Month: October 2022

I wrapped up work by 3:30 today so I could pick up Lydia and Mary from Foothill elementary and meet Lily and the younger kids in Provo. The businesses in downtown Provo start passing around candy at 4:00 and going has become a fun tradition for us. What made it the most fun was that Amy and her kids joined us. Amy also brought some friends from France who were delightful.

After trick-or-treating in Provo, we went home to an incredible meal made by Lily. She made home-made chili, salad, cornbread muffins (from scratch), and spiced cider. I ate four bowls of chili and loved the whole meal so much. I rarely like cornbread, but I LOVED this recipe that Lily made and it was divine with her home-made honey butter (with marshmallow creme). It was also so much fun to have Amy and her family join us for dinner.

Then Amy and her family joined us for trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. The weather was superb. I was toasty in my frog costume. Everyone had such a good time. Here are some videos, including the haunted garage one of our neighbors made. That was the finale for everyone:

The spoils!

Everyone had such a happy time. Thank you to Lily for making the incredible meal and preparing all the costumes. Thank you to Amy for joining us with her sweet family and making it double the fun. What a great Halloween!

Today was a fantastic day. We woke up, got ready and went to church. Lily drove, so I could have a group call with my AXB friends from college which I loved. My story about getting a sour stomach in India launched us into a chain of similar stories, and there was much laughter.

Church was low on numbers because a lot of the congregation is meeting separately out of protest to a decision the Community of Christ made recently. The division saddens us, but church was still wonderful and uplifting. Afterwards, we went to a park with the Gruwell family (who we love so much) and we all ate lunch together while the kids ran around. It was so nice to be in the fall weather with friends enjoying our food. They are so fun to talk to.

Then we visited my grandma who recently moved to Ogden. She has not been feeling well the last few weeks, but she seems to be on the upswing. It was so fun to reminisce with her and also catch her up on our family. She is so sweet and she has a beautiful attitude in spite of some of the challenges that face her right now

Then we went shopping for the chili Lily will make on Halloween as well as for pumpkins for carving tonight. Since we were late to the game for buying pumpkins, only warty ones were left. Lydia was very vocal about how disappointed she was about the warty, but eventually she decided she liked the warts just fine (Lily helped by reading her articles about how popular they are for carving right now) which Lily and I are grateful for.

I helped the kids carve while Lily tackled the ever unfolding entropy in our home.

Lydia and Ammon aren’t old enough to use knives yet, and I got a real kick out of Clarissa sticking her tongue out while she focused on the pattern she was drawing on her pumpkin.

In the end, the pumpkins turned out so great, and they made us really happy while we looked at them.

After carving pumpkins, Lily and I cleaned and also talked to Clark and Swathi and planned trips for next year with them.

What a beautiful, wonderful and meaningful Sunday!

Today I woke up and played frisbee with a new frisbee group that I found. When I had my high-school reunion a month or so ago, we played frisbee just like we did in high-school and I was reminded about how much pure joy I get from playing ultimate frisbee. I found a group that plays in Saratoga Springs online, and I went today. It was absolutely everything that I had hoped for. They had some really great throwers and I caught some fantastic passes in full stride (an amazing sensation). I struggled with my throwing game, but I had a ton of fun being a receiver.

At home I worked on the house and the garage while Lily had really intense music practices with both Ammon and Mary. While doing house-work, I snapped this photo of the fun gourdes Lily bought for decoration.

Then Lydia practiced while I loaded all the bicycles. After music and house work until 3:00, we all went on a bike ride on the Jordan River trail. We had never biked the Jordan River trail, and we absolutely loved it. Lily and I felt it was one of our favorite trails we’d ever been on. Even though it was a little cold and windy, that didn’t dampen our spirits and we all had such an amazing time. Ammon and Mary are loving their new bikes, and it was fun to have Ammon and Clarissa with painted faces (from Lydia earlier in the day). Lily and I effused multiple times afterwards how much we loved the bike rides.

Then we all got Thai food at Baan Thai Cuisine & Bar in Lehi at the outlet malls. Clarissa was making cute faces while we waited for our food.

The food was superb, we all loved it. We then shopped the outlet malls and bought a new coat and fleece for Lydia and a new coat for Ammon.

While we were in stores, Ammon and Clarissa played hide and seek. It stressed me out a little bit, but I had to admit, it was also very cute. See below.

In the evening, Lily stayed up until almost 1:00 watching The Good Place with the girls. I watched until 11:30 or so and we all laughed so much. What an absolutely joyful Saturday today was.

Today we had family photos with Sarah Severson, who we love so much. We took the pictures at Tate barn in Midway. Sarah was so good about making the pictures fun for everyone even though it was very cold. Lily and I talked sternly with Ammon and Clarissa afterwords because of how difficult they made the photos. But it all worked out in the end and we went to Lola’s for some delicious food. Lily said the chocolate chip cookie was one of the best she’s ever had. Here are some photos of us waiting for our food.

Today Clarissa had a Tim Tam slam with Lily while I was at work. My Australian Friend from Qualtrics, Annemarie, was in Provo and brought cookies. Clarissa didn’t wake us up last night (which she has been doing because she wants to sleep in our bed or the day bed), so she earned a Tim Tam. I heard she struggled with the slam, but then she sneaked a whole sleeve of Tim Tams.

For more Clarissa cuteness, here she is pretending to read to herself.

In the late afternoon, I took the kids around at the Qualtrics party. It mostly consisted of collecting candy from different bins, guessing how much taffy was in a giant jar, and bumping into work colleagues and their families. We all had a good time.

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I have been craving Lily’s cooking lately, and Lily told me she has also been craving her own cooking because we’ve been ordering out a lot lately (especially while I was out of town). Today she made us all very happy by making a jack fruit pot pie which substitutes the chicken with jack fruit. She made so much that she even had enough to give one to our great friends the Kahlers. It was delicious!

Two other noteworthy events from today are that Lily read her mom’s book and loved it and talked to her about it and also Terry Peterson whose leading the charge on proposition 2 returned Lily’s voicemail and talked to her for an hour about why he’s fighting so hard for proposition 2. It was amazing for Lily to have a conversation with him because although we don’t necessarily agree with or believe everything he says, he was certainly kind, cordial and civil. It’s amazing how just talking with someone will help us see the good and humanity in them.

Today Georgia came over to visit!

In the evening, Lily and I talked to my childhood neighbor, Scott Williams. He has a medical background and also has been highly involved in the Utah environmental group, HEAL Utah. We asked him a lot of questions we’ve been struggling to get answers to and he answered all of them. Utah has an uphill road ahead to improve air quality, but at least Lily and I now feel that if we take the proper precautions, we feel more comfortable than we did before with the idea of staying in Utah.

Today was a good day for all. I have been very tired from a full work-day while I’m still recovering from jet lag. I puzzled with Lily and Lydia at the end of the day which was a really nice way to wind down. We really enjoyed the many interesting shapes the puzzle pieces were in. We finished the puzzle (Suzanne gave it to us!). It was missing one piece, but Lydia hid it with her thumbs up. 🙂 Speaking of Lydia, she powered through her harp practice today even though she was very tired. She is getting so good, and Lily and I loved listening to her music while we puzzled.

Given that I was awake before 2AM and out of bed around 4, I had a very productive morning. I exercised, meditated, got ready for the day and then made a pancake and egg-scramble breakfast for everyone.

After breakfast, Lily I and I did some cleaning around the house and then we puzzled together. It was so sweet to have Clarissa on my lap, even though it didn’t exactly help my puzzle productivity. 🙂

Ammon was happy making a “potions shop” in his bedroom with various bottles he accumulated from around the house.

Then shortly afternoon, I dropped Lily off for her facial and massage. She has been running the home solo for two weeks, and I could tell she was progressively getting more stressed and worn out as the time went on. She does such a great job parenting, and she deserved a break.

While she was at the spa, I picked up Georgia and she hung out at our place and played Otrio with Lydia while I cleaned. It was really nice to spend time with Georgia.

Then we dropped Georgia off, picked up Lily and went to church. I listened to Brian Wilson in the car because I recently saw a documentary on him that made me very happy and very interested in him.

At church the lesson was on labyrinths, a compelling spiritual practice. We learned about them, and then we walked a labyrinth outside that was painted on the asphalt. It was a very humble labyrinth, but the group had very meaningful experiences. Lily cried, and I felt deep spiritual insight and connection beyond what I often do. It was a very neat experience.

Ammon and Jamie were at church and experienced the labyrinth lesson with us, and then we had them over for dinner. We ordered Cafe Rio because of how busy we have been and had such a good time with them. We really gel well with them (both adults and kids), and we think they are such wonderful people. It was also cute to see their little ones tucked into the daybed and watching a show.

After over 24 hours of traveling, I was relieved to get off the airplane, and I was ecstatic to see my family. Even though my body had no idea what time it was and I felt a bit tired from the jet lag, I was buoyed and excited to see my family.

The first thing we did was go to Wee Witches. It was really important to Lydia for us to all go and walk around Wee Witches as a family. I love how much Lydia values our experiences as a family. And didn’t she do an awesome job on her face paint?

It was FREEZING at Wee Witches. The weather really turned today in Orem. It was windy and rainy, and at night time it snowed in the mountains. We only stayed about 45 minutes because of the weather, but we had a lot of fun with the time that we had. We got the little kid’s faces painted, walked around shops (indoors!) and got donuts for the kids.

They said the wait at Archibald’s restaurant at Wee Witches would be over two hours so we went to Maria Bonitas which only had a 20 minute wait. I gave everyone gifts from Singapore in the care while we waited. I gave Clarissa a pink purse, Ammon a sushi play-doh set, Mary a golden pig figurine, Lydia earrings and Lily a hat. It was so fun to share a bit of my travels with everyone. We also ate haw berry candy and peanut butter candy that I brought from Singapore (which was delicious).

Maria Bonitas was delicious! It was so good to all be together again!

Then I went home and passed out out 7:00PM and woke up at 1:30 AM the next day, lol.