Author: Abe Darais

Lydia and Mary were invited to perform in a music recital being put on by Jill Freestone. Jill teaches music, but doesn’t have a lot of students so she wanted to invite others to perform with her students to make it a bigger event. It was so nice to be invited!

Clarissa promptly started misbehaving, so I spent the evening chasing her around the music store, outside from shop to shop in the strip mall, and all around the side-walk. It was exhausting, but I also admit that I feel sad when I think about not having a baby to chase anymore. She is just so adorable.

Also, a quick note on the Freestones. They have become such cherished friends. Lily and Jill have a wonderful friendship. I love chatting with Kenny whenever I see him, and their daughters have been so wonderful to our children. They let Ammon sit with them at church, and he behaves for them!

Emma (who is now on a mission), Katie and Eliza dote on our kids. They love them, babysit them, invite them to be in plays and art classes, walk home with them and in every way, just befriend them. The are such beautiful people, and again, such cherished friends.

I woke up early this morning to go to breakfast with Randy Blosil, my friend from the ward.  We were both so exhausted, but we still loved conversing. The ideas that he is most passionate are that Jesus is a God of Yes, and we should say yes in our own lives to the requests of others and also that God has infinite respect for our sacred right to make our own choices.

At home, Lily and I ran errands together and took Lydia to and from her harp rehearsal for the upcoming recital. Our errands consisted of Costco and Trader Joe’s.

At home we did a lot of cleaning and housework together while the kids played with friends.  I cleaned the minivan, Lily made soup and chili, and we both worked on cleaning the house.

I was soooooo tired. I stopped cleaning at two various junctures and each stop resulted in a mini-nap.  The bright spot throughout my day was how much I enjoyed my time with my sweet wife. We are really in love right now, and I just loved having so much time with her.  The regular hugs and loving comments between each other certainly brightened things for me while we were slogging away.

I was literally crawling at the end of the day as I finished working on the upstairs, but then something truly special happened, a moment that just lifted the whole day up and made it special.

The girls, Lydia and Mary, just started randomly singing a song about being able to fly. I think they had forgotten what it was or where they heard it. It was “I Can Fly” from the Brave soundtrack, and we last heard it only a handful of times on our New Mexico trip almost a month ago. It took me some time to figure out what song they were singing, but once I identified it, I thought, “what the heck!” and I bought it on itunes and cranked it up on our stereo and initiated a family dance party.  It was so fun and special. We all had such a blast, and for about 20 minutes, I felt like I was ten years old, and not three hundred years old like I felt the rest of the day. Thank You God for moments like these 🙂

Here are some pictures and a video of the dance party:

Everyone was in a super good mood after the dance party. Here is a video that Mary made with Lydia before they went to bed.

 

 

 

Friday was the first day I felt sort-of normal since getting sick, and it’s the first time in a while I put in what felt like a sort-of normal effort at work because I was in office and I had decent energy.

It was a fun day, because I continue to get lots and lots of good news. We will be way over our quota this quarter and that is a lot of fun.

At home, Lily and I enjoyed having a semi-normal evening together and we watched the first episode of Jack Ryan which was fun.

Lily and I slept in this morning, which was amazing. Lily suggested we stay home and catch up on things instead of go to Cedar Breaks, which turned out to be an amazing suggestion. We did a lot of cleaning on the house, put away the girls’ summer clothes, so there is room in their closets for winter clothes, and now we are catching up on blogging. More things will happen today sure, but now is when I’m blogging, so that’s all I’ll report!

Today was a good day. I have been quite sick, so I’ve been at about 50% capacity, but there has been so much to be happy about. First of all, work is going very well this quarter. We are in first place for a sales competition and if my team wins, we will get $15,000 for a team trip.  We have to hold the lead through December, but it is exciting to be in the running. After a very hard quarter last quarter, it is so nice that a lot of business seems to be coming through this quarter. Sales is certainly up and down. There is also starting to appear the chance that I would promote at the end of this quarter or next. The reason why that is significant (aside from the money), is that then I would no longer be working two jobs (sales rep and manager) because I would only be managing at that point and my team would not even get much bigger.

I went to my car to rest and read Richard Rohr partway through the day because I was feeling so whiped out and on the way out to the car, I couldn’t help, but to admire the beautiful trees in our work parking lot.

I made it through the day, but I really had to push hard to make it to the end. I have a new system at work that is really helping me. It is that at the beginning of each work day, I decide the three most important things that need to get done that day, and I make sure they happen, even if it means cancelling meetings, dropping other balls, postponing or neglecting e-mails and chats etc. I was very tired today and only did 2 of my 3 things, but it was a productive day.

At home, we all ate an incredible shepherd’s pie dinner that Lily made and then she left for a while to get her hair colored. It turned out so amazing! Here are the pictures!!

While Lily was gone, I was doing my best to parent while feeling incredibly exhausted. I think it was a combination of work stress, some hard things that happened at work, still feeling sick, overexerting at work, potential allergies and the weightiness of my faith issues right now.

It was probably an evening in which the kids could have gotten away with anything on me because I was just too tired to regulate the kids effectively.  Clarissa took full advantage of my state and jumped down from the top of the couch over and over and over (sorry Georgia). I did, however, have the presence of mind to grab a video!

After the kids went down, I napped for an hour from 8-9, then I lay in my bed delirious with fatigue. I was so tired that I didn’t want to get up, and I just reached for something on my bedside and I found myself reading Better Homes and Gardens….which is not really my cup of tea. Although I do love gardening. I finally compelled to get myself out of bed and I planned next years garden with the mistakes of this year all fresh in my head. I’m going to plant only one thing per box, give plants way more space, plant my carrots one at a time so I don’t need to worry about thinning, and hopefully be more intentional about soil nutrients.

When Lily made it home we finished the battle against the White Walkers in Game of Thrones.  I admit the series is a bit intense with its content, but the story-line, characters and execution have all been incredible, and it has been a very fun show to bond over with Lily.

 

 

Mary had an assignment due on Tuesday to record a fairy tail on video for the class.  Lily and I were both so tired on Tuesday after the trip (and wanting to bond over Game of Thrones), that we asked the teacher for an extension.

Tonight, was our night to get it done, and Mary, Georgia and Lydia are the heroes. Unbeknownst to me and Lily, those three prepared a beautiful story. Georgia typed it out and edited while Mary dictated, and all three worked on costumes and acting parts etc. They announced to me and Lily that they were ready, and we couldn’t believe what a wonderful production Georgia helped them to produce. Georgia is such a patient, involved and loving angel.

It took us a few takes to get it right, but finally we got it! Here is the video!

 

 

 

We don’t have any photos for Wednesday and as far as I can remember it was pretty plane. It was a half-day for Lydia, and the last day before fall-break for all the kids in school.

I was still fighting a cold at work and feeling down about my faith struggles, but three things helped cheer me up:

1. It was my mom’s birthday, and I had a very lovely chat with her. She is so sweet and just recovering from the corporate tax deadline that just finished the day before her birthday (she runs a tax practice).
2. It was “bring your own dish to the lunch-line” day, and I went to William-Sanoma on my lunch break to buy a plate, a bowl and a fork so I don’t waste paper with every meal now. And I qualified for a free cookie!
3. Lily has been over the top sweet to me and telling me she loves in various intentional and touching ways.

Mary had a performance class in the evening. I’m guessing Lily and I also watched Game of Thrones.

Lily spent more time with Ammon than I did on his birthday and she’s sleeping now, but I’ll do my best to recreate his birthday (feel free to add, if I miss anything Lily!)

First, Ammon woke up to find balloons and presents downstairs on the table. He wanted to open up all of his presents right away, and so that is how he started the day.

After watching him open up some presents, I went to work, but then Lily made a French Toast breakfast with candles to blow out for him.

While I was at work, Ammon got to play at the kid’s area with Clarissa at the Toyota dealership while our car received maintenance. I’m not sure what Lily did with him after that, but she may have taken him to the park.

I left work a bit early to take Ammon to the arcade. It was so much fun! I loved it every bit as much as he did. It was so fun to pal around with my little man. We played a motorcycle game, threw balls at the clowns, played ski-ball, and even played “Let’s Make a Deal”. But the best game of all was a shooter arcade game for kids. You shot Zombies and your gun actually shot streams of water on the screen. We kept paying more and more until we beat the game because Ammon loved it so much. I had a great time too! Ammon, I look forward to many more fun father-son times with you.

 

At home, we had a yummy dinner from Sushi Burrito. Then we had a Baskin Robins Ice-Cream cake. Clarissa blew out a couple of candles (uninvited), and I eventually removed her from the table because she was distressing Ammon.

In the end, I think our little guy had a wonderful day. His favorite present was this shark blanket that also acts as a dress-up. I think that one may have been from Georgia.  He kept insisting I call him Sharky and not Ammon.

There are a couple of things I want to capture about sweet Ammon at this age. First is that he is EXTREMELY outgoing.  This comes out especially when we travel. He will walk up to any dog and start petting it and start talking to the owner about it. When we were in line for fry bread at Taos, he went one by one to the three people in line asking them what their names were. To our waitress at Pasta Jay’s in Moab last week, he unabashedly declared, “I love you!”. He is so warm, sweet, friendly and outgoing, and he makes so many people smile by his open sharing of love.

I also want to mention how sweet and sensitive he is. He often is bullied by Clarissa, but he wont fight back or hit almost ever. He’ll just take it and cry and he started to get use to Clarissa just always taking his stuff until Lily and I started doing better at enforcement.  Also, when he fell down at Meow Wolf, he landed on someone, and he turned around and said, “are you ok?”. He’s very aware, and sensitive and sweet. I love my little Ammon.

Oh, and that is another thing. He is always falling, and getting hurt.  The first day of our New Mexico Trip, he was skipping or running on the trail at Ghost Ranch and he tripped and scraped a ton of skin off his cheek. Lily was amazing to get doctor’s instructions on how to treat it so it went away mostly in a week, but it was really bad and could have easily gotten infected if we didn’t treat it so well.  By the age of four he has gotten staples in his head, gotten lost and has CPS called, many many bumps and scrapes and bruises. He is just very very active, innocent and curious, and I love him all the more for it.

Ammon, thank you for being in our family and bringing us so so so much joy!

Today was a very very good day. I was completely exhausted and a little sick from the trip, however, I got a ton of good news at work. We got way more credit for a deal that billed than we expected, and some criteria changed for my next promotion that might make it easier.

Below is a picture of a tiny jamboree. I’m not sure what it is, but Lily got it and Lydia on her phone:

 

After work we drove through the Alpine Loop to see the fall colors. We drove up to the summit and then parked and ate the crepes that Lily brought from the crepery. We were probably two weeks too late (the very end of September or the very beginning of October is probably the best), but the colors were still very pretty, even if a bit more muted, and we still felt like we were doing fall. The air was crisp and beautiful and it was a very fun way to pass the evening with the family. Below are some pictures, not of which do the actual scenery justice:

 

This morning I woke up and told Lily that I was scared and sad.  My faith, my job, my fatigue (with recent travel) and the overall demands of life had just been wearing me out and I just felt like I could barely face the day, let alone life.

Of course, Lily was sweet, loving and affirming. I had a good prayer and read in Ephesians which helped prepare me spiritually for the day and then I took the kids to school and met Lily at her physical therapist so she could take over with the kids so I could go to work.

At work, I started out a bit weary, but as the day went on, I got some wind in my sails.  I connected with a colleague I really care about who is leaving, and made major headway on a presentation I’m preparing for a bank.  I also got some good news from one of my reps and we closed a small deal.  Also, I played spikeball with my team (great team-building) and before that even stole some time for weights. I also had a lighter than normal schedule so the day just didn’t feel that hard. I also made 25 prospecting calls. Things seem to be going better at work, and on a great trajectory.  Only two more weeks in a difficult Q3, but my team has been trending in a good direction, and next quarter my team is smaller, and I’ll have a pod lead, and our pipeline is very very good. There is a lot I can be excited about as I power through this last difficult 2.5 weeks.

Today I know that Lily went to the library, worked out on our new Nordic Track Exercise bike (which we love).

After work, I went to the appointment at Mary’s eye therapy. I love going because I feel involved, and I get to observe the exercises they do with her and get tips about how I should be doing them at home.  Kaylie was the person that worked with Mary today and she said that Mary is so cute and that the different workers love when it is their turn to work with her.  I’m kindof obsessed about fixing Mary’s eyes. She has a lazy-eye problem. Her left I will check out and shut off when she is looking at things that are not close up, because her double-vision is bad (from her eyes not working together) and her brain just shuts off her left eye to not have to deal with the double vision. I feel so blessed that we have a doctor that can help her with therapy, and I want her to grow up to have her eyes as normal as possible so I have felt very invested in the process. I’m so grateful for the work Lily and Georgia have also contributed to getting her exercises done at home. Kaylie was so cheerful at the session that that was also a pick-me-up.

At home things just got better and better.  I did piano practice with Mary and she was charming even if focus was difficult at times. I need to also mention here that Mary has been a complete gem recently. We’ve been marveling about how sweet and helpful, and cute and adorable she seems to be ALL THE TIME. A year ago she was having a harder emotional time, I think with being the youngest in her class and struggling to make friends and stay caught up in school. But she’s repeating 1st grade and she’s loving it and finding a lot of confidence and happiness. Maybe that is helping her be so over the top sweet at home?

There was one particularly cute anecdote tonight. We looked everywhere for her math book because Georgia was going to help her with her math homework. After much looking, it finally dawned on Mary that she left it on the cinder-block wall at the edge of our property. She went and grabbed it, and came back and energetically stated, “See dad, here’s the whole deal, I came home, wanted to ride my scooter, set the book on the fence, then went to the backyard to pick lavender without knowing that I put it on the fence, then went inside for dinner, and forgot all about it, but now we found it, so see dad, we just needed to think about it.” It’s hard to explain how cute she was. It was mostly the sweet excited, knowing tone she used. I love her 🙂

After piano, I threw Clarissa and Ammon on the couch over and over which they loved. Dinner also made me happy because we ate so many things that we grew in the garden. We had corn (it turned out decent this year!) and the salad had delicious tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers all from the garden. The garden is my baby, and I love to each fresh vegetables, so dinner was very happy.

After dinner, I cleaned up while Lily did the night routine with the kids. I did scriptures with the kids, wrote in my Jesus journal and now I’m blogging with Lily, my best friend, feeling like it was actually a really good day. I am so blessed 🙂