin. But back to today, the only thing Lydia and Mary seem to love more than stuffed animals each other. Sure, they fight (just like any siblings), but when they are getting along, it is so joyful for me to see their joy as they play together. I was so enchanted with their playing together this evening, that I let Mary skip her eye exercise so she could just keep playing with her sister. It was a very sweet sister time they had. Here is a video to hear them talk about it. They even wore matching outfits!!

I was tired today, I think from the long bike ride the day before and my routine of fasting weekly on Sundays now. I do love that routine. I love the idea of Sunday being a day of rest and fasting is just one more cue to my body to rest.

In the morning I put together a bookshelf for the basement books with Ammon. Here is a video of us working together.

It was really nice to spend so much time with him because I didn’t get as much quality time with him yesterday as I did with Lydia and Mary.

After putting the bookshelf together, I helped to feed the children and then I put Clarissa down for a nap. Lately she has been throwing a lot of tantrums, and especially when it is time to nap or sleep for the night, but one thing I’m super grateful for is that she does almost always nap and sleep through the night in the end.

Then I played Avengers with Ammon. I’ve been modeling civilized play so he doesn’t think playing always means bad guys destroying everything and fighting with good guys. In our play today, Thanos went to “nice school” graduated his course and then there were escaped animals that needed to be put in their cages. It was fun.

Then Lily gave me a massage, which was amazing and we did home church, covering more BlackLivesMatter content, Mary’s baptismal questions, and a chapter in Ether.

During church, I saw it was super windy, so after church we all went to the park to fly kites (except Mary who wanted to stay home).

When we got to the park, the wind had died down considerably. We only got one kite up for about a minute and then it was over. But Ammon and Clarissa had fun wandering around the field, and Lydia and I had a lot of fun talking to Pauline (an elderly neighbor friend from our old neighborhood), and Josh who came out his back fence to spend time with us. Josh is one of my best friends, and it did my soul a lot of good to see him.

At home we all had Chinese food which Lily ordered. She doesn’t really like Chinese food, but she ordered it to help impress upon the children that the second most common language in Australia is Chinese because of all the Chinese people that have migrated there (we are still learning about Australia as a family). Lily has made learning so fun in our home, and I so love her for all she is doing to teach, raise, and inspire our children.

This morning I went on a long awaited bike-ride with my friend Daniel Olsen. We went about 42 miles, from his house in Orem to Granite Flats Campground in American Fork canyon (just above Tibble Fork Resevoir). That’s the longest ride I’ve done since I was a teenager and I was pretty beet while I got home.

On the ride, Daniel Olsen talked to me about how hard it is to get his children to clean up anything. I could relate. Lily recently made a rule that the children “could not step foot on the stairs” to come down to breakfast until their room is clean.

Recently we have observed the children holding onto the railing and walking down the stair siding, going down the stairs on their butts with their feet up, and (my favorite) today (writing this on 6/15 Monday) Lydia tied pillows to her feet to walk down the stairs without actually stepping foot on them all to avoid “stepping a foot on the stairs”.

While I’m on the topic of parenting, I do feel the need to point out that Lydia has recently picked up the expression “Humpf” and uses it ten to twenty times per day. When I’m in a good mood, I think it’s cute. When I’m in a bad mood I think she’s being rude and disrespectful. At the end of the day, it is part of how her personality expresses right now when she is upset and I wanted to capture it. I love that girl.

At home I got to spend a lot of time with the children, especially Lydia and Mary. I painted one on one with Lydia during the day, and I painted with Mary after the babies went down. I loved painting, and I so loved having one on one time with my sweet daughters. They are at a wonderful age and conversation is so fun right now with them. It means the world to me that they want to spend time with me.

Lily has really gotten into a groove with homeschooling and parenting, and she also continues house organization projects. She’s also taking the kids through a number of books about places around the world (Thank you Preethi for the program from your blog!). It’s been fun to bump into the children playing in spaces or with toys that Lily has arranged for them, and it was especially fun to see all the kids (I think on Friday) huddled around Lily happily learning about Australia (except Clarissa who was mostly playing). They asked me to read them the Wombat book, and they laughed hysterically during the 7th reading of it (Lily did the prior readings).

Friday I woke up early to do cross-fit with Lucas. I haven’t done strength training for a long time so it was quite intense and I loved it. I got home a little after 7:00 with some time to spare so I made smoothie and eggs for their kids and Georgia (Lily was fasting) and used rosemary to write the first letter of the name of each person on his/her egg. This is incredibly unimpressive, and I’m unreasonably pleased with this little thing I did for the kids.

At 10:00 the children went to their swim lessons. Lily got the first spot in the morning for these one on one lessons to reduce risk for Covid and we are very grateful for the spot.

My work was insanely intense today. I started the day working at 8:45 and worked on and off until just before midnight. But I did get it all done, thanks be to God (who I prayed would give me strength during the day). I’m usually quite out of gas by Friday, and today was no exception. Looking forward to the weekend!

This week has been really intense. It is end of quarter and now I am on a lot of customer meetings, but still trying to handle all my duties as a manager. Today when I finished the day, I was completely exhausted. After work, I picked up Lily from her eye therapy appointment. We were taking a break due to Covid, but I scheduled her again when I thought I saw her eye regressing. She had a quick assessment today that was assuring. Seems she’s still doing fine. But it was still very good to connect and get new assignments. They are all so peppy there and I love being around them. Kaylee is great!

Upon coming home, Lily told me around 6:30 that she planned to have bleenies with creme fresh, salmon and dill with home-made carrot soup for dinner, but she forgot to buy the creme fresh. She thought maybe she would substitute sour cream.

Lily introduced me to creme fresh some time ago, and I absolutely love it. The ideas of bleenies without them just wasn’t sitting right with me. I had visualized how amazing the bleenies would be, and it was hard to take a compromised version of that vision. Lily sweetly agreed to go to the store for creme fresh while I stayed home and made bleenies on the stove from the batter she had made.

After a brutal day at work, I was excited at the idea of a family dinner and set the table so we’d all sit together. We didn’t eat until 7:30 or so, but it was the highlight of my entire day. I LOVED being together with the family, and the food was unbelievably good. The bleenies were my favorite part, but the carrot ginger soup Lily made and the Shaker chess cake she bought were both sooooo good. I’ve been doing some dieting lately (just one weekly 23 hour fast and no snacking between meals), and I erased a lot of my gains with this one meal because I ate so much. But I was so happy. 🙂

Today the family had fun with sparkly pipe-cleaner. Here is Nan sporting her new crown and goggles! I think these were Lydia’s creations.

Mary and Ammon played adorably. Ammon was a super hero with his mask and power purse. Mary helped his costume and was his assistant. Here are two videos:

Video 1

Video 2