Author: lilydarais

On Friday Abe and I used our date night to go to Ikea and get stuff for the homeschool room. While there we ran into one of my mission friends, Sister Coblai. Her kids were adorable.

Then we rushed over to the Greens’ storage unit to help them load their truck. By the time we arrived, they had already loaded everything and there was nothing to do but say goodbye. I am not great at goodbyes and generally avoid them, but it was nice to see them before their move to Missouri.

On Saturday we…wow. I can’t remember what we did on Saturday. Oh, yes. We worked on house projects and spent the afternoon visiting with the Andersons. They were in town and so we sat around and chatted with them for a couple of hours. They saw our end-of-the-world prep in the living room, and that started off a very lively conversation. We miss our conversations with them!

On Sunday we Face Timed with family and I wrote up my Relief Society lesson for September. It’s nice to have that out of the way, although I will still keep thinking and praying about the subject (which is honesty and integrity).

Today my mom and I cleaned the church while Abe stayed home with the kids. He put Ammon in a pack’n play outside while he mowed the lawn. We then deep cleaned the house. Abe worked his tail off. I took a nap in the middle of it because I was up half of the night with Ammon, and I went to Office Max for some last minute classroom materials. Between those two things, I only worked a fraction of the amount Abe did.

He is amazing. I was feeling daunted by all of the work, but Abe turned on the Curious George soundtrack with Jack Johnson singing and we ended up having so much fun. Abe’s cheerful, can-do attitude never ceases to astound me. I just love him so much.

We have not been taking lots of pictures, but I have one in my inbox from Sunday. This is of my mom and Ammon Face Timing with Soren.

Oh, and Abe just sent me a bunch of pictures he took today.

Yesterday I went to yoga in the morning, finished transcribing my grandfather’s letters after that, and in the afternoon we all went to Costco. We put Mary and Ammon in the shopping cart together. At first Mary did not like sitting next to Ammon because he played with her band aid and kept patting her back. Mary is still slightly tentative around Ammon and almost always does not like him to touch her.

But at the end of our trip she did this!

We were thrilled.

Yesterday evening was the stake picnic. We stood in line for a long time and then discussed emergency preparedness with both sets of Andersons.

After we put the kids to bed Abe and I spent a long time researching 9/11 online. I found this website , Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, to be very compelling. Abe found the rebuttals to the website to be more compelling. Finally I fell asleep and Abe stayed up reading one of the NDE books that has my mom and me so fired up. He also read a bunch of online rebuttals to Visions of Glory.

Personally, I don’t see how the book is hurting anyone. You can go to any seismologist and see that we live in the middle of multiple fault lines. Our water line crosses the fault line nineteen times, and experts estimate that when the quake hits, we will be without water for THREE MONTHS. Not only that, but our roads will be impassable and the airport will be broken up, making it hard for planes to reach us. Also, when the quake hits, that dam up in Provo Canyon will burst and much of the Valley will experience flooding from that on top of liquefaction from the underground lake. The rocks tell us that this area has experienced major earthquakes every 350-400 years. The last major earthquake here happened 350 years ago. Do you think we should be prepared??? Do you think we should be spreading the word to others to be prepared???? Um, I think the answer to that would be yes.

Abe took today off to set up the home school room and get the basement ready for the food storage delivery.

Ack. Bedtime got obliterated by my family history project. Originally this project was a barter; I promised to transcribe family documents in exchange for the closet space they occupied. But it was a trap! The letters I am transcribing are enthralling. I feel so close to my beloved grandma, and I’m getting to know my grandpa for the first time ever. It has been incredible.

We also ventured to Eden Foods, an emergency supply food company. Boy, they are prepared for the earthquake over there! The man who sold us the food had read all of the same books and reports we have been reading. He also recommended a new book, Awakening to our Awful Situation. When I heard the title, I laughed harder than I have in years. Actually, I absolutely believe the title speaks volumes of doctrinal and geological truth. It was just so funny to have been knee deep in crisis preparation for weeks on end and then to have someone put the cherry on top with that kind of title.

Long story short, we had emergency food storage for dinner tonight, and it was very tasty. I think if we ever invite people over for dinner (I have sworn dinner hosting off indefinitely, but just in case), I think we’ll serve them Eden Foods. Only 5% of the population is remotely prepared, and I think it would be a great reminder to our friends that we should be using food storage. Whadduya think?

Lydia did a great job calling me out tonight. I had just reprimanded her for accidentally rumpling some of my letters as she reached for a coloring page. She looked at me and said, “Mom, I’m not a grown-up.” I looked back and thought, “You know, you are absolutely right. You’re not a grown-up, and I should not pathologize your childish behavior. You are, after all, a child.” Out loud I said,”You’re right, Lydia.” I hope I apologized, but I can’t remember. Anyway, the point is I’m proud she stood up for herself. I like it when my kids defend themselves with reason and not with screams or tantrums.

Mary and Lydia had their first day of ballet for the season. They looked very cute in their tutus.

Abe took some really cute pictures of Ammon today. I’m so crazy I’m going to include them all, even though they are basically all the same picture. In the close-ups I just want to nibble his toes.

 

Yesterday I spent the morning doing family history with my mom. I had the job of transcribing captions from my grandfather’s WWII photos. He was a navigator in the South Pacific, and I felt like I was reliving history. I have never felt closer to my grandfather.

Then I discovered lunch-time hot yoga and fell in love. The yoga is only an hour, so going doesn’t feel like a massacre on my schedule.

On the heels of yoga, we headed to Let’s Play Music. That was a downer because we lost Lydia’s homework booklet and CD in the very first week. I felt so bad and disorganized. This Friday we are organizing the office and I hope that we can get some systems in place to prevent that in the future.

In the afternoon we had a play date with my friend, Carlee. This was the type of play date where the moms visit while the kids play. Ever since moving to Utah Valley, most play dates seem to consist of moms dropping off their kids to play. While I have discovered that the Utah Valley play date allows me to do more housework (assuming the kids are old enough to play independently), I usually prefer the first type. Visiting is always the best part for me. I enjoyed talking to Carlee.

After the play date and dinner we had FHE. Mary and Lydia demonstrated their drawing skills and then the grown-ups discussed and ordered stuff for 72 hour kits. I am about to Google emergency ponchos as soon as I hit “publish.”

My bed time is back on track, too. That’s why I’m blogging in the morning. If I blog at night, I can’t make it to bed before 10pm. 9:30 is the goal, but if I am in bed by 10, I consider it a win.

 

Yesterday we had a great Sabbath. Our home teachers visited in the afternoon, we had a lovely dinner after that, and in the evening we held family council. Abe attended a lot of meetings after church and so I wonder if he got quite as much rest as the rest of us. On top of PEC he had a stake priesthood meeting. I had never heard of such a thing, but apparently they do that in our stake. We must have been out of town for it last year.

Abe and I went to the temple tonight and then I headed straight to my book club. My book club has become a safe space, and I absolutely love the women in the group. We stayed after the official discussion (which was in itself wonderful) and talked about Visions of Glory. The earthquake is coming. That is a seismic fact. We just have to get prepared.

I got a lovely letter from my friends, Jean and Ashley, today! I am posting the pictures of the letter on the blog because they made me smile. I thought their “#1 in LDS-ness” award was so funny. If only they knew more Mormons! …But if they did, I’m sure I wouldn’t have won the award.

Yesterday I went to yoga in the morning and read our book club book, Being Mortal, for most of the afternoon. The day before had felt very busy, so yesterday felt like a nice break. The kids had a fun evening playing with the neighbors for hours. The days and evenings are getting cooler, and we’re cherishing the opportunity to be outside before it gets much colder.

Today I spent most of the day making lasagnas for people in the ward who have recently had babies. In the evening, we enjoyed the gorgeous weather by going on a walk. The girls rode their scooters and Ammon enjoyed his stroller.

Ammon eats all the time. As in: I feed him a bottle when he wakes up, take him directly from there to his high chair, and after that he gets snacks and another bottle. On walks such as the one we took tonight, Ammon reclines in his stroller whilst stuffing his face with kale puffs. By the end of the day he looks like a little engorged balloon and I have no idea how his stomach is holding it all in. 

He also has a lot of teeth coming in. That means our nights of continuous sleep have left us. Last night was particularly choppy with Ammon’s waking and Lydia’s nosebleed.

Mary is regressing in her potty training. She has wet the bed three nights in a row and I am sure she will wet the bed again tonight because she refused to go to the potty before bed. I placed her on a bunch of towels.

Abe comes home in just a few hours! I might stay up and read my book club book.

Here are the pictures from our walk today:

My mom sent me a document about Mary. Ever since my mom moved in, Mary can be found in her room coloring. Here is what my mom has to say about the situation.

One Example of How Mary Has Charmed Me Into Being Her Minion

Last night, when it looked to Mary like I needed enticement to continue playing with her, she insisted –

“OK! OK! NOW – the next step is –

I’ll put on the stickers.

Your job is the cutting and taping.

This is called working very hard.

Don’t you want to do it?

To do it correctly – this way.

Follow along as my finger goes.

The next step is to tape it.

We are working on cutting.

That’s the first step.

Let me go get some instructions.”

She ran out of the room to make a jar full of instructions. However, she quickly returned and her conversation to me of this sort went on for another fifteen or twenty minutes as I periodically objected that it was getting too late. My objections were feeble against her charm- mostly I acted like her minion and did whatever she insisted was my part.

Jean left this morning, and that was sad. I hope she comes again soon.

Abe got in last night, though, and that was happy. We haven’t had a chance to talk much all week. To remedy the situation, we walked by the Provo River for an hour and a half this evening for date night. We talked each other’s ears off. It was great to reconnect in the beautiful setting on such a gorgeous evening.

We are thinking of embarking on Dave Ramsey’s get-out-of-debt program. We still have lots of school loans and mortgages on our Utah house and our Chicago condo. I looked up the condo on Zillow and realized the market has not bounced back yet. We would have to pay someone to buy our condo. That’s sad. But hopefully with Dave Ramsey’s help, we can get rid of those school loans! We talked about Dave Ramsey a lot on our walk. Other topics included: Following the prophet, preparing for the Second Coming, and how to forgive.

Here are pictures from the day: