Author: Abe Darais

I had a hard time getting started in the morning, and unfortunately that meant Lily did almost everything getting the packing and the kids ready. As I was doing my little part, I felt bad about both not being more helpful, and also not taking more pictures of the beautiful house we stayed in. I snapped some photos even though the house wasn’t put together during during our unpacking just to capture the essence.

The drive home was difficult for both Lily and myself. We’ve both been feeling some intensity and frustration at this period in our lives and we both needed vent a little. Being next to each other in a car for 8 hours, we vented at each other. We are particularly concerned about Lily’s arms which fall asleep at night, as well as her frequent hand pain. I researched it when we got home and I think it is carpal tunnel and some arthritis. She’s seeing a doctor in a couple of weeks to check things out. Also, I was trying to solve her problems in the car ride, rather than listening and empathizing, so that added to the difficulty.

Anyway, while Lily and I were having a rough go, the kids were being perfect, angelic, and absolutely adorable. They created a pretend passenger named Bob, and spent a fair chunk of the car ride home laughing, joking and talking about Bob,

Lydia and Mary also made this cute stop-motion video:

We got home in time for Lydia’s volleyball practice at 6:40

Today, we woke up and to breakfast at Village Inn with my Grandma, Doris Edmondson. She told stories about her husband, Grandpa Bob, who recently passed away. I caught a few tidbits in the clips below (I hope they work!):

She also shared some cute pictures with us. Everyone agreed he loved little children and was very good with them.

Then we visited with my Grandma Forsyth who is having a birthday tomorrow. They still weren’t allowing visitors in the building due to Covid, so I visited with her outside with Jere and my mom.

Then we drove to Colorado Springs and went to Garden of The Gods. It was AMAZING. We started with the visitor’s center, which included a movie, and then we saw the amazing scenery outside:

For Dinner, we went to Chop Shop Casual Urban Eatery, which was very yummy, especially the pies we had for desert (I had Key Lime!).

One of my favorite parts of the entire Denver trip is all of the Denver history that we were immersed in. We stayed in a home that used to be the French Consulate building. It was built around the year 1900, and was owned by a number of different wealthy families, and at one point the French Consulate, and then again by wealthy families. Around 1970, it was also the 2nd building in Denver to become a historical Denver home (Molly Brown home was the first).

Here is a picture of Lily reading and enjoying our beautiful home.

In the morning we had a large brunch at Cinzzetti’s:

Then we tried to go to the acquarium, but it was by appointment only, so instead we tried to go the art museum. The art museum was also sold out.

We all were very wet at that point because it was very rainy, so we went to a small pub/cafe for hot chocolate and tater tots.

We then went to the Molly Brown house. It was fascinating, and I wish I took pictures inside!

We went to Stueben’s for dinner loved it so much, I think we will eat there every time we are in Denver going forward.

My Grandfather Edmondson recently passed away, and also my Grandma Forsyth is about to turn 80 so my mom was planning to go to Denver this weekend and my family and my brother, Jere, decided to join her.

We decided to all eat (with Jay too) at the Original Pancake House in the morning before hitting the road. David dropped Jere off and also hung out with us for a bit. It was so fun to see everyone, and also was unreasonably happy about the idea of all eating at the original pancake house together. Also, in the parking lot, my mom snapped one of my all-time favorite pictures of Clarissa.

And wow, did the Original Pancake House deliver! I had fruit crepes which were so so so good!

Then we hit the road. The kids (except Clarissa) had fun taking turns in Grandma’s gorgeous Porsche.

The kids were outstanding in the car (they are such good travelers!) and we stopped in Little America in Wyoming for ice-cream. My mom used to stop there to get me and my brothers ice-cream on our Denver road trips when I was a kid. At the gift shop, we also bought a ton of activity books for the kids since they didn’t have much (errr or anything?) to occupy them for the previous 3 hours.

This is me setting the kids up on their activity books. Ammon had a complex color by numbers book that took a fair amount of explaining, but he got the hang of it and created an AMAZING picture.

For dinner we found a delicious Italian restaurant in Laramie.

We arrived relatively late in Denver and went straight to bed.

Today, Lily took the kids to Red Butte Gardens. Here are some pictures:

Lily and I loved day 2 in Scottsdale. One of the things I first noticed about being with Lily is that I can be completely myself with her, and she can be completely her self, and we just enjoy being together. I feel so blessed that hasn’t changed after 11 years. If anything, we are only better pals. Today was our adventure day to go and explore Scottsdale. But we still slipped in some fun resort time. Isn’t the resort beautiful! It’s a Hilton resort called “The Boulders and Scottsdale” or something like that. Lily kept saying she felt like she was in the Good Place (for those of you that have seen that show, and thanks mom for the amazing recommendation, it’s one of my favorite shows of all time). We agreed the desert beauty was as wonderful as any landscape we had seen.

Breakfast was incredible. I had a delicious sunrise egg sandwich.

Lily had an omelette which she absolutely loved.

While Lily was walking she saw a wild pig and her baby! Apparently they can charge and injure people especially when they are with their babies. I’m so glad Lily didn’t get hurt!

We spent some time at the pool which was AMAZING and relaxing and I was able to get a massage while Lily spent more time at the pool. Thank you Lily for encouraging the massage, it was amazing!

Then we went to the butterfly museum, which I absolutely loved. I took a ton of pictures but whittled it down to these:

After the butterfly museum, we went to SumoMaya, and absolutely amazing fusion restaurant that Lily and I would recommend to anyone. Here are some pictures of what we ordered.

Lily, this has been the best 11 years of my life. I owe it to you, and I thank you for the laughter, the safety, the companionship, and the gift of our children. I love you!

Lily and I decided to celebrate our anniversary a week early in Scottsdale, Arizona this year! I think a new tradition is starting in which we explore a new city together on our anniversary. Clark, my mom and Lexi (our nanny) all helped make this possible, so THANK YOU to them! We’ve never used Lexi on a regular schedule, but after calling her up for help with this weekend we made the decision to start using her a couple of hours every day, and we are very excited about the help!

Here is a picture of us going to the parking bus to ride to the airport:

And a picture of our late night Mexican dinner at the resort:

Clark came in town to spend some time with Georgia and it was so fun to see him and the kids!

Here are some scenes from the day from when Lily took all the kids to a park and afterwards. I think Lily’s heart must have skipped a beat when Ammon decided to jump off the rope beam:

Today, I learned that Basil likes to drink from the hose:

Also, we went swimming and Clarissa fell asleep in the car.

At home, Ammon and Clarissa performed a beautiful dance on their stage.

Today felt special to me. Over the weekend, I felt God guiding me to a place of understanding that I have lost balance, focuses too much on work and allowed my stress levels to get too high. I’ve been trying to reorient myself to better balance, and today seemed to be evidence that I am headed in the right direction, because I found a lot of happiness today despite my lingering stress, fatigue and anxiety.

I had a wonderful workout this morning with my little fluffball, Basil. I call it the Dogout workout. I have an irrational amount of joy thinking of all the various meanings found in the name of the work out.

• Dugout (baseball reference) = Our workout involves running around baseball diamonds (which have dugouts)
• Dog – Out = Getting the dog out

Okay, I guess its just too meanings, haha, but it still feels clever. The workout is a roughly one mile jog to a pullup bar, and then as many pullups as I can muster five times in a row, with a quarter mile run around the baseball diamonds between each set (4 total) either sprinting or striding (ideally) and then jogging home (but of course Basil runs and pulls me the last 3/4 miles because he’s excited to get home.) I had a lot of thoughts on my run, many of which I hope to write more about in my scripture journal tomorrow like trusting God, means trusting that everything will be OK if I live my values without compromise, and how feeling the Holy Ghost comes by living my values without compromise, and how in so many ways what I feel God is, is what I feel my inner most values to be.

At home I chatted with Lily a bit before my workday, which was nice. I then met with my dad, who is also my real estate agent for selling the home, and we made a ton of progress. We lined up a stager, a photographer, and made other plans. Work was very busy. I was very sharp in the morning, but got tired towards the end of the day. Around lunch time, I swam with the family which was so fun, and also very productive. Lily told me yesterday that her number one goal for the summer is to get all the kids swimming. Lily and I took turns working with the different kids and I think they mad progress (Lydia was at school). Lily and I also agree that Clarissa is unbelievably cute in goggles.

I caught up on blogging later in my work day because I was too tired to do Qualtrics work, but I eventually got a second wind and got more work done.

After work, Ammon and Clarissa got in a lot of trouble for something naughty they did, and Lily and I were super stern with them, but then we spent a lot of time hugging, and affirming them. I also snapped this picture of Ammon in his room. I’ve been wanting to capture how captivated he has been lately by coloring and sticker book art. It is really quite magnificent.

I also listened to Mary play the piano and I was blown away by her progress. I also got to listen to these beautiful duets from Lydia and Lily.

After putting the kids down, I folded laundry while Lily played the piano for me. She offered to fold clothes also, but I told her I’d way rather listen to her play piano while I folded, and it was so beautiful to hear her play Beethoven. Then we walked together in the perfect spring air.

It was a truly beautiful day. Thank you God for helping me smell the roses and find my balance again and thank you family for being patient with me when I allow work to swallow me.