Last night Ammon asked Lily if he could have the Alexa with a screen in his room at night. Lily gave him certain parameters he had to obey and then agreed. Ammon was so thrilled and grateful, that in the morning he made a whole display of gratitude for Lily:
Also, it was very fun to have Georgia over today!
Work has been incredibly intense for me lately, and I’ve started the (not-so great) habit of falling asleep around 4:00 after my slew of meetings from the day, and then finishing my work after my nap. I think it was during one of these naps that Clarissa put this love note on my bedside. She is so sweet!
Yesterday was very active, and we decided to make today a deep play day with the family.
In the morning, Lydia and Mary set up the upstairs to have homes and a school for all the dolls while Lily and I played games with Ammon (Clue, Operation, and Sleeping Queens). Then Lily and I had deep doll play time with the four kids. It was a lot of fun!
Then Lily and I played Wingspan with Lydia and Mary, and then we played by ourselves until after 11. We are having so much fun! Mary beat us when we all played together, but I’m getting better now that I formed a written strategy (which I formed while I was walking Basil).
This morning our Pastor Tyler came over as well as our friend Jordan Harmon for breakfast. We chatted about the lessons material for becoming a member. These informal classes are part of the process to me becoming a member, which I’m seriously considering.
After that, I rushed off to do some cross-country skiing with my great friend Daniel Olsen. The weather was incredible. I went back early as I was feeling so tired, but Daniel is in better shape than me and skied almost ten miles!
In the evening we had dinner with our Salt Lake Pastor and her family. Her husband, Kuzma made incredible green borscht along with delicious been piroskis and cheese piroskis. We had a great time chatting and enjoyed some Mrs. Cavanaugh’s chocolates for desert. Carla and her family are moving in May and we are really going to miss them!
Before we left, Kuzma took pictures of Ammon and Clarissa in their home-made photo/video studio. They turned out great!
In the evening, Lily continued her reign of domination at Wingspan. I think she beat me three times in a row (by a large margin)
Recently I discovered that we still had a pirate costume from a Peter Pan dance that Clarissa was supposed to perform in (and never made it to) a very long time ago. I felt embarrassed that we never returned the costume, so I drove to Smash Dance yesterday to return it. The lady there told me that we had actually paid for it, so it was our costume. We gave it to Clarissa for a dress-up and she spent all day Friday and Saturday in it!
Lily and I have been passing the time with A LOT of Wingspan. It is our favorite game, and lately Lily has been beating me consistently with huge margins!
Lily spent time 1:1 with Clarissa today, which Clarissa loved. They even played Barbies together. At one point, Lily told Clarissa she had to go, and Clarissa grabbed her face and said, “I love you soooo much!” Then Clarissa cried at night for Lily to tuck her in, which often happens on days when they spend deep time together.
Also, Ammon something adorable happened with Ammon today. After I got home from the office, I asked him how his day went. He said, “so good!!” He then told me with excitement about how today at school a bunch of kids wrote him love notes. I looked and there was a whole booklet of compliments to him from his classmates, and some other additional love. notes to boot. It was sweet to me to see just how much expressions of love mean to Ammon, and I’m sure to most anybody. It’s a good reminder to me to express love and compliments to those around me, especially Ammon!
I worked at home until after 7 and then read a book about Guinevere to Ammon and Clarissa and then had a quick dance party with them to this ice-freeze song that Ammon has been into.
Then I ran at the gym (which I loved) and had an amazing time playing Wingspan with Lily until after 11:00. Work was grueling, but the day ended very happily for me!
Today I had a crazy work day. I was going to go into the office, but it snowed almost 6 inches last night so I stayed home because of the roads. Also, the kids had school cancel so they all stayed home. Ammon and Mary had a ton of fun playing legos in Ammon’s room.
Clarissa was very cute and it was fun to have her show me her papers with her coloring and stickers on them between my meetings. Work is crazy right now with some days having over ten meetings in one day. It’s so nice to have these little pockets of joy in the middle of all of it.
After work, I had so much fun playing with the kids. First I played Sculptapalooza with all the kids. We had a blast and there were many laughs.
After putting the little kids to bed, Lily and I taught Wingspan to Lydia and Mary. We all had such an amazing time playing. It was the highlight of my whole day.
While we were playing Wingspan, Ammon was busy writing part two of a story he has been creating. It is so cute!!
Lily spent a ton of time putting the house back together and working on laundry today. Thank you Lily!!!!
Lily and I have been overcome with how cute Meera is on this trip. We are tickled to no end by the anecdote that Lily and Clark shared with us. Soren is a very active boy, and apparently when he leaves the house for school, Meera will mutter to herself multiple times, “now I can have my peace”. She is introverted and quiet, and unbelievably adorable. I saw her today jumping on the trampoline, happily without a coat in 37 degree weather, in her own little world for 20 minutes. It was adorable. Below is a video and some pictures of Meera being cute:
Clark, Swathi, Soren and Meera left today around 1:30. We will miss them dearly. We have had so much fun with them as well as Louie, Ginny, Bea and Clara, and it has been a very magical week for everyone. Grown-ups and kids alike felt immense bonding and enjoyment all being together. We are excited to all be together again at the end of the year in the Philippines!
After Clark, Swathi, Soren and Meera left (Lily drove them to the airport), I worked extremely late to catch up on work and Lily worked on the house. We are supposed to get 5 inches of snow tonight, so that should make tomorrow pretty and interesting.
I worked a very long day today, so I was not as plugged into what happened at home, but I know that Clark spent a lot of time with Georgia being with her and helping her with her technology, Swathi got some work done and rested, the kids played wonderfully (and so happily) and Lily read 80 pages of books to the kids. Lily also has been training Soren on his technique at the piano during this trip, and I think she did another session with him today. Lily later shared with Swathi that Soren has talent at the piano and they had a discussion about ideas for how to shape his musical future. Lydia also did some reading to the kids!
All the kids have LOVED Basil on this trip. He has a particularly great hair style from the groomers right now and everyone is very enamored by him. We are especially thrilled that while Bea started out very scared of Basil, he grew on her very quickly and by the second day, she was completely comfortable with him.
At the end of the day, we all met up to go to Cinderella at the Scera. It was cute and well-done. The kids seemed to be very entertained, and the grown-ups enjoyed it to.
At night, the grown-ups played Azul. Swathi played an amazing game and beat everyone. It was so fun to all chat and play together. Lily and I enjoy their company so much!
Today was another super fun day with everyone in town. In the morning I took Ammon, Bea, Lydia, Mary, Clarissa and Soren all on a bike ride (Ammon was on a scooter). We had an amazing time riding around together, and we rode in the parking lot of Mountain View High School and the Rec Center. It finally clicked in my head today why Mountain View is called Mountain View. See below 🙂
Then we all chatted and planned our big trip we are all going to do together in the Philippines in the winter. We are all very excited for it!
Then we all went to Red Iguana 2. The kids, of course, were having lots of fun together as they have been all trip. They were playing Cover Your Assets this morning before we left, and it has been been non-stop fun, play and bonding together for them. They have all gotten together so well and it’s so fun for all the grown-ups to observe how much they all love being together.
The food at Red Iguana 2 was soooooo good. I ate so much that I actually didn’t eat for the rest of the day. There was lively chatting throughout and everyone had a really good time. My dad, Suzanne, David, Olivia, and Ozzy all came to make the family gathering even more complete. It was so fun to be with so much of our wonderful family!
Then Lout, Ginny, Clara and Bea went to the airport. We will miss having them as we had such a good time being with them and showing them around Utah. They are so gracious, interesting, knowledge, kind, fun and deeply good. We are so grateful we could get to know them better!
Then Lily, napped and I worked for a bit. In the evening, Lily, Swathi, Clark and I played Pickle Ball. It was incredibly fun and it took my joy to the maximum, We really have been having so much fun with Clark and Swathi, and Pickle Ball has been a favorite activity for all of us.