Author: lilydarais

On Thursday I deep cleaned the house, baked a pie and made some eggplant rollatini. I found this note Mary wrote to Lydia while I cleaned:

It says, “Dear Lydia Wiye (why) Do You Read So Much!!!”

Sometimes Mary gets really frustrated when Lydia reads and doesn’t want to play. I thought it was an adorable note.

At 4:30 Abe came home so we could go to Sundance for the night to celebrate our anniversary. Tom and Suzanne were so sweet and spent the night and babysat the kids so we could get away.

On the way we stopped at Harmon’s and picked up stuff for our Friday picnic, and then we drove to the Tree Room at Sundance.

They don’t allow you to take pictures in the Tree Room, but it was such wonderful ambiance. We got to snuggle at a “booth” that was so incredibly comfortable. The food was seriously too rich, but we still ate almost all of it.

We were so delighted by our Sundance Cabin called “Lower Hollow.” Abe took some pictures:

We binge watched Game of Thrones and spent an hour in the outdoor hot tub breathing the clean mountain air.

We also gave each other gifts. I always give Abe audio books for our anniversary, and he always gives me jewelry and a poem. This year I gave him David Brooks’ The Second Mountain and Bill Clinton’s new mystery thriller.

He gave me this necklace of a kite, and this poem:

My Kite

 

You are my kite

Soaring through sky

Heavenward gusts

Calling you high

 

I feel your tug

To let out more string

The wind has caught

The wind is king

 

It once caused pain

The string unreeling

Your heart from me

The sky seemingly stealing

 

But there are some things

I have come to learn

Though you can seem far

You always return

 

Trailing clouds

As I’m gleefully winding

The string never fails

Near or far, it is binding

 

Reunited, deeper, closer

You help me to see

The things that you saw

And you whisper to me

 

The gift of our love

Enables my flight

 

I whisper back

 

We honor that love

When you fly with your might

 

I will my sweet love

 

But tonight I’m with you

And tomorrow you’re the kite

Abe took this picture of Clarissa greeting him through the window after work on Wednesday.

Wednesady was our anniversary and since we were officially celebrating by our Sundance trip on Thursday, we spent Wednesday evening driving around doing errands with the kids.

On Monday we drove home in rain and snow! This has been the craziest May.

When we got home we just relaxed and then I deep cleaned the car. It really needed it.

Soren and Ammon enjoyed watering the garden.

After yesterday’s over-activity, we made up for it today. The kids didn’t step foot outside of the house all of this cold, rainy day, and I only left in the evening with Abe to go to our coaching session with our friend, Jill. We figure we need all the help we can get during this transition, and we feel so lucky to have such a competent friend and neighbor to help us through.

Clarissa is learning to say new words every day. We played a game where we touch noses and say, “nose!” and she squeals and laughs in delight because she can say “nose” too.

The girls did their practices without any screaming this morning and I felt so happy and peaceful at our morning routine. I also did a ton of laundry–although even with that, we are still behind.

I also watched my friend Lumina’s webinar on how to do Kundalini yoga with your family. I am so excited to start doing this as a family! I feel so blessed to have such gifted, kind friends to influence me to grow. Lumina literally radiates light and it was so inspiring to participate in her webinar.

On Monday Mary said she wanted to go to the zoo, and I had totally forgotten to give the girls snuggles on Sunday night, so according to a deal we made that meant they got to skip their music practice. So the zoo was perfect! We had lots of time for it and the weather was sunny and crisp. I have no pictures because my phone is acting up. 🙁

On the way down we listened to Hamilton and I tried to explain the story to the girls. I was a little nervous about explaining the whole sex scandal part, but then I figured we gave the girls the sex talk when they were practically babies and have tried to keep the dialogue going, so, er, why not discuss what it means to have an affair (and also why this is such a bad, bad decision)??? I tried to sound really casual explaining it, but I must not have been thorough enough the first time because when I said, “any questions?” Lydia replied that she didn’t understand anything I had just said and could I please try again.

Aside from Hamilton, we had the BEST time at the zoo. I was over the moon in love with my kids, who were darling (okay, except for Ammon who would not listen during the bird show and kept trying to wander off and explore the bird habitats on the side. But I still love him anyway.). The girls cuddled with me during the show, I think because it was cold, although I prefer to think it was because they just love me that much. Clarissa kept saying, “HUG!” and leaned in to give me a big hug each time, which prompted the girls to ooh and ahh over how cute she is and pile on the hugs.

We did the carousel, and it was really fun to hold Clarissa who kept saying, “Wheee!” in between looking solemnly around without cracking a smile. She reminded me a little of Baby Lydia.

I also worked out a lot. In the morning I did an hour and a half of bikram yoga, after which I raced home to shower, get everyone and everything ready for the outing, walked acres in the zoo, came home, cooked dinner, cleaned the house, and then went to cross-fit with Abe. Cross-fit was SO HARD. I felt really out of my comfort zone and sometimes wondered if I was going to die. But we powered through and then came home, at which point Carolyn Blosil came over with rhubarb dessert for me. She is the Relief Society president, and I have been dying to give her a hug ever since I decided to leave church. It was so wonderful to hug her, visit, and eat her dessert. It felt like grace on a plate.

Then I gave my mom, the girls, and Abe massages before falling asleep. It was a big day!

 

On Saturday my mom and I drove up to La Caille to have brunch with Karin and Jay. We were awed by how beautiful everything was–especially the mountain. It’s been a wet spring and the mountain was so verdent and looked different from our Utah county mountains, which are just a couple miles south. And of course, La Caille was spectacular. We ate a lot and talked for hours. It was such a fun way to spend the morning (and early afternoon).

Abe worked a lot from home because his work is exploding in a good way. That’s great but meant he worked almost all day. In the evening we got a babysitter so we could go run together and then came home to watch three episodes of Game of Thrones. It is waaaaaay to violent for both of us, so I basically looked up the plot online so I don’t feel addicted to the show. But it is a great show.

Possibly my favorite moment of the day was when I came home from the run and peeked under Clarissa’s door. She was sitting in the middle of her room playing with her pony saying, “Happy! Happy! Happy!” over and over. I about died of cuteness overload.

On Friday we watched Game of Thrones for the first time. I have gone off the deep end reading theology and spiritual memoirs and every kind of spiritual book, and I felt a deep need to reroute my brain. I am going crazy with the faith crisis stuff, and when I watched N.T. Wright’s lecture on homosexuality during Clarissa’s nap time, I felt deep despair. I loved his biography on Paul and was really hoping for something better than what I got in that lecture. At that point I was feeling like not only the Mormon Church failed me, but the best Christian historian out there failed me, and I was done. So: Game of Thrones. It hopefully won’t fail me.

Clarissa spent HOURS of Thursday night screaming, and so Abe and I were really tired all day. So it was really nice to just watch TV together when the kids went down. The only thing is Game of Thrones is so graphic and violent. I don’t mind the graphic parts, but the violence is gross. At the same time, the plot and the people are super compelling, and it is just really hard to find shows with great plots and characters so…we watched for hours. It was a much needed escape.

On Thursday Mary had another appointment with her new eye doctor. We love him. Abe feels very committed to Mary’s eyes and took time off of work to come to the appointment. I think he was happy to see us after being gone all week, so he took a bunch of pictures of each person, including himself:

On Wednesday I spent a lot of time outside with the kids. We got out the bubbles and all of the neighborhoods came to play. Clarissa was ADORABLE:

Robert, the next door neighbor who we sometimes have babysit for us, came over to show me his new iWatch. I asked him how he paid for it…and he told me that he paid for it with the money we gave him for babysitting!!! I about died. There is no way we have been that financially irresponsible!!! Then he followed up with that he also used a year’s worth of allowance. Phew.

But, ironically, we did have a babysitter come because Abe didn’t get in from his flight until 10 at night and I wanted to go to my friend, Kathryn Sonntag’s, poetry reading. She just published a book of poems on ecology, feminism, and Heavenly Mother. It is gorgeous. My friends Emily and Jill came too and we had a fun time at the reading. My phone was out of memory and didn’t get pictures.

Abe came home late at night and we had a little ceremony to represent stepping into the second half of his spiritual life. All of the changes in my faith have disrupted Abe’s as well, and so this was his idea so we could stay unified. It was beautiful.

On Tuesday Abe was gone and the little kids were still sick, so I didn’t go swimming in the morning. I got a babysitter and had a lovely evening swimming and enjoying the sunshine streaming into the pool. I also meditated in the sauna. I wish I remembered more about this day but am back blogging and just can’t.

But Abe took a photo of the water damage in our Chicago condo. This work trip was in Chicago, so he could go check on the condo and meet with our loveliest of renters, Shirlene. We love her and are going to miss her so much. This was probably the highlight of Abe’s day because he spent the majority of the day powering through a giant backlog of work since one of his meetings cancelled. It was really stressful, but Abe made a rule for his team that everyone not on the right of a certain quadrant would get fired, and without this day of work…Abe would have had to fire himself. So it’s a good thing he got this work in.

For lack of other visuals, here is the water damage in our Chicago condo: