Month: August 2021

The kids spent a large part of the morning playing store. Each kid had a store. Clarissa had a tattoo parlor. Ammon danced for people in his store. Mary sold her art pictures and Lydia had a soda shop where she made orange juice soda with whipped cream and a chocolate drink for people (using chocolate syrup). Abe visited each shop and paid for things with piggy and horsie back rides for the kids. It turned into a hilarious game with Abe trying to give horsie rides while non-riding children put obstacles in Abe’s way and tried to physically prevent him from completing his ride for each kid. Abe pushed through the obstacles and collapsed at the end, but had a very fun time, as did the kids (who giggled and laughed during the ordeal).

Here are pictures from the kid’s stores:

Here are videos from the store:

Here is a video of Lydia saying supercalifragilisticexpialidocious in slow motion:

Abe then spent the rest of the day helping me organize the garage.

I don’t remember anything from this day because I am back blogging, but I did take this picture of Ammon’s cupcake. I loved how his turned out.

Clarissa started her birthday by coming down the stairs and seeing decorations. I think Lydia did a few takes to get this video:

Clarissa makes us all absurdly happy every day. She makes us laugh many, many times a day. We all think she is just the cutest, funniest, most darling little four year old and are so grateful to have her in our family. We love you so much, Clarissa!

Clarissa has been very talkative lately. Here is evidence (I think she says sparkle at least 10 times 🙂 ).

After breakfast we packed up our tent and headed to the lake for a boat ride.

After lunch we drove home, unloaded the car, fried up the fish we’d caught, ate the fish, and got everyone bathed and ready for the week. It was a wonderful, beautiful weekend. We will be back, Fish Lake!

I’m adding this addendum almost one year later. I found a journal entry Mary wrote for school shortly after the Fish Lake trip and I wanted to include it here:

Fish Lake

Today we left in the morning to drive to Fish Lake. We have never been and Lily and I were so excited to check it out. On the way down, we listened to an amazing podcast I found about the Pando Forest. Usually Lily is the one finding amazing stuff to listen to in the car (her last hit was Hemmingway stories to listen to in Florida). I was glad I could contribute on this front for once! On the podcast we learned that at fish lake, the Aspens and Conifers fight against each other for survival. Lately, the Aspens haven’t been doing so well for 3 reasons. 1. Human activity like roads, campgrounds etc is a nuisance to the aspens. 2. The killing off of natural predators like bears and wolves a hundred years ago has lead to a surplus population of mule-dear that is eating all the baby aspen and 3, the lack of fires in the last hundred years (when humans have been diligent and capable of stopping forest fires), has hurt the aspen, because aspen thrive in fire. They have a relatively wet bark (that is even a bit green and can photosynthesize) so they don’t burn well, and when they do burn, the shoot up tons of new baby trees in the area that was burned, and because of their interconnected root systems, they can send nourishment to those new trees, even bringing them water from miles away, passing water through the roots. Speaking of interconnected roots, the Pando Aspen forest (which we drove through and camped in) is the largest and oldest living organism on the earth (could be 50,000 years old). It’s the largest living organism because all the trees in the forest are clones and for the most part connected by the same root system. Pando is dying because of the reasons mentioned above. We also learned that aspen leaves quake (making a beautiful rustling sound) because their stems are flat instead of round. Here is the sound of aspens from our hike later in the day:

Once we arrived in Fish Lake, we had lunch at the Fish Lake Lodge. It was yummy and the kids got ice cream!

Then we set off on a hike to Pelican point (where Pelicans stop during their migration, but we didn’t see any) and also just followed the trail along the lake.

Weather started to get a little rough when we arrived at Pelican point which was on a high mountain plateau. Lily wisely suggested we go lower so we then went to a lower trail that went around the lake. We followed it for a little over a mile each way. Ammon was scared of lightening and even hugged a tree telling the tree to “be safe”. But then the weather cleared up, and we had the most unbelievable second half of our hike. Literally one of the prettiest and happiest hikes we’ve ever been on. We even sang happy birthday to Clarissa and let her blow out a massive dandylion (or whatever it was):

Of course others wanted a turn 🙂

After all we learned from our podcast, it was really fun to notice things in the forest like the age of the trees (young trees mean the forest will have a future) as well as the struggle between the conifers and the aspen:

After the hike we set up camp and I heated up the stew that I stayed up late making the night before.

It was an absolute hit, everyone LOVED it!

And Clarissa and Ammon were very cute playing badmitten

Clarissa and Ammon told Lily about candy world:

Then we all went to bed. Our view was unbelievable. We saw trees before it got completely dark, and when it got completely dark our view of the stars was breathtaking. Poor Lily didn’t sleep very well (as in barely at all).

Today Abe got a day off for Qualtrics’ mental health day, so he went biking up South Fork Canyon with Daniel Olsen and a new friend, and all three of them got their personal bests! Then he came home, showered, and took the kids on six hour shopping trip to get prepared for our upcoming camping and backpacking trips.

In their final store, Target, Clarissa spotted a giant motorized princess carriage and threw a twenty minute tantrum when Abe told her she was not getting it. Lydia told me this story between fits of giggles when I tucked her in at night. Lydia said the carriage was the most ridiculous thing and that Clarissa could not be pacified until she convinced herself that she would be able to build it when she got home. I thought this was very funny.

I got up early to help Mary and Ammon with their Zoom piano lessons at 7:15, I fed the kids lunch and cleaned the kitchen a couple times, and then I spent the rest of the day on the couch. I had plans to do so much more, but the post-Covid fatigue is really getting the better of me.

Basil had diarrhea today, so at least I had company!

In the morning Abe took Basil on a run, but I wanted to get some exercise so I took him on a two hour walk. I spent half an hour of that visiting outside with Morgan, Jessi, and Henry. I haven’t seen friends since I got Covid, so that was fun. I also love exploring neighborhoods, and I hadn’t thoroughly walked theirs before so that was also very fun.

Then I got tired and spent a lot of the rest of the day on the couch. Darn Covid. I think I did help Mary with her piano practice and maybe made and cleaned up a meal or two.

Oh, and Abe figured out how our steam cleaner works, so when Basil had a bunch of accidents we both practiced using it. That was very satisfying.

On Wednesday I took some medicine that gives me energy, so I went for a two hour walk with Basil before coming home and doing Mary and Clarissa’s hair.