Month: March 2023

Today Lydia went to Salt Lake City with Lily, Mary and Annamae and found a harp that was perfect for her.

Then they went to Gourmandise and Lily got this cute photo of Lydia and Mary hugging.

After lunch, they all went to Annamae’s and Lydia recorded more songs for her national music competition submission. Annamae was so nice to not only take time to let Lydia record at her house, but also to help Lily choose which videos to submit. Later in the day, Lily submitted everything for Lydia’s competition. Good luck Lydia! (Here are some of her recordings from today):

I’m so proud of both Lydia and Lily. Here is a text I sent to Lily while they were at the harp shop:

“Tell Lydia she earned her harp. I’m so proud of how she has taken ownership of her practice and become so amazing at it through her hard work, initiative and dedication. Lil, I’m also beyond grateful to all you put into her development. You should be very proud.”

On my end, today was totally insane. It’s 12:16 AM (Saturday morning) and I’m still up standing by to make sure our finance team invoices our deals correctly. I had one call with our finance team at 11PM and there may be another one since two deals still haven’t invoiced yet. But we got all the deals we were hoping for and I’m very grateful for that. I’m also very grateful to be on vacation next week.

Lastly, Georgia had a very hard day today and was not feeling well at all. Georgia, we love you so much and we are sorry today was so hard for you!

Lily was feeling very low that past couple of weeks, but all of that deep feeling has culminated into a burst of creative writing, and Lily is now well on her way to a hilarious, inspiring, profound and raw book based on her life’s experiences. The writing has been flowing and flowing, and she has found the process deeply therapeutic and inspirational. It’s been awesome to see her so inspired lately and I’ve loved reading what she has been producing.

Also, our pictures from our February family photo shoot are not ready, but here is a sneak peak of one of them that is:

Lydia recorded more songs for her submission for a national harp competition. Here is a sampling below:

This has been a very intense quarter for me with my two most important deals coming down to the wire. I worked until 9:15, and then fell asleep in my clothes, only to get up after 11:00, change into my PJs and go right back to bed. I’m assuming it has still been difficult for Lydia to record in peace because of the below note I found from Ammon the next day.

I love that note so much, it really tickles me. I’m so proud of Ammon for taking more responsibility lately. Earlier this week, he sat on the upstairs vanity drawer that holds all the toothbrushes and toothpaste, and it will be very difficult to fix. I was very upset he did that, and said, “why did you do that?” With misty eyes he said, “I don’t know, there was no good reason, I just did it.” I was so proud of him for taking responsibility and not making excuses or blaming other people, and I praised him greatly for that after I came down on him for breaking the drawer. I love my little guy!

Lydia spent a lot of time this evening recording pieces in preparation for her submission for the National Harp competition. It was a lot of effort (and frustration when home noises ruined her recording despite our efforts to be quiet), but in the end she turned out some great recordings. Here is a sample:

I am in the last week of my quarter, which is the most stressful time to be in sales. As expected, I had fire drills today regarding two key deals we are chasing down. I was able to keep my stress at bay by a nice walk with Lily and Basil in the evening, time with the kids, Wingspan with Lily and finishing this beautiful Gustave Baumann puzzle near the end of my work day:

Lily has been dealing with stresses of her own, as she has felt a lot of discouragement, frustration, fatigue and sadness. Today she took to writing and felt deeply inspired, like a book is calling to her. She built out the framework of an entire book, and wrote several pages. I read much of it and loved the honesty, and her ability to navigate deep and difficult topics with humor, honesty, wit, and wisdom. I can tell that she’s birthing something that will be special both for her and for her future readers.

Today Lily got up to take Lydia and help chaperone for her group’s District Battle of the Books Competition:

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Afterwards, Lily to Lydia to a pop-up crepe restaurant and to her delight, not only was it run by Nick Blosil, but much of the Blosil family was there! We love that family so much, and Lily and Lydia had such a great time connecting with them. Also, the food was delicious, which I can attest to, because I ate a ton of leftovers.

At home, my cold was peaking, and I was incredibly sick. I slept until noon, and was in bed for much of the rest of the day. Lily also was feeling very exhausted and blue, and so we were both so grateful for Lydia who created an amazing scavenger hunt for her siblings to give them something connective and creative to do today. Here are some pictures and videos:

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At the end of the day, Clarissa fell asleep next to Lily while Lily read Paradise Lost to her. We transferred her to her bed and then Lily and I played Wingspan and talked about life until very late.

Lydia and Mary were having so much fun reading Harry Potter next to each other that they actually opted out of Wingspan to keep reading together. This is how I found them around midnight.

Today Lydia made some more recordings at Annamae’s home in preparation for her national competition submission.

In the evening Jere came over and enjoyed Slab pizza with us. He also read Ammon his night-time book (Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus), and then he played Wingspan with us. It was so fun!

Today I started feeling really sick. Some of the kids are still recovering, but Dr. Simmons said they aren’t contagious anymore. Somehow Lydia is the only one who didn’t get sick whatever went through our family.

Everyone in our household has been sick except for Lydia and me. And writing this from the future, I’ll note that in two days, I will be quite sick also. It’s not strep or Covid, just a nasty cold.

Also, Lydia worked on her harp competition submissions. She did an incredible job, so I will post them here, but she can’t submit them because the B string is out of tune:

This morning Courtney, Matt and their kids came over and we had such a good time with them. We combined our prepared food with theirs for a truly delectable feast that included Matt’s delicious homemade sourdough bread, Courtney’s amazing egg dish. Conversation flowed and it was so fun to be with them. After brunch, we traveled to Salt Lake to see the Angkor exhibit there. It was incredible. Here are some photos:

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After the exhibit, we hiked on a trail that was right next to the museum of natural history that we had just visited. The weather was perfect for hiking and everyone (except Clarissa who doesn’t always like walking) loved it. But out of all of us, I think Basil was the most ecstatic to be outside running around in nature. It was also a major highlight of the weekend for me.

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After the hike, we all went to a Vietnamese restaurant called Indochine. I loved their Pho and Banh Mi sandwich, and it was also really fun that the restaurant was what used to be Gheppetos where I worked as a kid. I had fun telling the family stories from my time at Geppeto’s including the following:

• Getting a job there at age 14 and starting as a dish boy
• Sometimes being a little spacey such as:
  • Telling my boss the dishwasher was broken, and he walked in flipped the on switch and it worked just fine.
  • Forgetting about the pizza I was cooking to send home with the musician and burning it to a crisp to the disappointment of both the musician and my boss.
  • Dropping a jar of spaghetti sauce. It landed on the floor upright and spewed sauce all the way up to the ceiling.
  • Accidentally stabbing my hand badly when I was trying to open a cheese bag.
• Despite errors, being an overall extremely responsible and reliable worker and becoming head night chef, by age 15 or 16.
• Witnessing dishonesty of some coworkers.
• Being able to take home pizzas that we messed up on.
• Having my shoes smell like pizza a dough, flour and all sorts of other things found their way into my shoes during during my work shifts.

Today was a truly fun day.

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When we got home, I fulfilled my promise to Ammon to play with him. He has been really into creating an imaginary world in his bedroom and it is really fun to play with him and it means a lot to both of us. Today, the dog and his dad met the dragon in charge of locking away the bad magic and we overcame booby traps to get to the cave where the magic is stored, as well as the magic prism that helps store the bad magic. By visiting the cave, we set off a reaction that dispersed magical stones and now we will need to go collect them the next time we play. Ammon is so imaginative and all of that storyline is completely from his imagination. I love that boy!

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Today we got a babysitter for Clarissa and the rest of the gang went downtown to see a performance by the Utah symphony orchestra and the dance company “fly”. They are a group that does street dancing to classical music. The combination was amazing, and one of our favorite scenes was when the dancers were pretending to be swans as they glided across the stage on a skateboard.

Afterwards, we went to City Creek mall and ate at Blue Lemon, got chocolate at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Company and went back to our car. En route, Ammon enjoyed the fountain.

At home, Ammon and I worked on his science fair project. Lydia, Mary and Lily were at a play with Amy, Emerson and Isabel. I first took Ammon and Clarissa on an outing to get supplies, and then we worked on the project. Ammon really did a lot including the writing, gluing, cutting, using the hot glue gun etc. It was a lot of fun, and Clarissa also helped glue at one point. Ammon and Clarissa were happy about the glow-in-the-dark and glitter glue they got at Office Depot.

Here are two videos of the boat we made to show how paddle boats work. Ammon and Clarissa were extremely excited about it.

I then went on a long run, and fed and put the kids down while Lily went to Salt Lake with our friend Lauren to attend the book reading of another good friend of ours Kathryn Sonntag.

I came upstairs around midnight and found Clarissa had left her bed and found a very interesting position in the couch to settle into. I got a kick out of it, lol.