Author: Abe Darais

Today I woke up and was fortunate to find availability for Swathi and I to get a 3-hour private ski lesson at Sundance today. She was hoping to ski on this trip, and I’ve been dying for a lesson, so it was perfect for us. We booked it at 7:45 and we were out of the house by 8:20.

The ski lesson was awesome. I took a whole page of notes after the lesson to try to remember what I learned. Both Swathi and I grew leaps and bounds. It was the first formal lesson I’ve ever had skiing, and it gave me such great fundamentals to work from going forward. I also went off the ski jump twice and fell both times, but I was grateful to get over my fear of it, and I’m excited to work on that going forward as well. Also, Swathi was awesome company and we both had a good time. She’s still processing the huge news of her job offer which she will likely take as it is a pretty big change for her and her family. It’s a positive change, but still a lot to think through.

While Swathi and I were skiing, Clark was hiking Y mountain with Basil which was a total gift because Basil really needed exercise.

Swathi and I picked up Georgia on our way home and it was so fun all hanging out together. It was great chatting with Georgia, and we all took it really easy, which was really nice because we have been quite active. The kids literally played together all day and it was adorable to watch them. They played games together such as “the ground is lava” so they would need to get around balancing on pillows, baseboards, couches etc. I think they also played a game of dinosaurs and dinosaur catcher or something like that until someone got hurt and they stopped. But they had a tremendous amount of fun, and they were super low maintenance to take care of as they entertained themselves with each other for so much of the day (basically whenever they weren’t eating).

Also, Clark taught us a lot about Cryptocurrency, and he even gave Lydia an incredible lecture not only on Cryptocurrency, but also on the fictional nature of money. Lily was enthralled and videoed part of it.

Also, our sweet Clarissa was very delicate today. Lily put her down early because she was basically falling apart emotionally, but before she went down, she gave us a great gem of a video. When Clarissa was crying upstairs, Lily went to help her and then called for me to come with my phone. I arrived just in time to video Clarissa explaining that she physically could not apologize to Soren because the words, “I’m sorry” were too painful for her throat. We couldn’t help but laugh. Clarissa’s antics were very convincing.

I called her out for making things up, and then Lily was nice enough to put her to bed, but I have to admit, I was also charmed by her bad behavior.

Lily and I were both unbelievably tired today. I was grateful when Nick called and wanted to go get food together because I knew I would enjoy getting out of the house and seeing him. He’s still going through a really rough time and I think the outing did us both good.

While I was on my outing, Lily was chatting with our neighbor, Charity, and helping Lydia get ready for her dance performance (Lydia wore an Olaf costume), and she drove her to the performance. Lily and I are both overwhelmed by how many performances Lydia has. We had no idea of how big of a commitment it was when we signed up. She had 7 or 8 performances this week and would needed to miss school to attend all of them. We only got her to one performance and we think her teacher isn’t too happy about that.

When I got home, I worked for about an hour on figuring out a place from which to purchase the trees we want planted this year. The lady at Cook’s was so nice and also recommended a landscaper who could plant for less money than what they charge. I wanted to go through Highland Gardens since they originally were the ones that had someone come out and recommend trees (hence the map), but they don’t open until March 1 and I wanted to get the ball rolling and they are farther away. I was so impressed with Cook’s that we are going to go through them.

Then I picked up Lydia for her dance performance and came home. Later, I dropped Lydia off at a Valentines party with her friends. Then I bought Valentines with the kids for their classmates. Mary was unsatisfied with the Cheerio valentines I got everyone else, and she got candies that she could put in red saran wrap individually for each kid in her class. Below is her working on her valentines. While I ran those errands Lily swam for an hour. We were both so tired all day, and had to push ourselves to do any type of activity. We took it slow, but still did some things.

In the evening, I tidied the house for a couple of hours while Lily picked up Lydia from her party and did some grocery shopping. We all had delicious lasagna for dinner and Lydia beamed about how fun her party was.

At night, Clarissa was using her heater/AC remote like it was a phone and she had a lot of fun pretending to talk to someone. I took a video:

At work today Royce Lovett (who launched his career from the Voice) spoke to our company, and played songs as well. His message was very powerful, I I downloaded a lot of his music because I loved it and I had never heard it before.

Today I ended work early so Lily could take Lydia and Mary to an art museum with her mom and Amy and her kids. Lily said they all had a wonderful time.

I did homework with Ammon at home while Lily was gone, and when she got back I took Basil to repeat one of his beginner obedience training classes. I’ve been a little frustrated with his behavior at times, so I’m trying to work on it. Next to me was the most beautiful Doberman Pinscher. I was stunned.

Tonight I chatted with my brother Jere. I was so tired that I felt like I wasn’t much good for conversation, but it was still super nice to hear Jere’s voice and catch up a bit. Also, he told me that he recently put up the pictures that Lydia and Mary painted of him a year ago for Christmas (when he had a beard). He sent pictures!

Today Lily spent a lot of time with her mom in the morning. She had an awesome time and was so happy to see that her mom seems to be doing so much better on her new medication plan. When she got home, she talked to our friend, Nick, for almost two hours. Nick is going through an extremely difficult time, and I was so touched Lily took so much time to talk with him. I chimed in a few times (when I wasn’t working) and I noticed that by the end of the call, he was feeling much, much better.

After work, I worked on homework with Ammon. We are still super behind, which is such a strange and semi-frustrating concept to me given he is in kindergarten, but I we are trying to keep up with all the demands of his tiger-teacher and tiger-school. His handwriting is getting really good, as is his reading, so we are definitely happy with the progress. I’m proud of him for how hard he is working!

While I did homework with Ammon, Lily learned knitting with our friend Christian. Christian is amazing at knitting (he knitted the sweater he is wearing). It was also fun to watch him wind a ball of yarn with his yarn-winding device.

I took this picture because I was amused at what an expert job Basil did at disemboweling this stuffed animal.

I took these pictures because I’m also amused at Mary’s obsession with pigs.

Lily and I are really enjoying Clarissa at age 4. She is so adorable and fun to be with. Today, I had a 30 minute break at work and I played with her Polly Pocket and Blues Clues sets, and read her the book about not letting the pigeon ride the bus. Lily joined us too, and it was a heavenly moment. I realized that my work meeting I had next didn’t require me, so I bowed out of it to have more time with Clarissa. We built magnetiles together and then had a dance party with our Polly Pocket and Blues Clues Figurines (see below). We love that little girl!

Tonight, Lily as at dinner and the float spa with her friend, Amy. I’m so glad she’s getting out, it feels like I’ve been having all the fun lately!

Lily and I both had crazy days, but Lily for sure had the craziest. Lily volunteered to help teach art for Lydia and Mary, but we both forgot that would make her late for picking up Ammon and Clarissa. So she picked them up late, went home, couldn’t find Lydia’s snow pants (I had put them in the wash), allowed kids to go to the bathroom and stuff food in their mouth and then rushed to the ski shop to get helmets and goggles, and arrived 25 minutes late to ski lessons for Lydia and Mary, and dealt with multiple children either protesting about something, complaining about something or saying they have to pee so urgently that everything needed to stop for him (Ammon). Lily’s cortisol was super high when she called and I felt bad for her stress.

I had the easy part of finishing my workday, getting my glasses adjusted (and buying more fish oil for my dry-eye condition), renting skis, and heading up the mountain to ski with my kids after their lesson.

It was honestly a complete highlight of my year so far. I can’t believe how the girls are progressing. They don’t need edgie wedgies anymore, they are fine getting on and off the ski lift (we still ask them to slow it down when we get on), and they weren’t even cold or tired at all! After an hour and a half of lessons, we skied another hour and a half, and they just wanted to keep going. I was the one who got cold (especially my hands) and asked if we could call it a night. But all of it loved it so much. I can’t express what a magical time it was for me.

At home, I gave Lily a massage given the super stressful morning she had and the fact that she watched the little ones while I got to ski. We watched Chef’s table, and just had an awesome time being together.

Today was a great Sunday. Lily and I slept in and that felt luxurious. We listened to church between 10 and noon and loved the emphasis on focusing on practical application in a religious journey.

After church, I packed the car with fishing things, bought some wax worms and meal worms at Petco and headed to the lake. The idea was that I’d have some time alone to figure out how to use my fishfinder, get set up, and focus on catching fish before everyone showed up and it got more chaotic. I did figure out how to use my fish-finder which was super exciting. I was able to find a spot that had fish around it. I had a bunch of bites really quickly, and within 40 minutes, I caught a beautiful bass.

Then everyone showed up which was really fun. Betsy, Micah and Pipa stopped by, and we also made friends with Joe and his son Zeek, who were fishing next to us. Lily reheated Borscht (which she had just cooked) on the Coleman stove and passed it out to everyone, including our new friends. As is usual for my birthday, we used Betsy’s recipe which was so fun. It was delicious as always and so fun to socialize. I’m not sure if the noise of the group scared away the fish because we didn’t catch any more, but it was a really good time and I was happy for the one I caught earlier. I’m starting to feel more confident fishing (I’ve been asking for tips relatively incessantly whenever I talk with a fisher). I should also note Lily loves making and passing out food out-doors, and she was really happy handing out borscht on the dock.

At home I watched some TV with Lily. We’ve been watching Chef’s Table which is one of the best TV series either of us have ever seen because the cinematography and storytelling is so powerful and moving.

After that I stayed up until 12:30 putting all the things away from our fishing adventure and also cleaning the garage. I was dying to clean the garage this weekend and thought my opportunity had passed, so I was so grateful to God that it worked out for me to get that done. I felt really happy about it.

Today I woke up and did more work. By 10, I was ready to hike with the family. We all went up to Deer Creek and listened to fun artists like Sia, the Killers, Michael Jackson and Imagine Dragons on the way up.

We went to a trail at Deer Creek Reservoir. We were sad to see the no dogs sign when we got there. We went ahead anyway since we had a tight window, but we were sad that we wont be back with Basil.

The hike was really fun. There was a dumb moment when I wanted to throw a rock down a ledge to see if it would break through the ice, and I threw three different rocks before finally getting one to the ice. Sometimes I don’t properly regulate my inner neanderthal. We later realized that people ice fish in that area, and even though no one was there at the time I threw rocks, the thought of the possibility that I could have hurt someone gave Lily a lot of anxiety (because truly in the moment I threw the rocks we didn’t have full visibility to know what or who was down there), and I felt bad for doing something that had the potential to hurt someone, causing Lily stress and setting a bad example of rock throwing for the kids. Anyway, we rolled through it and had a great rest of our hike.

The scenery was absolutely gorgeous. 30 minutes in, I encouraged Lily to go ahead of us another 15-20 min while we headed back so she could get her exercise in since I was about to cross-country ski afterwards. So I helped coax the kids (Only Ammon and Clarissa needed coaxing) back to the car, and Lily was able to get some good hiking in with Basil (who is so chunky after his stay in the boarding place, so the walking is good for him!)

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After the family hike, Lily dropped me off at the Sundance Nordic Center so I could cross-country ski with my good friend Daniel Olsen. We went over 7 miles, and I was barely walking when we finished. It was a wake up call about the conditioning I have lost during winter, and it got me excited to exercise more. I wasn’t even close to keeping up with Daniel, but we had such a good time being together as we always do. It was so pretty up there!

I was so grateful for all my time outdoors today. At home, I had a huge dinner, cleaned the kitchen and then helped Lily with Mary’s piano practice.

Lily was incredible. She did a full practice with Ammon and taught him a song hands together. Then she did a huge practice with Mary teaching her to do her Concerto hands together. Then she sat and did a full practice with Lydia and afterwards read Shakespear to the kids!

Anyway, during Mary’s practice, Mary was getting very emotional and angry about how hard it was to learn the piece, and the fact that Lily wanted her to keep going. I went in the room and helped reinforce what Lily was doing, and it was a really special moment for me to feel like Lily and I were working as a team helping support our daughter’s development. Mary eventually learned over a page of her new piece and it sounds amazing. I love my family.

I then did over an hour of homework with Ammon and then went to Al’s sporting goods for wax worms (which they didn’t have nor did Walmart), but I did get some new jig heads that might work well tomorrow on the lake.

I then watched some tv and worked at my computer before getting some sleep.

Every year for my birthday, we have a dinner party and Lily make me one of my all-time favorite foods, Borscht. This week she was a little under the weather, so we are reserving Borscht for our Sunday ice-fishing food, but Lily still did some serious cooking. She made a cheesecake, a chocolate beet cake and a beet puree to go on the beet cake.

I had a crazy day at work (and went back to do more work after the dinner party due to all of our account planning, and sync meetings and deliverables happening right now), but the party was a huge highlight in such an arduous week. The guests were Morgan and Jessie Vandagriff (and their kids Henry and Vika), Tyler, MichaelAnne, and Daniel Olsen. It was incredible how naturally the conversation flowed, and it was so enjoyable, and such a bright spot in the stress and exertion I’ve felt immersed in lately. I love my friends, and my incredible wife for always helping make my birthday special!