Month: May 2021

Today, we woke up and to breakfast at Village Inn with my Grandma, Doris Edmondson. She told stories about her husband, Grandpa Bob, who recently passed away. I caught a few tidbits in the clips below (I hope they work!):

She also shared some cute pictures with us. Everyone agreed he loved little children and was very good with them.

Then we visited with my Grandma Forsyth who is having a birthday tomorrow. They still weren’t allowing visitors in the building due to Covid, so I visited with her outside with Jere and my mom.

Then we drove to Colorado Springs and went to Garden of The Gods. It was AMAZING. We started with the visitor’s center, which included a movie, and then we saw the amazing scenery outside:

For Dinner, we went to Chop Shop Casual Urban Eatery, which was very yummy, especially the pies we had for desert (I had Key Lime!).

One of my favorite parts of the entire Denver trip is all of the Denver history that we were immersed in. We stayed in a home that used to be the French Consulate building. It was built around the year 1900, and was owned by a number of different wealthy families, and at one point the French Consulate, and then again by wealthy families. Around 1970, it was also the 2nd building in Denver to become a historical Denver home (Molly Brown home was the first).

Here is a picture of Lily reading and enjoying our beautiful home.

In the morning we had a large brunch at Cinzzetti’s:

Then we tried to go to the acquarium, but it was by appointment only, so instead we tried to go the art museum. The art museum was also sold out.

We all were very wet at that point because it was very rainy, so we went to a small pub/cafe for hot chocolate and tater tots.

We then went to the Molly Brown house. It was fascinating, and I wish I took pictures inside!

We went to Stueben’s for dinner loved it so much, I think we will eat there every time we are in Denver going forward.

My Grandfather Edmondson recently passed away, and also my Grandma Forsyth is about to turn 80 so my mom was planning to go to Denver this weekend and my family and my brother, Jere, decided to join her.

We decided to all eat (with Jay too) at the Original Pancake House in the morning before hitting the road. David dropped Jere off and also hung out with us for a bit. It was so fun to see everyone, and also was unreasonably happy about the idea of all eating at the original pancake house together. Also, in the parking lot, my mom snapped one of my all-time favorite pictures of Clarissa.

And wow, did the Original Pancake House deliver! I had fruit crepes which were so so so good!

Then we hit the road. The kids (except Clarissa) had fun taking turns in Grandma’s gorgeous Porsche.

The kids were outstanding in the car (they are such good travelers!) and we stopped in Little America in Wyoming for ice-cream. My mom used to stop there to get me and my brothers ice-cream on our Denver road trips when I was a kid. At the gift shop, we also bought a ton of activity books for the kids since they didn’t have much (errr or anything?) to occupy them for the previous 3 hours.

This is me setting the kids up on their activity books. Ammon had a complex color by numbers book that took a fair amount of explaining, but he got the hang of it and created an AMAZING picture.

For dinner we found a delicious Italian restaurant in Laramie.

We arrived relatively late in Denver and went straight to bed.

Today, Lily took the kids to Red Butte Gardens. Here are some pictures:

While I walked Basil in the morning Abe went on a long bike ride to decompress. Our trip last weekend helped a lot, but work just sucks him and the bike ride helped him at least grasp at the notion of well-being!

Thursday was also Lydia’s last day of school! It was a short day and she collected a lot of phone numbers in her year book for future play dates with her friends. I am so, so sad that her year with Mrs. Lammichhane is coming to an end. But I am proud of all the ways Lydia has grown in that class and will always be grateful to Mrs. Lammichhane for helping facilitate that growth.

I spent a lot of the day practicing instruments with the kids, tidying the house, assembling meals and cleaning after, and also adjusting to having more freedom in the day because of Lexy’s daily help. Lexy came over in the evening while Abe was at the old house, so I used the time to finally get my google calendar to match my physical calendar and double check that I have the summer scheduled correctly. Then I went and did hot yoga for the first time in over a year! It felt amazing (and really hard).

In June the kids have regular swimming lessons with Aubrey and then twenty-one lessons scheduled with Utah Swim Academy. I am determined that this is the year they will all become proficient in this life saving skill! The three younger kids also all have soccer and Lydia has volleyball, and all of the kids have an hour of dance (or, in Clarissa’s case, Mommy and me!) weekly. The three oldest have their regular music lessons and at the end of the summer they have acting camp. And my friend Jean is coming that last week for a visit too. I am taking a girls trip to Vegas with my Thrive friends the first weekend in June, and I am trying to see if we can work in a trip to the Shakespeare festival while Jean is here.

I found out Wednesday morning that Lydia had her school dance performance at the same time as my therapy appointment. I almost had Lexy take the kids and attend while I went to therapy, but then I realized that I am going to therapy because I feel like I fail so often at good motherhood. The irony in the situation of having a nanny go to Lydia’s performance so I could talk to a therapist about how to be a better mom was too absurd, and I also genuinely wanted to see Lydia dance! So I cancelled therapy, ate the fee, and attended the performance. It was so fun, and Lydia did a fantastic job!

In the evening Abe broke off of work at 6:30 so we could all go swim until bedtime. The kids are all improving every time we go, and it is very encouraging to see their progress!

On Tuesday I went out to dinner with my friends Jen, Courtney, and Heidi. Courtney was nice enough to pick me up and we met at the Aubergine in Lehi. It was one of my favorite friend meet-ups of all time. I loved how candid, honest and wise each person was, and I learned a lot. I am so grateful for these women.

I think Abe worked the whole time I was gone because Lexy came over to nanny starting at 5pm. She is absolutely amazing and gave the kids a spa evening. And the house looked immaculate when I came home, which I appreciate from the depths.

On Sunday we decided to spend the whole day at the resort. We started by walking on the nature path to breakfast, which was one of our favorite breakfasts anywhere. I had an egg white omelet for the second day in a row with sun dried tomatoes, spinach, onion, and feta with a little arugula on top. It doesn’t sound original or mind blowing, but it was so perfectly cooked. Abe had waffles I think. I should have paid attention, but I was very into my omelet!

Then we walked back to our room to change for our tennis lesson, which we then walked back to. We absolutely adored our tennis instructor, Jane. She was Filipino! I loved her style of instruction: playful above all, but still firm, exact, and invested. I wish she lived in Utah because I would sign up to have her teach me weekly. We both noticeably improved after one lesson.

Then we walked back again to our room and changed into swimsuits before walking to the spa pool where we luckily found chairs by the jacuzzi. I listened to Braiding Sweetgrass and my language learning podcasts and people watched. Abe and I both ordered yummy lunches and smoothies by the pool and then did some quiet laps in the pool while chatting.

I loved the pool so much it was hard to tear away, but we finally did so we could be on time for our tee time at the golf course. I had never golfed in my life and was not particularly excited about it, but I figured it’s a good skill to learn well-before retirement age, right? And it ended up being the absolute highlight of the whole trip!

The golf course at the Boulders resort is stunningly beautiful. Everywhere I looked there was something beautiful. And it had cooled down so it felt like a perfect temperature, and everything was so peaceful that there were bunnies grazing everywhere. And it turns out golf is very fun. I loved it so much, and Abe and I kept exclaiming over how lucky we felt to be there with each other.

After golf we went to the restaurant for one final meal. I was still full from lunch but the food was so good that it was hard to even consider passing up a meal. We had salmon, crab cakes, and a delicious kale and corn salad.

We were so tired after that after that we went to bed at 8:30pm and slept soundly until our flight the next morning!

Lily and I loved day 2 in Scottsdale. One of the things I first noticed about being with Lily is that I can be completely myself with her, and she can be completely her self, and we just enjoy being together. I feel so blessed that hasn’t changed after 11 years. If anything, we are only better pals. Today was our adventure day to go and explore Scottsdale. But we still slipped in some fun resort time. Isn’t the resort beautiful! It’s a Hilton resort called “The Boulders and Scottsdale” or something like that. Lily kept saying she felt like she was in the Good Place (for those of you that have seen that show, and thanks mom for the amazing recommendation, it’s one of my favorite shows of all time). We agreed the desert beauty was as wonderful as any landscape we had seen.

Breakfast was incredible. I had a delicious sunrise egg sandwich.

Lily had an omelette which she absolutely loved.

While Lily was walking she saw a wild pig and her baby! Apparently they can charge and injure people especially when they are with their babies. I’m so glad Lily didn’t get hurt!

We spent some time at the pool which was AMAZING and relaxing and I was able to get a massage while Lily spent more time at the pool. Thank you Lily for encouraging the massage, it was amazing!

Then we went to the butterfly museum, which I absolutely loved. I took a ton of pictures but whittled it down to these:

After the butterfly museum, we went to SumoMaya, and absolutely amazing fusion restaurant that Lily and I would recommend to anyone. Here are some pictures of what we ordered.

Lily, this has been the best 11 years of my life. I owe it to you, and I thank you for the laughter, the safety, the companionship, and the gift of our children. I love you!

Lily and I decided to celebrate our anniversary a week early in Scottsdale, Arizona this year! I think a new tradition is starting in which we explore a new city together on our anniversary. Clark, my mom and Lexi (our nanny) all helped make this possible, so THANK YOU to them! We’ve never used Lexi on a regular schedule, but after calling her up for help with this weekend we made the decision to start using her a couple of hours every day, and we are very excited about the help!

Here is a picture of us going to the parking bus to ride to the airport:

And a picture of our late night Mexican dinner at the resort: