Author: Abe Darais

Today Lily and I got up around 7:30 and rushed to get the kids ready so that Lydia and Mary wouldn’t be too late to ballroom practice at Foothill. We then dropped off Ammon and Clarissa at Arches and went to the gym to exercise.

We then went to see our therapist Vhari. It was the first time we’ve ever gone together and it was super fun. We discussed our different views on what to do next year for the kid’s schooling and Vhari was a great resource to help us think through the topic together.

After our counseling session, we went to our favorite date place, Park City! When Lily said she wanted to go to Park City, I was inwardly hoping we would eat at Harvest, but I was guessing that Lily would want to try something new. When Lily said she wanted to eat at Harvest, I got really happy. We both love their food so much! Also, the people we sat next to told us of Willow Creek Park in Park City which has a 2 mile walking trail and a dog park. We can’t wait to visit with the family!

After brunch, Lily and I bought candles at the Park City Museum, wandered through art galleries, including the gallery of our favorite photographer, Jared McMillen. Can you believe the below picture is a non-doctored photo that was taken on film (not digital)? It was on a foggy and snowy day. This is one of my favorite photos I have ever seen.

Lily and I also went to the bookstore where Lily bought a Smitten Kitchen cookbook that she is excited to cook through. We loved hanging out together in Park City!

Then we picked up the kids from school and took Lily to Dr. Simmons so he could check on her infected finger. It’s taking longer than expected to heal (even after two rounds of antibiotics) so he prescribed some lab blood testing for Lydia.

We went straight to the lab for Lydia’s bloodwork. The kids and I played with Basil outside while we waited. Lydia got really pale and nauseous (she gets that from me), but she was a champ and the person drawing Lydia’s blood commented repeatedly on Lydia’s great behavior.

We then let Lydia choose a dinner spot after her uncomfortable experience. I’m so glad she chose Via 313. It’s one of my favorite dinner spots. I just feel so happy there!

We had some time to kill at home, so we all played Moose in the House as well as Lost Cities. That is, all of us except Mary. Mary had a school project deadline coming up and she said she wanted to do quality work and not rush so she was going to focus on her project. We were so proud of her!

Today Lily and I got up before 8 and Lily got the kids ready for school and took them while I caught up on the blog. Then Lily took Clarissa and Georgia on some outings while I went cross-country skiing with Daniel.

Skiing was soooo fun. I’m not as in shape as Daniel, so I ended a little before he did (and I had a hard time keeping up before that), but it was magical. Daniel is such a good and pleasant friend, the weather and scenery were divine, and it was such an incredible workout. I loved every second of it. It was also cool to know that where were skiing (Soldier Hollow) is where the cross-country skiing happened in the Olympics. We came to Soldier Hollow because Sundance was shut down from getting too much snow. It was really fun to explore a new place! Here are some pictures and a video I caught of Daniel:

After skiing, I got a haircut and then met up with Lily, and Clarissa at home. I caught Lily playing dolls with Clarissa and I got a video:

I then joined the fun. Our dolls read Poetry, did math, ate cake, went to Central Park, rode the merry-go-round, rode bikes and saw a puppet show. It was so fun, but what was most fun about it was how happy we could tell it made Clarissa.

Then I ate lunch and took a bath while Lily picked up the kids from school. I then took Basil on a walk while Lily read and Lydia did her harp practice. On the walk, Basil LOVED being off-leash. He was playing in the snow and he kept running and then plopping down to torpedo in the snow. I thought it was cute and got a video:

When I got home, I took Mary, Lydia and Ammon to Sundance to get their skis fitted for ski school. We made it all the way to Sundance to realize that the downhill area (not just the Nordic Center) was also completely shut down and they were not doing the ski fittings. We then left and made it ten minutes early to Mary and Ammon’s piano lesson.

When we got home from the lesson, we had a delicious gyro dinner waiting for us that Lily made. Lily also made an incredible salad.

Then we put all the kids to bed. It sure has been sweet to take time away from work and spend extra time with family and friends. One more day of bliss awaits me tomorrow!

It has been so fun to have time off from work and just play with the family. In the morning we all played Carcassonne and everyone loved it! Then Lily and I went to the pool and had an amazing workout together swimming. Towards the end, we raced each other, and we are a perfect match for each other as we traded victories.

Back at home, I built a snow fort with the kids. The snow was not great for rolling snow balls to make snow people (hence the size of Ammon’s snow. man), but the snow did turn out to work just fine for fort building, and we had a great time building a fort!

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Then we all had a delicious lasagna, pizza and sushi dinner. After dinner, I played dolls with the kids. I took a few videos (to Lydia’s chagrin) because it just felt so special to have all the kids at an age to enjoy dolls together. We had a lot of fun, and we plan to have more doll play in the coming week. Lydia really had the other kids laughing with the antics of her 7-year old genius, hyper, troublemaker doll Kendall.

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Also, it was adorable how into her dolls Clarissa was. She spent a lot of time getting her doll’s house perfectly set up and when guests came over and were rowdy, she started crying because she cared so much about her setup. Once the party was over and I said it was bed time, she completely yelled down and said, “I just barely put my doll to bed, and I don’t even get a next day, I didn’t even get four seconds!” Then she stormed out of the room with very exaggerated steps. It was both sad and adorable. I could tell how much she loved playing dolls with everyone and I plan to have more doll play soon.

After dolls with the kids, I played legos with Ammon. This story line involved the mean rhino character breaking out of jail and causing havoc with his villain friends until finally getting thrown back in jail (from a cliffside) with the help of a lot of the police man’s allies, including the Hulk, Spiderman and Poopers the Penguin (and his flatulence). Videos below:

What a fun family day!!!!

Lily has a very big heart, and even though we were up late last night for New Year’s Eve, she was determined to wake up at 7:30 and make breakfast in bed for our kids to reciprocate their kind act from yesterday and also to let them start the new year with some magic. I was exhausted, but followed her lead and in the end was so glad for what we did. The kids loved it!

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Then we all played a TON of family games. The pictures below don’t do justice to all the games we played. We played San Juan, Lost Cities, Chutes & Ladders, Sleeping Queens, Barrel of Monkeys & Race to the Treasure. It’s was sooooo fun! Lily commented, “this is why we had kids, to have this much fun with them!”

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After playing games as a family, I played legos with Ammon. We had a ton of fun acting out a scenario involving a bad guy in a rhino suit that was crushing cars and stealing things. Once the policeman and his allies locked the bad guy away, he celebrated by going to the market, buying some things, and decorating for Halloween.

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Then we all had fun with the gingerbread kits that my mom gave everyone for Christmas. Everyone had houses to assemble and decorate, except for Ammon, who actually got to mix and bake his ninja gingerbread cookies before decorating them. It was a lot of fun! Thanks mom!

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Clarissa was feeling so happy that she spontaneously burst into song for about 20 minutes about her melico plant.

At night, the older girls, Lily and I captured our New Year’s resolutions. Here is a bullet list as well:

Lydia:

• Keep the splits another year
• Be nicer to her siblings
• Take better care of her hands
• Use screens less
• Get more sleep
• Care more about the harp

Mary:

• Be better at taking care of her hygiene
• Play with an orchestra on the piano

Lily:

• Integrate more with cousins on both sides of the family
• Keep up her exercise 5-6 days per week
• Enjoy life more and be less anxious and more present

Abe:

• More responsive to needs of others around me
• Run a mile in six minutes
• Run 6 miles at an 8 minute mile pace
• Do full 500 workout within one hour
• Hit Q1 quota (I haven’t hit in 5 quarters)
• Have my team create 3X Q2 qualified pipeline heading into Q2
• Read: Lincoln Highway, Peak, Just Demo
• Advance the finances
• Buy Lydia’s harp
• Go to the Philippines as a family

Fatigued from my end of quarter, I slept in until 10:40. At that point, stumbled to my desk. I think Lily was reading in bed. And then to our surprise, the kids presented Lily and me with breakfast in bed! It wasn’t just thoughtful, it was also delicious! They made avocado toast, pancakes with applesauce, an egg, cereal and fruit. I took mine at my desk and loved every bite. Lily had hers in bed and also loved hers. Thank you kiddos, that was so sweet!!

I then spent a lot of time on things like the budget, and installing our new doorbell, while Lily read some books to finish up her 50th book for 2022. Then in the evening, we spent two hours reviewing blog posts from 2022. We had so many amazing moments, trips and memories and it was so fun to relive them! Then, we played a ton of games with the kids. We let everyone stay up until midnight, including Clarissa! Here are pictures and a video of our games and midnight fun!

Today we finally finished the super hard holographic 1,000 piece puzzle that Suzanne gave us. We are loving our puzzle/game table so much!

We’ve been wanting to finish the puzzle so we could play some games with the kids on our new table. Once we finished, we played Lost Cities with our kids. Everyone loved it!

In the evening, we went to the Vandagriffs’ house for a night of singing Christmas songs. Jessie and Morgan invited a bunch of friends, and she had over a dozen Christmas carol books from the Metropolitan Museum of Art that also featured art from that museum. It had a lot of well-known carols as well as ones I’m not as familiar with. Singing really gave me the Christmas spirit, and it was also fun to chat with their friends and eat their snacks (especially the cranberry wassail and Moosewood mushroom soup). We all had a great time and told the Vandagriffs that we’d love to do it again next year! Lydia and Mary joined the singers while Ammon and Clarissa ran around the house playing with other kids. It was a fun evening!

I’ve heard, “Bring A Torch, Jeannette, Isabella” before, however, I completely rediscovered it tonight and it is now my new favorite Christmas song.

Back at home, we put the younger kids down and we played San Juan with Lydia and Mary. We all love that game! Thank you again to the Olsens for lending us both Lost Cities, and San Juan!

Mary loves having pen pals. Here is a letter she recently wrote to her friend Ellie Co

Also, Lily and I had a great time at Daniel and Amanda’s playing games and eating their delicious baked goods. It was some much needed fun after a stressful end-of-quarter day for me.

Today we went to the Darais family party when I finished work. It was really fun to see everybody. Lydia played the harp and even though she struggled at the end of the piece, she played beautifully overall and she got an enthusiastic applause from the audience. Dinner was a yummy potato bar and ham. At the end of the event, Andrea distributed a thumb drive that Mark helped organize that had writings and artwork from grandma and grandpa Darais. What a treasure. All in all, it was a great time. The kids had tons of fun playing and Clarissa really enjoyed coloring at the coloring table. When she lost her drawings at the end of the party, Adam kindly went searching for them and found them!

Back at home Mary was in a very bouncy mood, and we got a great slow-motion video of her jumping face first to her bed, but YouTube doesn’t show the slow-motion unfortunately.

Today I worked and Lily worked hard getting the house nice after all the Christmas activity. In the evening the Vandagriffs came over and we all had a great time hanging out together. The kids played together and the adults talked about schooling, politics and psychology. The kids were so cute all lined up around the table! We love that family!

Yesterday it was really fun to have Christmas Day at our home. And today it was really fun to go and visit family. First we visited my grandma Forsyth in Ogden. She’s a bit sick again with a UTI, but she was in cheerful spirits and we had a really good time visiting.

Then we all went to my mom and Jay’s house for lunch. Victor, Melody and their kids were there which was so fun because I hadn’t seen them in forever. Jere was also there, as were David and Olivia (who just got back from Fiji) and their adorable baby Ozzy. We had so much fun holding Ozzy and playing with him!

After a delicious meal, my mom passed out gifts to everyone as she does every year (thanks mom!) and then we hit the road for our next stop, my dad and Suzanne’s.

They had their new home decorated so beautifully for Christmas. I should have taken more pictures! But I did take one picture of a painting my Aunt Christina made in High School that they are hanging on their wall. I love the painting so much and it also made me remember how much I love and miss Christina.

At home, Lily went to sleep early as she was feeling tired and battling a headache for the past couple hours. I decompressed over a puzzle and then worked a little on my computer. What a fun time of year it is!