Author: Abe Darais

A Fun Saturday with Friends

Today Todd and his kids, Kasey and Cora, came over for breakfast and we had the greatest time. Lily and I always love talking to Todd and the breakfast spread was delicious (pancakes/fruit, bacon (from Todd), eggs). The kids had an awesome time together. Ammon had a lot of fun making fairy houses in the backyard with Cora.

After our time with Todd and his kids, our kids prepared a tea party for us all. They did an amazing job. I think Lydia was responsible for most of it. She’s so good at making things eventful!

  • Clarissa being silly
  • Ammon was really excited at was his eyebrows could do when he made this face and he wanted me to take a picture.

In the evening, I had the best time with the kids. The had built a massive fort, and I played in it with them. Then we pretended that we all went to an outing to the fair. I ended up being a bucking bronco, a twirling swing ride, and another ride where I carried the kids around (and Lydia was live advertisements along the way). Then we all rode the train and Lily joined us for that part. We pretended to be different characters getting on and off the train and it was really fun. We also had an America’s got talent performance as well as a ballet performance from Clarissa. It was all very fun!

Clarissa Day

Every Tuesday and Thursday Clarissa has no school. I love working from home on these days, but I also lament that I don’t take more time in the day to spend with her. Every moment with her is a gift and today I found more moments to be with her. I watched Bluey with her (which the whole family has been captivated by, and I found little segments of the day to spend moments with her, including this moment below. Clarissa often protests going to school, and doesn’t want to go. Today, I turned the tables on her, and made her act like the parent telling a protesting me why I needed to go to my work meeting.

Lily’s day started off really strong with a delightful outing shopping with her mom. Then at home Lily got tired, and didn’t get everything done she wanted, but she did read to and feed Clarissa, drop dinner off for a close friend (who is under a lot of stress right now) and work on her TSOS work. TSOS ends next week, and she’s looking forward to having more time and energy to spend on other things when that wraps up.

I played Pickleball with friends and grilled salmon for dinner. Right now Lily is helping Ammon with homework while I blog and catch up on my giant work pile. I’m hoping that we play wingspan tonight and I think we will! Also, here is a cute page from Ammon’s school journal:

Easter in Palm Springs

Today we woke up to Easter baskets and Easter eggs that were hidden all over the house (thank you Lydia and Mary for stuffing and hiding all of them!). The kids had a great time opening their baskets and going on the Easter egg hunt (also thank you to Walmart for having premade baskets!).

Then Lily and I packed everything up and we all went to Lulu California Bistrtro for their Easter menu. Lily and I went there last night for a quick date, and we saw they gave big servings of cotton candy for desert. We thought of Clarissa (whose favorite desert is cotton candy) and scheduled a reservation for today. The food took a while to come out, but we gave the two youngest kids a big speech about behaving in the restaurant before hand, and they were incredible, almost perfect. We passed the time by playing with the blue hairpiece that came in one of the kid’s Easter baskets and also by reviewing our trip together (see video below):

At the end of the meal, Ammon and Clarissa were so happy with the cotton candy. It was so fun to see their joy!

We then drove home for over ten hours. We hit a lot of traffic heading towards LA to jump on the I-15, and then at one point the freeway was closed so we had a short detour. We got home around 1:30 AM and I had a 7:30 AM meeting the next day, which was a little brutal, but the trip was so so so worth it, as was the morning fun we had. It was totally worth getting in later to be able to have a fun Easter in Palm Springs. Thank you Lily for organizing this trip!

Joshua Tree National Park

I LOVE our national parks, and even though our time at Joshua Tree National Park was short, it was my personal favorite day of the trip. We drove up to a pull-out and we walked around until people needed to use a bathroom. Then we found another turnout with a restroom and the kids played on the rocks and I also go to do some fun climbing with the kids. Ammon skinned his knee and got sad when I was short with him for something else he was doing, but all the other kids were overjoyed with the experience. I too loved hiking and climbing on such beautiful scenery.

  • Can you see this lizard?
  • How about now?
  • Pre bloom
  • In bloom
  • Post bloom

on the way home we went to Walmart and Mary and I went inside to buy easter supplies. Back at the condo, we spent more time in the pool and then Lydia and Mary hid all the eggs and baskets for the easter egg hunt the next day. Those two girls have become some helpful!

Tall things (like date trees and wind turbines)

Today we revisited one of our favorite places in Palm Springs, Shield’s date farm. This time around we were very struck at how finnicky date trees are how incredibly difficult it is to raise fruit from them. First of all, they can’t pollinate themselves, so humans have to manually collect pollen from male tress and brush them onto the female trees. You’d think that would be easy, but these trees grow insanely tall, so people have to climb large ladders, and the trees put out spiney thorns that are very painful for the people trying to work on the trees. Then, they can only live in dry, arid deserts, but they require an enormous amount of water. So Shield’s periodically floods the date farm so the trees can get enough water. And although they love water for their roots, they are basically allergic to rain, so the workers put rain coverings over the date fruits when it rains. It’s pretty amazing what all has to be done for these dates to come to the market, and they are so so delicious!

After the date farm, we went to tour the windmill farm in Palm Springs. I think the correct term is wind turbine. We learned a lot on our driving audio tour:

  • Denmark for a long time has made the best wind turbines (by a long shot), but the US and other countries like Sweden are starting to catch up.
  • Wind power had a very rocky start. Early turbines broke easily and had a lot of problems.
  • Wind turbine size is limited to what is allowed to be transported on highways. The future of wind turbines is having them in the ocean. There are already some and they are HUGE.
  • Wind and solar are about the same efficiency to make. Coal burning produces WAY more power per area it takes, but obviously has very negative consequences for the environment.

Back at home we had fun in the pool. I enjoyed doing some fun tricks with the kids where they would stand up on my shoulders.

Also, Lily has still been enjoying veggie Pho from a nearby restaurant and it feels great as she is still sick, and she and I have also been playing a lot of wingspan, which we love so much!