It is very hard to clean up after Clarissa, especially when she plays with her food. I was cleaning up after dinner and took a picture of this. I just thought this picture was worth a thousand words about how Clarissa approaches food. She is just so playful.
After work today, I took Mary for a check-up on her eyes and we had the most wonderful news. A couple months ago we finished her one hundred chart, and after that, I really burnt out and struggled to be consistent with her eye exercises even though we were still supposed to be doing daily maintenance (15 minutes per day instead of the previous 30 minutes per day with the 100 chart). To top it off, one of the kids (Ammon or Clarissa I suppose) lost the blue lens from the red blue glasses that Mary does her computer regimen with. Needless to say, I was feeling a bit concerned about our lack of work that we did on this last two-month stretch.
But I felt so grateful to learn that Mary’s eyes only got better. Dr. Duval explained that her eyes go to a point of really learning how to work together, and now they are just kindof off an running and getting better and better at working together all on their own just by Mary continuing to live life. Dr. Duval must have sensed my sense of accountability and falling short because he said I could let all the guilt go. He said Mary’s eyes were doing great, and there was no more need for any therapy work at home. When he said that, I felt an incredible release. I loved doing eye exercises with her, but it was often after a busy work day, trying to carve it out of the chaos of home-life with four kids, and often I was feeling very worn out. We had streaks of great consistency and streaks of really dropping the ball, but just to know that it was good enough, that the desired result of her eyes being in a great spot was achieved, and that no more work was required was all such a gift from God to hear. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you God! And thank you Mary for always being so great about doing your exercises when I said it was time to do them either with me or with the computer! When I thanked Mary in the car, she thanked me back for working with her. What a sweet and appreciative girl she is.
One other thing I will mention is that in the Doctor’s office, Mary was so incredibly curious about Dr. Duval’s machines. While we were waiting for him, she circled all around his equipment and asked me repeatedly what different switches, buttons or levers did. I didn’t have the answers, but when Dr. Duval entered, he showed her what some of the buttons did after I suggested she ask him what some of the things did (which she did).
At home, I did story time with the kids before they went to bed. It was fun!
Not too often, but sometimes Basil gets in a mouthy and playful mood in which he just wants to be biting things and being playful. I ordered some blue welders gloves and we are trying to teach him biting humans is only ok when playing with the blue gloves. Hopefully that helps him release and experience some of his puppy and teething natural instincts without learning it is ok for him to bite people! Here is a video of him playing with me while I’m wearing the glove:
It’s almost a week later and I don’t remember anything about today except that the Marshall’s visited us and we such a wonderful time with them. They had Covid a little while back so they have the antibodies and are way past their time of being contagious, so it was totally safe. It was such a thrill to socialize with them again.
They brought their dog London, who is a gorgeous golden retriever. At first, Basil was scared of her, but then something clicked and then he couldn’t get enough of her. He was also confused, poor little guy. First he tried playing with her, then he tried nursing from her (actually latched on a time or two), and then he tried humping her. In all cases, London mostly just wanted Basil to go away and she hid under the table for part of dinner.
It was so fun catching up with the Marshall’s Camden, Carter, and Olivia all recited stories they are practicing for a school competition. Olivia actually won last year and performed at the Timpanogos Storytelling festival. They were great!!
The Marshall’s are so fun to talk to and we had such a great time talking with them over food from Spicy Thai. What a great end to our day!
Happy Valentine’s Day! The highlight of our day was exchanging family valentines and eating TONS of chocolate. (Yesterday we bought a 2 lb. box from Mrs. Cavanaugh’s, and today Lydia passed out Russel Stover boxes to everyone). We spent most of the day adoring Basil and cleaning up poop and pee accidents. Basil and Clarissa scored about the same number on both. It is days like today that I am especially grateful to be a team with my favorite Valentine ever. Between the two of us, we got the stains gone and our children and puppy clean. Clarissa got two baths and Basil got one. 🙂
Before going to bed Lydia and Mary played a concert for my dad and Suzanne. Then we showed them the dog again, including me playing/wrestling with the dog a bit. I like to play rough with him and let him use his mouth, but we are trying to train him to know that he can only use his mouth to play if it is with me, and if I’m wearing my special playtime gloves. It’s so fun! I love making him pounce and chase my hand!
On Saturday Abe and I did the 500, but I only did one set and then an easy bike ride. I have been tired so that felt like more than enough to me. But Basil thought Abe’s workout looked so fun that he kept pouncing all over him while Abe was doing push-ups and burpees. So Abe incorporated him into his work-out as much as possible. It was so cute.
In the evening we did errands and took Basil with us. He ended up on my lap for the majority of the ride. He is the cuddliest.
Today was Basil’s first full day at our home. He’s still a bit shy and scared. It’s very poignant to think of things from Basil’s point of view. Just a day ago, he was with his parents and siblings and now he is in a new and strange environment and he simply doesn’t know what is going on or who we are. I know over time, his memories of previous family will fade, and he will be so so happy with us, but I reflected a bit on what he must be going through.
Also, a few notes about the name. We settled on Basil like the plant. I wasn’t wild about the fact that it’s my great gradfather’s name, but maybe I should be. It is really cool to bring family names to life. I guess I’ve never thought of dogs carrying family names like human posterity, but the kids fell in love with the name when someone suggested it. At first it was pronounced “Baa-sil” (like the Waa noise of a a baby), but everyone struggled with that, confusing it with “Bah-sil” (like baa baa black sheep). My favorite anecdote about his name is when we did a video call with my dad and Susan today to introduce Basil to them, and I explained that we settled on the pronunciation of Basil like the plat because no-one could get the other pronunciation right and Lydia corrected me saying actually it was only because I couldn’t get the pronunciation right, hahaha!
Still, overall, he did very well today. I had a massive amount of work, so I was not super present, but I know Lily was very active with the training and potty training, and the kids were obsessed with him. Here are some fun photos preceded by a video of Lydia dancing with him.
On Wednesday I was telling Abe how frustrated I was in the dog search. Because of Covid, no reputable breeders have any puppies for sale. Everyone is completely sold out. I even checked out Siberian cats and couldn’t find one for sale for the life of me, and I also heard that rabbits are sold out. For all I know pet rodents are all also completely sold out (not that I would ever in a million years want one of those).
He told me to jump on KSL and look at puppies there. So I did. And I was literally texting a woman about a Maltipoo puppy when I took a minute to deep breathe and really visualize what kind of dog and energy I want in my home. What I really wanted was a Bernedoodle–specifically one with brown eyebrows!–but every good breeder was completely (as I said before) sold out, and the breeder I’d paid a deposit to was booked out for six months to a year.
Anyway, I said my first sincere prayer in a while that I would find a dog that would enrich our family in the best possible way. What should I see next but a brand new ad (within the last three hours) for a Bernedoodle puppy that needed a home this weekend because the original purchasers had backed out last minute. He had brown eyebrows. I was kind of shocked. But, knowing how rare this puppy was, I immediately texted the breeder and within minutes had positioned our family as number one on the buyer list with an appointment to see him at 7am in the morning Thursday.
Honestly the whole experience made me reconsider resigning from the Church. I felt grateful that the Church helped me feel like I could access God through prayer and discern spiritual experiences that continue to serve me. Although I now get really confused about prayer when I think of all the much-more-important-than-mine prayers that don’t get answered, I still am grateful for my good experiences with it. At the same time I am still upset about the high-level fraud and white supremacy, so I don’t know. I might still send in my letter. Who knows.
Anyways Lydia and I hardly slept at all Wednesday night–we were so excited! And then we got everyone up at 6am, loaded in the car by 6:35 and were in Sandy at the breeder’s very beautiful home by 7:10.
The breeder was the nicest person. Her home was gorgeous, her dogs were so well cared for, and Basil had us all head-over-heels within minutes. He was so calm, quiet, and cute! I felt reassured that we were getting a really great dog. His parents are both Rocky Road Doodles, which if you are in the hunt for Bernedoodles, is a known top-of-the-line breeder. I actually called them early in my own search but they were going to charge me $6,000-$8,000 for a dog, and for a dog Basil’s size I would have paid $8,000! So since I got the dog one breeder removed, it felt like the sale of the century for an absolutely incredible dog.
After buying Basil, we went home and got the house all ready for him. The girls and I bought everything we needed to bring home a puppy at Petco, and the girls were almost out of their minds with excitement. Finally, we were completely ready and drove back to Sandy to pick him up.
He was so scared on the ride home and spent the ride and the rest of the day shaking like a leaf, but by night time he already loved his crate and went right to bed in it. His 2am potty break was a snap, thanks to the breeder’s hard work, and it was so easy to put him right back to bed afterward.
He is a total dream puppy and we are all beside ourselves loving him. We love you, Basil!
Also, Abe here, for a quick note. I was selected as a top people manager at Qualtrics based on survey feedback from my team and I was invited to present my management philosophy to the entire company at an all-hands meeting. I recorded my little presentation. It was fun.
Wednesday was quite uneventful until evening time and I’ll get to that in a bit. Here is a picture of the kids eating a delicious grilled cheese and Kale lunch Lily made for them.
Here is a picture of Lydia looking over Lily’s shoulder. I’m guessing that they are both looking at something about puppies on the computer.
Lily and Lydia both have been researching dogs incessantly for a couple of months now. Everyone really wants one, and Lily and Lydia have been putting in the time to learn all about what breed would be best for our family, how to train and care for dogs etc etc. A couple weeks ago, Lydia announced she had almost $500 worth of dog things in an Amazon cart all ready for us to pick out. Lydia went through a Basset Hound phase in which she had an imaginary Basset Hound that she gave a lot of attention to. There was only one issue. Apparently, we are not the only ones to decide to get a dog during Covid. Seemingly all of the breeders for the dogs we want have long wait lists. We already put $500 down for a Bernadoodle, but a few days ago, Lily learned it might be a year before we get that dog. We were already planning on getting two dogs, so we decided to get the other dog first, but we just couldn’t find one we wanted that was ready now. We really wanted one now since we are all stuck at home with no travel due to Covid. We wanted to seize this time. In the evening, Lily was researching dogs and just coming up empty. Nothing we wanted was ready now. Then she sat back and visualized what she wanted in a dog, and she concluded that Bernadoodles were just the best type of dog for our family. Then she said a prayer to the effect of, “God, please help me find a dog that will be the right fit for our family.” Within 30 seconds, Lily found an advertisement for a miniature Bernadoodle. It had already been claimed for presumably a long time, but the intended buyer backed out at the very last second (we later found out it was due to renovations the intended buyer was planning for their home that would not work with puppy raising, even thought they hoped until the last minute to make it work.) The dog breeder was eager to find a new owner quickly and even lowered the price for someone that could take him within 3 days. He looked perfect and had the most wonderful eyebrows. Lily saw the advertisement within 3-4 hours of when it was posted. She called the breeder, and the rest is history. I saw the advertisement before having a phone call to catch up with my brothers. I didn’t know all the details about Lily’s phone call to the breeder, but I figured something might be up when Lydia interrupted my call by running around me energetically. After my call, I learned that the breeder would hold the dog for us to come see him, and we scheduled a 7AM visit to see him the next day.
What a day!
I’m guessing Lily took these pictures to show why she’s been feeling frustrated about cleaning. She does so so much cleaning and she and I both cleaned a lot this weekend, and I’m sure her heart sank to see the below pictures on Monday:
Because Lily and I are planning to get one or two dogs in the not-to-distant future, Lily is still researching dogs like crazy and the kids are totally in a dog phase. We recently watched the secret life of pets movies (1 and 2) as a family and tonight the kids watched “Beethoven” while I caught up on work.
We know we want a dog or two, but we are definitely intimidated by the idea of even more messes!!
One other quick anecdote is that Ammon played and danced with the robot valentines box I made with/for him. It made me so happy to see him love something so much that we made together. Lily commented that she thinks he loves it so much because he loves that we didn’t it together. I love that boy!
A few weeks ago, I caught up with one of my newer work colleagues, Mark Hamilton, who I attended the MTC with. It was a joyful reconnecting and I learned that he studied broadcast journalism and does video reviews for fun. After watching his review of the Bonneville salt flats, I got it in my head to go with the family, because non of us have ever seen them before. So today we went. Before I tell you all about it, first a quick rundown on the morning.
This morning I meditated which was so wonderful and nourishing. I also did some quarterly personal goal setting and attended church with Lily (after Lydia and Mary attended the kids church). As always, church was wonderful. This week I was particularly uplifted by the small group and large-group chit chat we had. The group is so loving, courageous, accepting, inspiring and aspiring that I always feel enriched just being with them.
After church and goal-setting, I took some time to help make Ammon a robot valentines box. We’ll have to get pictures of everyone’s boxes on the blog because Lydia and Mary each made really cute valentine’s boxes, and Lydia made a cute one for Clarissa. Only Ammon didn’t have a box to use. The other day I complimented Lydia on her amazing box and told her a story of a robot valentines box I made when I was about her age. She was very interested in the story and wanted to know more. Today I decided to recreate that box for Ammon. So Ammon and I worked on the box together. It was so fun to do a project with and for him! Picture to come.
Then we did the painful routine of corralling everyone in the car and we headed out to the Salt Flats.
Last night Lily and I were discussing how we would manage Clarissa, who has been potty training for a week, on this trip. We didn’t want to put her in a diaper and have her regress, but there are large stretches of road on the way to and from the salt flats with no restrooms. Then Lily suggested we pack Clarissa’s plastic pink trainer potty. I don’t know why, but I got this vision of her peeing in her pink potty by the side of the road in the absolute middle of nowhere in Utah’s West desert and for some reason that thought just tickled me pink. Maybe it was the juxtaposition of our pampered princess on her pink princessy potty against the rugged landscape of Utah’s West desert. Anyway, it was a very amusing idea for me.
Well, I told a story to the kids in the car about a boy who had a pet Beagle and eventually convinced his parents to also get a Bernadoodle, and then later on our journey, my dreams came true. Clarissa napped and had kept herself dry, and when she woke up, she asked to pee. Sure enough, we were in absolute desolation in the middle of no where. We pulled over, put her potty on the side of the road, and celebrated when she put peepee in it. I took a number of pictures.
After Clarissa’s potty break, we pulled off on exit 4, had more potty breaks at the gas station and then made it to the Salt Flats. There was a sign saying it was closed to vehicles due to the wet ground, but the ground didn’t look very wet, and there were quite a few cars driving on the salt. We parked and explored the sand by foot. Also, we brought kites hoping for some good wind. The wind was perfect and we had such a fun time flying kites as well.
After our kite flying, which was a complete blast, I felt like it wouldn’t quite be the full experiences without driving on the Salt Flats. So we all got in the minivan, and I drove up to 105 miles per hour. We then turned around and felt good about that. There were other cars driving around, and there aren’t any lanes or rules, and it felt a bit scary to be in a free for all at that speed, but it was fun especially for the kids.
We then drove to Spitz, one of our new favorite Mediterranean eating places. We were sooooo hungry on the way and we were so glad to get our food. Then we saw my dad and Suzanne for a quick visit. After we used their restroom and saw their new carpet and couch, they came out side and visited with us while we were in our car.
The kids were beyond excited to talk to them and fought a bit over whose turn it was to talk to them. There was so much excitement and happiness in seeing them, and we can’t wait to see them more often!
We then drove home, put the kids to bed and I blogged a little. Lily and I both felt very satisfied from the day’s adventures.