Today was a nice day. Lily and I played pickle ball in the morning and did some walking and jogging together. Then I did a long run to prepare for my half marathon. Unfortunately, my IT band flared up, and that cut my run short (even though I was wearing a new IT band leg strap I just purchased). After the run, I bought some stakes and twine at Lowe’s and straightened some trees in our yard. While I was doing all these things, Lily worked with the kids and on the house. Then we all went to my dad and Suzanne’s house for dinner and birthday celebrations.
Dinner was amazing. There was a roast, watermelon, pineapple, zucchini, cheesy potatoes, and a very ornate salad. David, Olivia and Ozzy were also at dinner and it was fun to hear about their adventures at the kite festival in the Pacific Northwest.
Then Loralee arrived with Henry and they brought a really fun game called ransom notes. Basically, you need to write notes using only your random assortment of words, and then a judge chooses the best one. Lydia wrote some really great ones. One was a tag line for a new Guy Fiere cooking show and she wrote, “Murder animal. Obtain juicy limb.” Also, here is one she wrote for the prompt, “the weirdest dream you’ve ever had.”
After games, we sang and gave gifts to Mary and Olivia, and then we all ate desert. Everyone had a really good time! Also, Ammon and Clarissa got a little wild, and they got a lecture in the car afterwards.
After we got home, I tuned Clarissa’s harp and put on 3 new strings. She is just starting up again and it is exciting!
Today, Lydia and I left by 7:40 to take her to her harp competition. When we arrived, I tuned the harp, and then she played in her practice room until it was time for her to perform. At 9:35, she performed beautifully!
Then Lydia and I had 3 hours to kill until the awards ceremony. We had so much fun together! First we went to the farmer’s market to look around at everything. Then we went to the Greek festival and enjoyed some really great food. We learned that Lydia likes dolmathes! Our Gyros were so good too! Then we went back to the Farmer’s market and got a bunch of things. Lydia got slime, earrings, gelato and a gift for a friend. I got a candle and a necklace for Lily, and we also bought produce, a gifts for family members and wands for Mary’s upcoming Harry Potter party. The weather was perfect, and Lydia and I had such a fun time walking around together, talking and shopping. She is such a joy to pal around with.
We made it back to the awards ceremony just in time, and we learned that Lydia tied for 3rd. Great job Lydia!!
Then Lydia I headed home from Salt Lake, but first we took a slight detour so I could show Lydia a house that she lived in when she was very little:
While Lydia and I were at the competition, market and festival, Lydia was having a great day with the kids and her mom as well. She did a fun outing with Georgia, took Ammon to a Harry Potter Birthday party, and took the kids to the library. Lily had a particularly good time with her mom, and so everyone had a really good first part of the day.
We took it relatively easy in the afternoon, and then had a family movie night. We watched the new live action Little Mermaid as well as Superpets. The Little Mermaid was well done and a great show, but I think Superpets was everyone’s favorite. It was absolutely hilarious and had a very beautiful message. More than anything, it was just so fun to snuggle and share something as a family for so long.
Also, here is a really cute picture that Clarissa drew:
Today was my first full day home after being in New York and I loved it. I was up until midnight getting my work done, but that was largely due to the fact that I was so involved with the family after 3:20.
I picked up Mary and Lydia from school and got home just a little after 4:00. At that point I ate dinner and played store for a little bit with Ammon, Mary and Clarissa. I ended up buying lots of great things from their stores!
Then I took Mary to swim practice, and while she was at swim practice, Clarissa, Ammon, Basil and I went 4 minutes away to the house of Todd Jaramillo. He is a friend and podiatrist, and he agreed to see me at his house on almost no notice because my right foot was in so much pain that I could not walk on the ball off my foot without intense pain. The problem was a combination of the prickles that got stuck in my foot from the Lake Powell fiasco (when I ran bare foot to another houseboat to hitch a ride to our houseboat where Lily and the kids were) and all the running I’ve been doing to prepare for the upcoming half marathon. Todd removed a pus pocket that formed deep inside my foot, and after he removed/drained it, my foot felt amazing. Thank you Todd! After picking up Mary from swimming we returned home, and then Mary put Ammon and Clarissa down while I got my work done.
All evening, Lily and Lydia were gone to Salt Lake for a meeting about Lydia’s harp competition the very next day:
Today I left to New York. I caught my flight by 12 seconds, and I need to stop cutting it so closely! Back at the house, Lydia was preparing for her harp competition. She is sounding great!
Today I woke up and did the 500 workout (7 reps), and Lily and Mary went to the store for groceries. Back at home, Mary made the most delicious pancakes, which I gobbled up ecstatically after my workout. They were perfectly tasting protein pancakes and I loved putting bananas and fresh peaches from our trees on them. Our little trees made a lot of peaches this year!
After breakfast, we all went to the park and I ran a mile with Lydia and Mary. We timed their mile at 13 minutes and 6 seconds! I then ran a mile on my own at 6:36. We ran Basil a lot in the process, and also Ammon and Clarissa were riding their bikes around the track the whole time. It was a little hot, but a wonderful, glorious family outdoor experience. Then Lydia and Mary walked the littles and Basil home while Lily and I lingered and played some Pickleball. It was so fun!
Then we all went to church. The lesson was about loving those around us, and my biggest takeaway came from a comment Lily made. Her comment caused me to reflect that if we truly knew what every person was going through, and saw their lives from beginning to end and all the toil, pain and hardships that occur, we would want nothing other than to cheer them on and be happy for them during the good times, and we’d be much less inclined to be jealous, tear down, and fault find. I love that insight.
After church we all visited Georgia which was so fun:
This is the wall of love notes Mary has sent to Nana
Ammon danced for Georgia
She didn’t join us for Olive Garden because she was very tired, but we enjoyed playing the card games she gave us while waiting for our table and for our food.
Back at home we played more of the card games she gave us (War, GoFish, Old Maid etc) and then we watched Elemental all cuddling as a family. Today was a truly happy day.
Today I did a long run in the morning and the kids had some fun watching Saturday morning cartoons:
Then we all went to lunch at Seven Brothers. We got these cute pictures of Lydia and Mary at the Riverwoods:
Back at home, Lily and I did a lot of work on the house, especially in the garage. We put away messes that ended up in the garage from all of our summer trips. It took several hours to get the garage back in order! I loved listening to the CDs from my youth on our garage CD player while we cleaned. Mary also helped. It was fun encountering different things while I cleaned like this beautifully loose composition from Mary:
In the eventing, Suzanne came over and it was tremendously fun to catch up with her and tell her all about our Lake Powell adventures.
Lily and I visited Zion’s Bank and Mountain America Credit Union to check out their HELOC products. Afterwords we ate Pho. It was so fun to be on a date together! I’ve been working like crazy, and Lily has been cranking hard on cleaning the house and it was really nice to get out together.
Today was very busy for me because Lily was too traumatized by the mouse to go inside the houseboat and help pack and clean etc. Still, I was very happy to get everything ready to go while she rode on the jet ski with Mary. They both were having a rough trip and it was very nice to see them have some fun together. Lily also took Clarissa on a ride and unhooked the kill switch while they tried to save a fish. Lily didn’t know how to get the kill switch back in and so she had to tow Clarissa on the jet ski by swimming 30 minutes back to shore. Clarissa was much more sad about the dying fish than the fact that their jet ski wasn’t working and Lily had to swim them back, lol.
Here is a video of Lily and Mary riding around and some final pictures of our trip.
Then I pulled up the anchors and drove everyone, but Lily back to Waweep in the Marina. Lily rode the jet ski next to us the whole way, and I was so grateful to hear that was a highlight for her on the trip. She communed peacefully, and mouse-free with the nature around her on that epic two-hour jet ski ride. We also all rode past the damn.
When we checked out they refunded our $680 in gas because of the mouse and jet ski issues. That was very helpful and we were grateful for that. We then drove home and pulled in at 11:30 PM. I was very tired for work the next day, and Lily was tired too, but motivated by her fear of mice to work on cleaning the house the whole next day.
Today started with me waking up before 6:00 to Jet Ski into Waweep marina so that I could rent a motorboat. The ride to the marina was amazing, and I captured some video along the way.
I rode past the Glenn Canyon damn on the my way to Waweep. It was such a short detour (just around a corner) that I took the whole family there the next day in the houseboat as we were leaving.
Back at the boat, the family was waking up to these beautiful views:
While I was checking out for the boat, Lily called me in a panic because while she and the kids were eating breakfast, a very large mouse scurried under the table while everyone was at the table. Lily has a full on phobia of mice, and that event completely emotionally undid her. That was the hell of today. Lily and the kids stayed on top of the house boat until I returned with the speed boat. The kids got bored and sang the bottles of beer song to pass the time:
Lily didn’t step foot inside of the houseboat after that except to eat dinner with the family, and she was so distressed during that meal that she said it was the worst meal of her life.
The heaven of today was the jet skiing and the boating. I loved my ride to get the motorboat, and I absolutely loved boating around with the family. It was also so neat for me to pick up a new skill as I had never motor boated before.
We cruised through almost all of Navajo Canyon. The kids loved sitting at the front of the boat with the wind in their hair. We found a wonderful sandy beach to park the boat, swim, eat lunch and play. It was truly magical.
Everyone was super tired after boating. I boated back to Waweep with Lydia after dropping everyone off and snapping this picture. Then I rode the jet ski back to the house boat. I let Lydia ride drive the jet ski back for almost the whole Arizona portion (which was most of the journey). She was legally allowed to operate a jet ski in Arizona without a permit (not so in Utah) so we felt better about her driving in Arizona before we crossed into Warm Creek (which was in Utah). She did drive some yesterday in our cove, but today she had a nice long ride driving. Lydia LOVED driving the jet ski and took it up to 30 miles per hour. She never wanted to stop, but did when her hand got sore from holding the throttle. It was such a fun experience for me to share her first jet ski driving with her. I could tell she really enjoyed it.
Back at the houseboat, I gave a tone more tube rides. Mary was having a truly tough evening. She got really freaked out and upset when Clarissa fell off her tube, and I towed her in, and she got water splashed in her face. Clarissa was fine, but Mary was very upset about it. Mary had been having a tough day already, almost to the level of Lily’s trauma. Mary, the whole trip, has been incredibly freaked out about all the spiders, gnats, and other bugs that have constantly surrounded us. She got so unhappy with the bug situation that at times she said she wanted to go home. Seeing Clarissa get splashed in the face when I towed her was apparently the last straw and she got really upset. I gave everyone else tube rides (and learned how to get people on their tube when they fell without towing them to shore) and everyone had a great time overall (Ammon did cry once when I steered him into a big wave hoping he would like it and he fell off and bit on his tooth painfully, but he soon recovered emotionally). After everyone had their turn jet skiing (and loving it) Mary had recovered and I took her on a long gentle ride during the sunset. It was magical and wonderful. Here are some videos.
