Author: Abe Darais

This morning Lily took the kids hiking and true to her word, she is developing them into great hikers. I’m so proud of the kids, who, as Lily reported, had incredibly good attitudes on the hike.

Here is a picture of Ammon 🙂

In the evening, I went to a Jazz game with Mary. The Jazz were up by over twenty points at the half, and then lost the game and got eliminated from the playoffs. But it was so fun to be with Mary, and she even won a jersey! She participated in trivia, and when the host asked what her dad does at Qualtrics, she said, “he sells stuff.” Haha, she is so cute!

Today the kids had ice skating. Below are pictures and videos.

And in the evening was soccer for Mary, Ammon and Clarissa and volleyball for Lydia. As usual, I was the referee for Clarissa’s game:

Lily took the kids up Y Mountain again today and she included Ammon. My understanding is that they did great on the trail!

I have a workout I do with Basil that I call the Dogout. The name “Dogout” makes me unreasonably happy because of the multiple meanings. It rhymes with workout, I’m getting the dog out, and since it is around 4 softball diamonds, I’m also working out right next to dugouts.

Today I brought Mary with me after a conversation with Lily in which she encouraged me to transfer my ability of running to the children. It was so fun to run with Mary. We jogged to the softball diamonds, and I did some sprinting, including two races with her. In the races, I would run the outer circle along the fence, and she would run the inner circle around the dirt, and she beat me by a hair! It was so fun to race her! She played on the monkey bars while I did my pull-ups.

Also, I’m so happy Lily put Ammon in dance as he has such a gift for it. Here is a picture of him in practice today.

Also, we all went to the dentist today. We learned that Lydia’s tooth had nerve damage when she fell hard during a school fun-run/race. She was all bloody, and came home from school early. As I understand it her friend made a sharp turn, and Lydia either tried to also turn, but tripped, or bumped into her or something like that, I’m not totally sure of the details. Anyway, the dentist said the tooth will operate just fine, but it will not feel hot and cold, and it will have some discoloration which we can try to address later if we want to. Lydia had such a great attitude about it all.

Here is a video of the kids looking at the fish tank:

Lily was so distraught at how much the children whined while hiking yesterday that yesterday she announced she was going to take them on ten hikes up Y mountain, and it would only count towards the goal of ten if they did not complain. She declared to me, “I will deliver you children who are good hikers” which will be important for the backpacking trip we have coming up in August.

And so, Lily woke up early and took Mary and Lydia to hike Y mountain. Lily reported to me that they did not complain at all and they had a wonderful time.

In the evening, I went to a Jazz game in the Qualtrics gardens with Lydia. We had an amazing time, although the Jazz unfortunately lost. Ryan Smith, Qualtrics founder, now owns the Jazz, so we are very fortunate to be able to attend events like these.

Today was around 100 degrees again. We went to church at 11:00, and then picked up food and met up in dad and Suzanne’s backyard for a picnic. We ordered and brought food from a great restaurant on 8th avenue in the avenues in Salt Lake (I think it’s called Avenues Proper) and it was delicious! While picking up the food someone made fun of me for wearing a mask (I was in the habit because I just came from church where everyone still wears masks) and I felt grateful that I didn’t care. I feel like a grew a bit during Covid on not caring what others think about me. I used to be very self-conscious wearing a mask when others weren’t. So that is hopefully some progress. At my parent’s place, we found a little shady nook and had such a good time chatting with them.

Then we all went on a hike up dry canyon. It was sooooo hot, and that is probably why everyone was a bit grumpy on the hike. The kids especially complained a lot, and Lily, being being a proactive problem solver decided she’s going to hike the “Y” with the older kids to help them toughen up and be better (more cheerful) hikers. Thank you Lily!

We all cooled off and had fun Kess’s pool afterwards (we rent it, thanks Lily for coordinating!). We also made serious progress! I coached Lydia on her freestyle stroke to keep her fingertips near the water, and not out like a windmill, and also Lily (unbelievably), got Clarissa to float for a very long time (I think 60 seconds?). After watching Clarissa cry at swim lessons, and after failing myself to help her learn, I was thrilled to see Lily make that kind of progress. Here are a lot of pics because I think the kids are so cute in goggles! Lydia may have been in the restroom while I was taking pictures.

Wow, today was HOT, but it was packed with summer fun (I think it was high 90s or maybe even 100 degrees)

This morning I woke up early to go on a bike ride with Daniel Olson. We rode up to Tibble Fork, and I loved every second of it. The weather was perfect, the scenery was gorgeous and I loved spending time with Daniel. I’m also so grateful to Lily who always supports my bike-riding.

Back at home, I took the kids to their swimming lessons while Lily took Lydia to the pet store and the butterfly museum in Lehi and did yoga while Lydia read.

At the swimming lessons, Clarissa had a very hard time learning how to float:

Lydia took some awesome pictures of butterflies at the butterfly museum!

Then we went to Orem Summer Days with Eli and Chloe. It was hot, but we had such a good time.

We even bumped into Chelsae Camden and Carter!

After our fun and hot time, all the kids came to our place to play in the pool. Daniel Olson’s wife Amanda picked one up for us at Costco. Thank you!!

A picture is worth a thousand words. Here are 3,000 words:

Early in the day, the kids had ice-skating. Lily told me that Clarissa really took to it and learned quickly:

In the evening, I was referee for Clarissa’s soccer game. It deteriorated to chaos quite quickly. But Clarissa did a great job focusing and even scored some goals!

We also watched Ammon and Mary play. We didn’t catch any footage of Ammon, but here are a bunch of videos of Mary. It was amazing to see her running with kids, some of whom may have been twice her size. She was shy about kicking the ball at first, but around halftime, her coach gave her some instruction, “Mary, I want you to kick it. I don’t care what direction, just go kick the ball.” After that, Mary jumped in and got a bunch of kicks on the ball. Great work Mary!!