Author: lilydarais

In the morning we all got the kids ready and pulled out before 9am so we could drive three and a half hours to Bryce Canyon National Park. Clarissa didn’t want pig tails or a pony tail, but asked for a unicorn hairdo (a unicorn tail?), so this is what I gave her.

Abe had been visualizing this day trip all week to get him through work stress. We all loved the hike from Sunrise Point to Sunset Point and Queen’s Garden in the middle. Afterward Abe took Basil on a quick 1 mile walk on the rim trail.

We listened to Just Mercy in our car. Lydia requested a lot of Sia in the car with Swathi, Clark and Meera. It was a fun drive!

After all the drama with ballroom, the kids went and won their competitions on Friday. I was floored. Mary, Ammon and Clarissa (who constitute half of their class) took first in their division. Lydia got first place for one of her songs and second for the other. I apologized to the kids for almost withdrawing them against their will and committed to at least finishing out the year. They all love ballroom, so they were happy.

The actual competition day was not as bad as I thought it would be. Getting the girls’ hair done was the hard part, and Abe helped tremendously by running around to four different stores to find hair nets, more scrunchies, and more gel.

Then Soren joined us and we all drove to Farmington. The event was held in a big arena and was surprisingly easy to navigate. The kids were really well-behaved and it was actually kind of fun sitting in the stands watching all of the dances.

Then I took the kids to Noodles and Company before dropping Lydia off at voice lessons and coming back home. Then we left the kids with the babysitter while the adults all went to Pizzeria 712 for dinner. We had the greatest time chatting and then went to Rockwell Ice Cream after for dessert.

When we got home we watched the documentary Cheer, because Clark said the culture might be similar to ballroom. We loved it!

On Thursday we got up very early to get ready for family pictures. I had not planned outfits ahead so needed a LOT of time to figure that out and get myself ready. Clark brought my mom over so she could be in the pictures.

Sarah arrived at 8am and took pictures of all of us together. It is always fun to take family pictures, and I realized as we were taking them that we need to make sure to do this annually. Sarah is my favorite photographer and I am genuinely confused why we have not only taken pictures with her in the past. I think maybe some years she has been unavailable. Going forward we are only going to use her!

After pictures we raced the kids to school and came home to pick up the remaining kids (Soren, Meera, and Clarissa) for an afternoon at Color Me Mine.

After that we picked up lunch at Kneaders and then headed home to rest a little bit before picking up the rest of the kids from school. They came home and played all together before we headed out for sushi at the Happy Sumo.

Afterward we split up. The older girls and I joined Amy and her girls for the BYU production of As You Like It. Abe went home to get all of the costumes to turn in because we decided to withdraw from ballroom. And everyone else went to the Mighty Baker to decorate cupcakes.

At night, Mary recapped the play:

In the morning I made borscht in preparation for Clark’s family’s arrival.

Then I took Basil on a walk. I found this loose piece of concrete that almost flipped up when I stepped on it, so I called the city about it and they fixed it the next day. That made me feel so proud of Orem. They were so responsive!

Ammon has enjoyed acting like a ninja:

After everyone arrived at the house the kids stayed up late playing while the grown-ups chatted. My favorite part was watching Swathi literally light up while talking about her passion for hematology!

We arrived at Big Springs by 9am, which was a big accomplishment for us on a Sunday! It was totally iced over but still fun. I went ahead with Basil while Abe and the kids played behind in some trees. By the time I crossed a big meadow into the aspen forest, it was so beautiful. I wanted to keep going but realized I had the car keys and that if Abe or the kids got cold, they would be shivering.

After we hiked and did some errands, I went out to Death on the Nile with my friend Courtney. It was so fun I wondered why I don’t go to the movies more often. And then I remembered that I live in a gun-heavy part of a gun-heavy state, and I am scared of mass shootings. But we survived and had fun!

After the movie we had home church. Our pastor, Tyler, came, along with a local BYU student. She blew me away with her thoughtfulness, insight and loving-kindness. Abe and I adore providing safe shelter for people going through the difficult experience of faith transition, and it was an honor to hear her story.

After she left we hung out with Tyler and ate fondue and snacks until 8pm. Then Abe and I put down the kids and watched our new favorite show, Chef’s Table. It is so spectacular!

After staying up late finishing Don’t Look Up last night, Abe and I were inclined to sleep in. But our kids were not! So as a compromise we got out of the door in time to be first in line for Boozehounds’ opening…at 10am. Sadly, this felt like a major win for us.

We loved Boozehounds! There were so many dogs that the kids loved petting and seeing, and the food was oh-so-amazing. It was Filipino food but I couldn’t exactly tell where the Filipino came in, other than the fact that my salad had an asian dressing. But every dish was just so good.

I had read that Palm Springs is a great place to order mixed drinks, so I ordered one with breakfast.

Either it has been so long that I drank that my body could barely handle it or the mixed drinks in California are a lot stiffer than in Utah. But after two sips I started feeling woozy. I completely stopped after four sips. But those four sips were delicious.

Then we spent the next two hours driving around trying to find a pool for the kids to swim in. The weather was beautiful and I regretted not just paying for an airbnb with a pool. I almost did and was just kicking myself the whole time.

We drove from the Ace Hotel to the Seguaro Hotel. Neither were currently available, but I did note that the Seguaro was dog friendly and chic. Lydia wants to come back to Palm Springs on her birthday and bring Basil to Boozehounds, so I will need a solution that is dog friendly and has a pool. Seguaro checks both boxes!

After we determined there were no pools or hot springs open to children right now, we went to town and tried to find some celebrity houses. But then I realized that Shields’ Date Farm closed their cafe in one hour, and we needed to get there if we wanted to try a date shake.

So we drove to Shield’s Date Farm, tried date shakes, walked around their biblical sculpture garden, admired their date trees, watched their movie, The Romance and Sex Life of Dates (actually a very, very tame movie about date propagation), and bought some dates. My only regret is that I did not get a coffee date shake. If we go again I am noting to self to try that next time.

Now that the trees are so high, and with technology advancements, mechanical platforms are currently used to help workers to the top of the trees.

Then we drove back to town and drove around the Palm Springs celebrity houses. The kids were so enthusiastic and interested, even though they had no idea who most of the famous people were. We all did know Lucille Ball, though, and they were so excited to see her house!

Then we drove to the aerial tram and rode that to the top, where we ate dinner. The tram was such a surprise. I expected it to be a normal ski lift, but it is much closer to a Disney ride. The floor rotates, the person operating the tram seems to function like a DJ, and on our ride everyone sang and danced along to the songs in the tram. It was really fun.

At the top we ate at the restaurant, which would have been a severe disappointment had we not been grateful to just learn for ourselves that that is an experience we need not repeat. The food was not up to trip standards, but it was still fun to eat it together.

Then we drove home to blog. The kids all fell asleep en route, and I just chugged a lot of Nyquil so that I can follow their excellent example.

Abe and I treasure every trip we have taken together, no matter how short, small or humble, and so far this trip ranks wonderfully for novelty, fun, and refreshment.

Today I spent almost the whole day resting in bed. I still don’t have my voice back and I was completely exhausted. I feel like when I review the blog at random, fifty percent of the time I click on a day when it reads, “I spent the whole day in bed because I was sick and tired.” Maybe that’s a sign I should lay off the sugar or be more consistent about vitamins or something.

At any rate I did rouse myself to tidy, fold laundry, and do some chores at various points in the day, and I finished reading The Anatomy of Peace and the novel, Less. At the end of the day I sat down Mary and Lydia and tried for the umpteenth time to teach them how to crochet. I haven’t crocheted myself in years so I was also re-teaching myself, and in the process might have let fly a few too many swear words in the heat of it all. (At any given moment Lydia was impatiently charging ahead with her–incorrect–technique and demanding to know what to do next, Mary was struggling with step one, and I was trying to re-watch the tutorial to see where we all went wrong.)

Abe’s day included of a two-hour long zoom call with his AXB group of friends. They had their annual secret Santa gift exchange and monthly chat, which sounded very fun. There was a lot of laughter and Abe seemed to be in a better mood after that. He has felt very tired and worn down, and the fact that I have laryngitis just adds to all he has to do. But he has been very kind and giving in spite of his fatigue and it was nice to hear him having so much fun with his friends.

His call came at the same time as morning church, but he zoomed in to the local afternoon meeting. Some people in the CoC still attend their LDS wards because they have a spouse or kids still going there, and I guess one of our local CoC people had a pretty rough day at her ward that she wanted to process with the group. I have had a lot of positive experiences in LDS chapels lately (listening to my post-Mormon friend Courtney sing in her home ward, and then accompanying Courtney for the funeral service of her father-in-law were both very positive experiences), but listening to Abe relate what the lesson was in the LDS church today was frankly upsetting. I felt grateful to have my whole family safely out.

Mary made Dorie Greenspan’s World Peace Cookies today. I did not help a bit, and they tasted amazing. We ate all of the pretty ones but Abe got a picture with the last batch of the, er, less pretty–but oh-so-tasty!!–ones below.

I think Abe and I are going to take an easy walk around the block with Basil after the kids go down and either watch TV or read books until 10:30pm hits.

This morning we woke up to the sound of snow and hail outside. Clark and Swathi alerted us it was blizzarding in Seattle, but we still packed and drove to Salt Lake because we did not see any evidence that our flight had cancelled.

When we were pulling up to Karin’s house we received a notification that the flight had just cancelled. So we chatted a minute with Karin and headed back home, stopping en route at Spitz.

Once home Abe and I handed the kids their “brain cookers” (i.e. screens) and headed to our new favorite spot in the basement to finish off The Witcher series. We are both under the weather and it was really nice to just lie there doing nothing.

The kids are actually burnt out on screens and spent a lot of that time running around the house. When we were finished we came upstairs to discover Ammon and Clarissa had scratched up a ton of walls with the tip of a metal toy. Sigh.

And Abe made the kids dinner while I sit here catching up on the blog. After dinner the kids gave us another dance show. Abe has it on video. So cute.