Author: Abe Darais

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.

Today Lydia had some friends over for a St. Patricks day party. They had fun!

I also arrived home from a trip to New York. It’s great to be home!

Today an amazing harpist gave Lydia a masterclass. We have the whole thing on video below!

Also, Lydia prepared the home for the arrival of the Leprechauns in our house in the morning. She is so festive, and loves to create magic just like her mother does!

Also, Lydia’s feet have been peeling today. Neither she nor Lily realized how the spa masks that they gave out at her birthday spa party worked. The way they work is that they make your feet softer by making all the skin peel off. Apparently the skin of Lydia’s friends’s feet has been peeling too!

Lydia, Mary and Lily have all been involved in Battle of the Books competitions lately. Today, Ammon and Clarissa were tagging along.

In the evening, Dad, Suzanne, Lydia and Mary and I all went to a Brian Regan concert. I bought the tickets for Lydia when I saw Brian Regan would be performing near her birthday. It was also so fun that today was Suzanne’s birthday! We met my dad and Suzanne the performance and I sat separately because I originally didn’t realize how much Mary would enjoy it (and I didn’t get her a ticket) so I got a 5th ticket last minute so she could come (but it was not with the group). While I was going to my seat, my dad called to inform me that the 4 tickets he, Suzanne, Lydia and Mary were using were actually for tomorrow and they weren’t letting them in. Oh now! I felt awful. I had mixed up the dates of the performance. Amazingly, and thanks be to God, despite it being a sold out show, 4 people had returned their tickets, and they were right in the front left, and they allowed my dad and the group to exchange them free of charge. Wow, crisis averted! Even though my dad and Suzanne were so nice and offered to go with Lydia and Mary the next day, it would have been a lot of extra trouble, and my ticket was for tonight, and I was going straight to the airport for an overnight flight. I’m so grateful it worked out the way it did.

Brian Regan and his warm-up act were hilarious. Here are a few highlights:

• His friend told him his plants would grow better if he said nice things to it. So he thought the reverse should be true and replaced mowing his lawn with 30 seconds of screaming and berating his lawn (you call yourself grass!) to keep it from growing.
• Pointing out that there is no need for the reversed “Ambulance” letters. The idea is that people can read it in their rear-view mirror. Brian pointed out that with the flashing lights and blaring sirens, you don’t need the additional help of the word ambulance, joking about someone seeing the flashing lights and hearing the siren, but saying to himself, “I and pulling over for no ecnalubma”.
• And my favorite joke of the night: If you want to ever feel insecure, just go to a carnival cruise photographer. My girlfriend and I walk up to get our picture taken, and the photographer says, “Ok, stand up a little straighter, straighten your spine, now lift your chin, a little straighter, shoulders back, straighter still, lift your head” Brian says, “Geeze, what did I look like when I walked up there!” And he folds over almost in half with his arms draping down, and he makes monster/ape noises. He said, they could have just not given me any instructions and gotten a picture of Bigfoot!

A love for stand-up comics is something I particularly share with Lydia, and it was so happy for me to share that moment with her around her birthday. It was also so fun to be with Suzanne on her birthday. She always so sweet and fun to be around. What a happy evening for all of us!

After the show, I jumped on a flight to New York!

Lily celebrated Pi day today (3.14) by making a lot of pies! After she dropped one of her pies off to a friend, we all ate her home-made pot-pie for dinner and then had her home-made blueberry pie for desert. I had a hard day at work today, and her food was so delicious and healing to me that I effused my joy and gratitude to Lily for her cooking. It was so lovely to be with family eating Lily’s delicious pie.

Today the kids had no school and they had a lot of fun around the house in addition to having extra time to practice their instruments.