Clarissa was home today and it was magical to watch Lily and her spending so much time together. They did a reading lesson, played Pretty, Pretty, Princess, played a matching game and I even joined them when Lily was teaching Clarissa to count to 20. Clarissa also got some screen time, and all she has wanted to watch for the past couple days is the part of 102 Dalmatians when Cruella Deville gets turned into cake. Sometimes she will just yell out excitedly, “it’s the cake part!” and then 5 minutes later she well come ask a family member to turn it to the cake part again, LOL. Clarissa has been exceptionally cute lately.
One cute anecdote is that Lily has been teaching the kids Tagalog. Recently she taught them how to say, “how are you?” “I am good”. In Tagalog, that is, “Kamusta Ka” and “Mabuti”. “Mabuti” sounds a lot like “My booty”, which explains the following:
Last week, Lily gave Clarissa a pop quiz, and said to her, “Kamusta Ka?”. Clarissa thought and said, “um…my….butt?” Everyone laughed REALLY HARD.
Lilly and I also had the most fun we’ve ever had playing Picklball together this evening.
I got the day off of work today, and I had a wonderful time with the family. To start the day, I played a YouTube video of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail while I made and served pancakes to the family. I was incredibly touched by it. His words are so powerful, and I love how he emphasizes non-violence, the need for action and demonstration (and not waiting) in the face of injustice, and the ultimate goal of all being in loving harmony.
Lily spent a lot of time today working with the children on their instruments. Lily and the kids are putting a lot of difficult effort into those instruments and I’m very proud of all of them.
Later in the day, we had Amy and her kids over for a playdate, and we also had Amanda and her daughter Ella come over to play Mah-Jongg with us. It was so fun to have our home so full of life and games. We love our friends, and we also love getting more and more acquainted with Mah-Jongg (as it is a bit complicated to learn, especially the scoring)
Today we played Watch Ya’ Mouth which is a hilarious game that Olivia and David gave us as a gift. It involves putting a plastic piece in your mouth so it’s hard to talk and then you need to try to say phrases and have your team understand and repeat back the phrase correctly. It was a lot of fun and we got a lot of really funny pictures and videos!
Paula Abdule walked me to school
After playing games, Lily worked on teaching the family Tagalog. Then she read us books including one about Wilson Bentley, the first snowflake photographer and showed us pictures of his snowflakes. Part of the goal was to get Clarissa to fall asleep, but I fell asleep instead! We then tucked in all the kids and Lily worked out while I decompressed over iPhone scrolling and Angry Birds.
In other news, Lily and I had a date running errands together today. We stopped at Petco, and Basil was so cute. When we started looking at stuffs to get for him, he started begging and pulled a monkey stuffy right off the shelf. In the car he grabbed it out of the bag, and he was so happy walking around the house with it!
Lydia’s friend Lizzie came over and they had a lot of fun painting and also playing Chocolatier Azule with Mary and Lily. Everyone had some chocolate in the process! Lizzie was very sweet and a lot of fun to have around.
We continue to have so much fun with games as a family. We played a new game called Outfoxed, which Ammon and Clarissa LOVED and I also played some Bananagrams and Mah-Jongg with Lily, Lydia and Mary. What a fun Saturday!
The kids did not have school today and they had a lot of fun dressing up Clarissa for a fully-fledged fashion show.
While working, I met all of my new team members and I love them all. I feel very fortunate to be working on the Healthcare team!
At the end of my work day, I played Pickleball with Lily and then we played games again with the Olsens (both Chocolatier Azule, and Mah-Jongg, which they instructed us on). Those two activities are becoming routine for Fridays, and I look forward to them so much!
Today we were blessed to have my cousin Adam over for dinner. He is one of the most loving and interesting people I know. He just finished watching his brother and sister-in-law’s kids for a week, and he seems to always be doing things for people. Even as our guest, he brought fancy bracelet stones and his bracelet-making kit so that we all could make Daraicelets. They turned out beautiful, and each one featured a smashed dime with the person’s birth-year on it.
Over dinner, we got to get all caught up about Adam and his family. We got to hear the amazing story of Adam’s career. Grandpa Darais encouraged him to get into doing make-up for Hollywood stars (because when grandpa lived in LA as a youth he would see make-up artists always following the stars and he figured they were likely paid well and in demand) and that’s exactly what Adam did through hard work and a few strokes of luck. Because he works with so many Hollywood stars, Adam has a lot of super interesting stories and he shared some with us. Also, he is extraordinarily close with his family, and is often involved when and where his family has needs. It was also incredible to hear about his own journey of not being accepted for by family for so long (and in some cases still facing rejection), but continuing to love, reach out, and pave the way of acceptance for others in the process. His heart is full of love and grace despite what he has gone through. He had such a good and loving energy that we all felt uplifted when he left. We felt like we had been visited by an extraordinarily fun saint!
Lily made a wonderful holiday card and letter this year, and I want to save it here to be remembered:
Dear Friends,
We almost died on a mountain pass this year so we are especially stoked to report that the end of 2022 finds each of us happily alive. That’s the brunt of it so if this busiest of seasons means you have no time for further reading, you have our empathy and goodwill. Happy holidays!
XO, The Daraises
If specifics are your thing, then here’s our update:
Clarissa, 5, learned who Santa is. All things magical have since suffered in her estimation. Zebras have replaced unicorns as her favorite animal. She’s charming, cute, and addicted to sugar.
Ammon, 7, lost his two front teeth just in time for everyone to sing him the classic seasonal song. He anticipates goodwill everywhere and makes new friends on every outing. He loves dance, music, legos, sticker books, imagination games, and back scratches at bedtime.
Mary, 10, continues to be head over heels for pigs. Mary loves art and the color brown, excels at the piano, corresponds with penpals, reads all sorts of books, writes funny poems, bakes the best cookies and brownies, celebrates her birthday by volunteering, and dresses practically. Normally quiet and understated, she is our feistiest child when provoked. She became a vegetarian this year.
Lydia, 11, always alert to adult concerns, has recently become obsessed with bunkers that would withstand events of mass-extinction. (Lily’s fault.) When she’s not dreaming about the end of the world, Lydia can be found reading voraciously, felting, baking, creating fun for her siblings, thoroughly brushing her braces, volunteering, and closely observing 6th grade drama. She completed writing six chapters of her first novel this summer. She loves talking with her parents and would chat until midnight every night if allowed. She has spent hundreds of hours practicing for her first national harp competition this coming Spring.
Basil, our 2-year old bernedoodle, scared off would-be intruders in July. We love him.
Lily is starting to doubt therapy will ever help her morph into the calm, unflappable type but persists in the exercise. She read 50 books as penance for the staggering amount of celebrity news she consumed on her phone. She also volunteered as the manager of the TSOS internship program, overcame her preoccupation with the Great Salt Lake’s demise, and canvassed against a local proposition. Her house was egged in the process. She made 1,200 buttons for Battle of the Books and took up pickleball with Abe.
Abe continues to be a mashup of Mr. Rogers, Richard Rohr, and Bob Crachitt. He loves practicing new stress management techniques. He also biked, fished, ran, played pickleball, played basketball, played frisbee, skied, and worked a ton this year. He is transitioning from managing a corporate Northeast team at Qualtrics to an enterprise healthcare Northeast team at Qualtrics in 2023.
We are grateful to journey through life alongside the most wonderful people–especially you!
Love,
The Daraises
What we did with our free time and money (when we had it) this year:
2022 places we explored: Death Valley National Park, Palm Springs, Joshua Tree National Park, Bryce Canyon National Park, Kanab (twice), Pipe Springs National Monument, Lake Tahoe, Santa Clara, San Francisco, Alcatraz, SFMOMA, Muir Woods National Monument, Point Reyes National Seashore, Golden Gate Park, Portland, Tacoma, Deception Pass State Park, Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, backpacked in the Uintas, Golden Spike National Monument, Spiral Jetty, Mesa Verde National Park, Durango, Silverton, Colorado National Monument, New York City, France, Switzerland, day trip to Germany, Grand Teton National Park, Fish Lake, Colorado Springs, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Manitou Springs, Air Force Academy, Olympic and Paralympic Training Center, and Petrified Forest National Park.We also enjoyed eating at Pasta Jay’s in Moab several times and getting to know Park City better. Lily did a road trip with her friend Jen from Utah through New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, and ended in Baltimore. They visited their friend, Ashley, and spent a night with Lily’s lovely cousins, Louie, Ginny, and their daughters, Clara and Bea. Lily, Lydia, & Mary went to Chicago with their friends Amy, Emerson, and Isobel. They worked Springfield and Evanston into the trip. Abe spent two weeks in India and Singapore for work. Abe and Lily were invited as friends of the National Park Foundation to the lighting of the Washington D.C. Christmas Tree and had a wonderful weekend there together. Many thanks to Tom and Suzanne for caring for our children and making that possible!
Performances: We saw As You Like It at BYU with Amy, Emerson, and Isobel, watched our friend Olivia Marshall in Tuck Everlasting twice, cheered on Eli in The Christmas Story, enjoyed The Lion King at the Eccles on Ammon’s birthday, and saw The Unsinkable Molly Brown with Tom and Suzanne. We also enjoyed the Utah Symphony.
We discovered the tag-along bike attachment in New York’s Central Park and have since enjoyed biking the Provo River Trail, the Jordan River Trail, and the Park City White Barn trail as a family.
Thanks to our friend, Courtney, we discovered our favorite new local trail: Primrose Overlook in the Alpine Loop.
We completed several jigsaw puzzles this year and finally purchased a puzzling table.The table is Lily’s dream come true. The holographic puzzle currently on the table is a nightmare.
Our favorite new gadget was a gift from Lily’s brother, Clark: An Aarke that carbonates our water. Yum.
Our favorite movie of the year was Wakanda Forever. Thanks to the Marshalls for renting out a theater and letting us watch it for free!
Our favorite family songs this year are: Bully in the Alley by Nathan Evans and Puppies are Forever by Sia.
We enjoyed several overnights at church camp with our church, Community of Christ, and walked our first labyrinth with our friends, the Gruwells. It was an incredibly moving experience that deepened our awareness and gratitude.
We lost a lot of money (for us) when the tech bubble burst. In the event we actually send out a card next year, this page will undoubtedly be much shorter!
Also, I recently set up an old television set (that I won from Qualtrics 8 years or so ago) in the upstairs since our regular TV up there mysteriously stopped working (and also has a crack in it that may or may not be new).
Lily and I also enjoyed a puzzle tonight. It was a gorgeous piece painted on a wood block by Gustave Baumann. I looked up more of his art, and I absolutely love his work. The puzzle was only 300 pieces, but it was still a good challenge and Lily and I only got through half. I was thinking lately about things that really slow me down and help me be mindful, balanced and relaxed and I decided puzzling and reading are two of the things that really calm me down and help me relax, process and enjoy life. I’m so glad I got to puzzle tonight with my sweetheart. It truly is one of my favorite things!
Today Clarissa ate the rest of one of my apples and took all the seeds out of it and was very excited by them. In a flash of inspiration, she then drew a diagram about how seeds turn into trees. It was adorable! I caught her drawing and explanation in this video:
Also, Lily brought home some chocolate from Mrs. Cavanaugh’s and See’s Candies today. The kids had fun comparing them.
In the evening, we had a lot of fun as a family playing games. Lily played Chocolatier Azule with Ammon, Lydia and Mary, and I played Sculptapalooza with Clarissa. It was very fun!
Clarissa’s Roller Coaster
Then Lily and I stayed up until 1AM playing very fun variations of Chocolatier Azule.
I took Lydia and Mary to ski school today. It rained through their entire two hour lesson. I skied while they were in their lesson and had fun, but got completely soaked. When they finished their lesson, they were drenched. They still made it through the lesson with good attitudes and I was very proud of them. At home, Lily made a delicious, soup, grilled cheese and hot chocolate dinner that we all enjoyed after taking warm showers and getting in dry clothes. It was maybe the craziest skiing I have ever done!
Today we went to church and then went to David and Olivia’s house where we had a great time chatting and eating Cafe Rio.
We then all went sledding together. Even though so much of the recent snowfall has melted, Churchill Junior High still had plenty of snow for sledding. It was so fun, and Ozzy also sledded for the first time. He’s so cute!
We had a really great time, and the only hard part was getting Clarissa to walk where we needed her to walk, especially at the end for the long walk back to the car.
Now we are home being cozy, catching up on music practice, drinking hot-coco, eating, playing games and I’m blogging.
One last thing to report. Clarissa and I prepared fondue for the family today:
