I received some great news today, and Lily and I celebrated by having dinner with our great friends the Vandagriffs. Morgan was so nice that he even got me a fiesta balloon to celebrate!
We had food from Kohinoor, and I took this picture. I was amuzed because “butter chicken” is a nickname that Lily has for Mary.
Ammon has been having so much fun with his legos and I’ve had the chance to play with him here and there. We build things together, and I’m so impressed with the things he has made! I love how he uses colors in his creations.
Also, here are some cute videos of our young harp padowan 🙂
Our family has really been enjoying this YouTube person who sings Adelle’s “Hello From the Other Side” in the voices of various Disney characters. Here is the YouTube Video of Him: https://youtu.be/q5wgbIz2aLQ?feature=shared
Tonight, Lily and I rested on the couch as we listened to Ammon practicing those voices to Adelle’s song while he was in his bed. It was adorable. I’m sure he was going strong for 20 minutes or more!
Today was another nice and low-key day. I’ve been sleeping in which is nice. I also played Legos with Soren and Ammon and took this picture of some of Ammon’s legos.
At 1:00 Clark, Swathi, Lily and I played pickleball. Couples were very well matched, and the playing was so fun! We all had a blast.
Then Clark and Swathi got everything ready to go, we ate Cafe Rio together and then we said our goodbyes. We miss you already, we had the best time with you all!!
Today was another low-key day. Liy and Swathi went on a nice walk at the Utah Lake together and, and in the afternoon, Clark, Swathi, Soren and Meera went to a birthday party of a friend of their that lives nearby. While they were at the party, we bought a new oven (our old one broke) and we went and picked out a Christmas tree. We love the one we picked out. We all arrived home at about the same time, and we all decorated the tree and the house together while Clark took Georgia’s old laptop to Best-buy for repair. He has been doing a lot of helping her with her technology and storage needs on this trip. The tree looks great, and I’ll have to get a picture of it for a later blog post.
We ended the day with two games of Wingspan, both of which Clark won. He entered our home 10 days ago as somewhat of a Wingspan novice (he hadn’t even played with nectar!). Now the student has become the master. He he demolished me and Lily. It was so fun!
Today was a relaxing day after Thanksgiving. It snowed and so the kids had a ton of fun playing in the snow while the grown-ups mostly took it easy.
Lily, Lydia and I did go to the T-mobile store and we got Lily a new iphone with more storage, and we gave her old one to Lydia, with a new case and screen protector (so it seems new!). Lydia chose such a stylish case for it and she was so so happy to get it. She has long awaited this day, and we feel she has more than earned it with her grades, responsible behavior and help with siblings. We love and trust you Lydia! We also are aware of the dangers, and Lily sat Lydia down before we gave it to her to have, “their last ever face-to-face conversation.” LOL. I’m sure that is not the case, but Lily is right to be concerned, and we do have a number of controls and rules that hopefully help our perfect daughter develop good technology habits.
For dinner, we went to our new favorite restaurant, Yamato. They have great sushi, at a good price, and the best part is they have a private room that works so perfectly for our family. It felt so connective all being around a large table together. We had so much fun with Clark, Meera and Soren a week ago, that we wanted to come again with Swathi too! Sushi is also Soren’s favorite food, so he was also very happy. Lily gets annoyed at how many pictures I take of us eating, lol. That only makes the mischevious part of me want to take more. Sorry Lily!
Today was a particularly delightful Thanksgiving for me, and Lily said it was one of the best that she has ever had. It started bright and early with me and Clark running a half marathon. We both enjoyed our race very much. The route started at Thanksgiving point and went through the golf course, neighborhoods and the Jordan River Trail. My time was ok (146:08), but the race was very satisfying. I ran very hard, but so hard that I wrecked myself. I just felt grateful to be able to do it.
Shortly after Clark and I started our half-marathon, Lydia, Mary and Soren all started their 5K. Soren has run a 5K before and he was blazing fast at 27 minutes. Lydia got 33:40 and Mary got 36:43 and I was so proud of both them and their times. It was their first race of their lives!
Here are a couple of videos of the start of the race:
Here is Soren finishing!
Here is Mary finishing!
After the half-marathon and the 5K was the kids run. Clarissa got 6:02 in the half-mile, Ammon got 5:09 and it was so cute to see them running their little hearts out. Meera was also adorable and did a great job. I especially laughed when she was very focussed on the race and got mad when Clark and I tried to cheer her on (so we stopped). Here is a video of the whole thing!
After the races, we went home and the adults prepped for Thanksgiving. My dad and Suzanne came early and they helped too. Lily started cooking a couple of days ago, so she had everything ready to go on-time without too much fuss. We mostly set the table, cleaned, warmed up food, did final food prep, and Clark carved the turkey. While the grown-ups were busy getting ready, the kids were busy practicing their play with Lydia. She is such an amazing organizer. I heard her allowing 20 minute breaks and giving individualized coaching sessions (she actually called them coaching sessions). What a leader!
We had 15 in all when everyone arrived (David, Olivia, Ozzy, George, my dad, Suzanne, Clark & Swathi + kids, and our family) and laughter, conversation and hearth flowed. It was a particularly happy evening for everyone. The food was absolutely knockout. The sweet potatoe dish was particularly fantastic! We love all our guests so much and it was a truly special evening all being together.
After the meal, the kids performed that play that Lydia wrote, designed costumes for, choriographed, and drilled practice for days for. We were all so blown away! Here is the entire recording!
After the play, the kids watch Charlie Brown Thanksgiving while the grown-ups continued chatting and everyone had pie (apple and pumpkin) and ice-cream.
It was beginning to end a magical day, thanks to the beautiful people in our lives.
While I was at work, Lily took Lydia and Mary to a service project with the first Presbyterian church where they handed out turkeys to people in need. I’m so glad the church organized that, that Lily arranged for the kids to attend, and that Mary and Lydia served in that way and had that experience.
After work today, I went with with Clark, Meera, Ammon and Soren to pick up our packets for the races tomorrow. While picking up the packets, we snapped this picture:
Then Clark and I took Meera, Soren and Ammon to Spitz. They were mesmorized watching the women’s wrestling show that was on the TV, and talked about it in the car on the way home.
Late tonight Swathi came! It was so fun to see her, but we didn’t chat long because we were going to have an early start with the races tomorrow.
Today Lydia has been helping all the other kids practice their parts for the Thanksgiving play she wrote. In the play, Meera is a turkey. Isn’t she cute?
Also, all the girls are now sleeping together in one big girl party every night!
We have loved having Clark, Soren and Meera and we can’t wait until Swathi arrives too! Clark is always super helpful (he took the kids swimming today for example) and he’s so fun to talk to and play Wingspan with. He also bought Ammon and Clarissa Lego sets that they loved putting together today. As for Soren and Meera, our kids are so excited to play with them that they keep begging us to skip school so they can play with them more, and we keep saying yes because we are so happy about those bonds growing even stronger. They are all a delights to have in our home. One anecdote that made me laugh from Sunday was when Lily read Meera a Strega Nona story about Big Anthony eating the goats’ food. Meera was so absorbed in the story, that she nearly plugged her ears at times from the drama, and she felt very strongly that what Big Anthony did was very, very wrong. It was sweet to see how much the story affected her. She’s such a sweet soul! Also, Lily made an amazing qinou chilie today that I thought was so delicious. In the evening, we played Wingspan, and Clark won with a new high score (142)! What a great day!