Author: Abe Darais

Swim Tryouts and Back to School Night

I had a very intense, stressful, yet successful day today. It was a great relief when Lily called me early in the day, beaming, to tell me that Clarissa, Ammon and Lydia were incredible at the swim tryouts. She was especially amazed at Ammon and Clarissa and Ammon performed the backstroke and breast stroke to the best of their abilities when they have never learned those strokes. And all three of them had to swim incredible distances. Lily was worried Ammon and Clarissa wouldn’t be able to swim the required distance for each stroke, but they did it and Lily was beyond thrilled. It was so fun to hear Lily gush about it on the phone.

Also, Lily took Lydia to back-to-school night tonight. I can’t believe Lydia is a 7th grader!

Blogging, cake and Magnetiles

Today Lily and I worked until 1PM to catch up on the blog. While we were blogging, Mary baked two heart-shaped cakes to be used on Clarissa’s birthday.

Ammon and Clarissa played together a lot today. Ammon was especially absorbed in his Magnetiles. He built an amazing castle, and cried a couple of times when it broke, but he rebuilt it. He was so proud of it that I captured his whole tour on video.

Then I went to a memorial birthday party for my employee who passed away and I enjoyed getting to know his parents. At home, I made hamburgers for everyone, and then we all enjoyed watching the Mario movie together.

Ammon and Clarissa playing sweetly and staying up late.

Ammon and Clarissa played sweetly yesterday for hours on end. They danced and did gymnastics poses:

Lily made progress on the house and worked long and hard getting caught up with work. In the evening Lily and I played Wingspan, and then we stayed up until almost 3 in the morning talking about life and our future. Then there was a massive lightning storm with thunder so loud it woke up everyone, but Ammon. We got all the kids to bed and fell asleep around 3:30.

First Full Day Back

Today was our first full day back and it was a doosey. Lily and I were both sick, but had a mountain of tasks to tackle that had piled up while we were gone so we pressed on. I tackled work until late into the evening, and Lily took our car to two shops to find one that would repair our windshield, shopped, visited her mom to help with a Telehealth appointment, worked on the house, picked up Basil, got an oil change and registered our car.

We were both so busy that we felt profoundly grateful that our children played magically the whole day together, which included some puzzling).

In the late afternoon the kids walked Basil, I had a phone with my brothers, and I took Ammon and Clarissa out biking briefly so Clarissa could enjoy her new bell, helmet and gloves that came in the mail. We bought them to celebrate her learning fully to ride her bike! Then we had dinner.

Lily made an incredible dinner of spaghetti with corn and roasted tomatoes and a caprese salad (some of the best tomatoes I’ve had from the Brigham City area fruit stands on HWY 89 we went to yesterday). I ate a ton.

After dinner, I worked a ton more and then finished the day with a game of Wingspan with Lily. We tied!

Boom!

Today we woke up late at the Super 8 hotel. We hit the road by a little after 10 and drove straight to home (we arrived just before 8PM).

Two eventful things on the way, one bad, one good:

Bad: While driving on the freeway, we heard a loud “BOOM!” and there was shattered glass everywhere. Our sunroof had spontaneously exploded, I assume by the wind pressure created by driving on the freeway with a cargo container on top of the car. Everyone was quite shocked. Lily held the cover shut so no more glass got in until we pulled off and I bought tape to tape it shut.

Good: We stopped at 3 to 4 amazing fruit stands on HWY 89, just South of Maddox in Brigham City and ate peaches, plums and apricots the whole way home.

Traveling Towards Home

Today we woke up around 7. I thought it was really cute how Clarissa was sleeping:

This is a Queen size bed…..

We packed up and headed out to catch our flight. Everything ran on schedule. I thought this item from the airport gift shop was funny:

On the plane, I told Clarissa to put her backpack under her seat and I thought what she did was funny:

Swathi picked up from the airport and drove us to her house where we packed up some last items, and said goodbye to her and Clark. Mani, Sruthi, Soren and Meera were going to arrive later that night.

The trip was so magical, all of it. We loved spending time with Clark, Swathi, Sruthi, Mani, Soren and Meera and the kids got along so wonderfully the whole time. What a special experience!

After saying goodbye to Clark and Swathi, we hit the road to make it part-way home. The kids had a lot of fun in the car goofing off together. Here is a funny video of them:

At night we found a Super 8 hotel with three queens in one room for under $200. What a solution! The hotel was certainly good enough too. Lily said she heard Super 8 has been stepping up their game.

Train Ride to Denali

We woke up in the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge in Denali State Park and took a bus to catch a train to Denali National Park where we were to stay the night.

The train was incredibly scenic and Lydia said it was in her top two highlights of the entire trip (kid’s club was the other)

On the train, I finished, It Takes What it Takes which is one of the best self-help books I’ve ever read. Not only was the book amazing, but it came at the perfect time in my life. The book is all about not thinking negatively or positively, but staying neutral, anchored dispassionately in facts, and consistent taking positive forward motion and doing the next right thing. To put it in Nick Saban’s words, “Don’t worry about the scoreboard, worry about the next snap.” It’s also about deciding your personal goals and making the plan to reach that goal, not worrying about what others think. Once you know what you want, figure out what it takes, and do what it takes, because, “it takes what it takes.” I’m writing this entry a week later, and I’m still thinking about principles from this book and applying them dozens of times per day. I think it is safe to say it has changed me and will continue to change me for the better.

Juneau Alaska and whale watching

Despite being the capital of Alaska, Juneau only has 32,000 people in it. It is also in a rain forest climate and we definitely felt that today as it rained all morning. While the kids were at kids club in the morning (which they have been LOVING, see below), Lily and I explored Juneau and bought matching rain jackets (yay!) and got umbrellas for the kids who already had good coats. We also signed up everyone except Meera and Mani (Meera wanted to stay in) for some whale watching.

When Lily and I returned to the boat, we picked up the kids from kid’s club, enjoyed our buffet lunch and then everyone to the whale watching tour. It was unbelievable and fortunately, nobody got sea-sick:

Walking to and waiting for the boat tour

Amazingly the rain stopped right as our tour began. We learned so many things about humpback whales. These whales feed here extensively during the summer. They eat and eat and eat and eat. They dive down for 7 to 8 minutes (max is 45) and they eat a ton of fish with each dive. Then they come up and because they are out of breath, they surface for breath 5 or so times in a row, and then they dive again. They feed this way almost all day it seems. After their months of feeding, they swim to Hawaii, give birth and mate, and then swim with their new calf all the way back to Alaska. The whole journey takes about 6 months round trip and they do the entire thing (nursing their young the whole time) without eating anything because there is no food for them on the journey or in Hawaii. So when they arrive in Alaska, they are starving, and they feast extensively. It was amazing to understand more about their patterns and see them up close.