Today Lydia had a medieval festival at school and Lily attended some of it and got pictures. Lydia’s cake was served, and she also played the harp. My role was to transport the harp to and from school, and when I picked it up, her teacher, Mrs. Mason effused (3 or 4 times) about how remarkable Lydia’s harp playing was. She even had Lydia play specifically for the principal so the principal could hear her play. It warmed my heart to hear such praise and we are very proud of Lydia!
Today we woke up and all went to mass, except Lydia who stayed home and made her cake for her medieval festival tomorrow.
We enjoyed mass, and although Lily doesn’t agree with all the Catholic doctrine, she felt at home there, and loved the diversity.
At home, I helped Ammon finish the tree-house for his little creatures, and then he, Clarissa and I played for about an hour.
Work has been very intense, including a recent tragic occurrence on my team. I spent a lot of time today working, however, I peeled away around 3:30 to have sushi with the family, and go to Blickenstaff’s together.
During the day, I caught Lily playing Barbies with Clarissa. I think it is one of Clarissa’s favorite things.
After work today, Lydia showed me an incredible coat of arms she made for our family. Everyone in it has a symbol. The jester hat is Basil, the chef hat is Mary, the tiara is Clarissa, the helmet is Ammon and the pink and green hat is Lydia. I am the blue dragon and lily is the green dragon. I love it!
I was also admiring how beautiful our children are over dinner. I love them!
Here is a video of Lily reading to Ammon and Clarissa that I took after I got home from pickleball with my coworkers.
After that, Lily massaged Lydia’s feet while we all had a discussion about orbits, gravity and space-time. I got really excited (one of my favorite topics), and we watched a Spacetime episode on PBS.
After putting the kids to bed, Lily and I played Wingspan and she beat me three times in a row!
Last night Ammon asked Lily if he could have the Alexa with a screen in his room at night. Lily gave him certain parameters he had to obey and then agreed. Ammon was so thrilled and grateful, that in the morning he made a whole display of gratitude for Lily:
Also, it was very fun to have Georgia over today!
Work has been incredibly intense for me lately, and I’ve started the (not-so great) habit of falling asleep around 4:00 after my slew of meetings from the day, and then finishing my work after my nap. I think it was during one of these naps that Clarissa put this love note on my bedside. She is so sweet!
Yesterday was very active, and we decided to make today a deep play day with the family.
In the morning, Lydia and Mary set up the upstairs to have homes and a school for all the dolls while Lily and I played games with Ammon (Clue, Operation, and Sleeping Queens). Then Lily and I had deep doll play time with the four kids. It was a lot of fun!
Then Lily and I played Wingspan with Lydia and Mary, and then we played by ourselves until after 11. We are having so much fun! Mary beat us when we all played together, but I’m getting better now that I formed a written strategy (which I formed while I was walking Basil).
This morning our Pastor Tyler came over as well as our friend Jordan Harmon for breakfast. We chatted about the lessons material for becoming a member. These informal classes are part of the process to me becoming a member, which I’m seriously considering.
After that, I rushed off to do some cross-country skiing with my great friend Daniel Olsen. The weather was incredible. I went back early as I was feeling so tired, but Daniel is in better shape than me and skied almost ten miles!
In the evening we had dinner with our Salt Lake Pastor and her family. Her husband, Kuzma made incredible green borscht along with delicious been piroskis and cheese piroskis. We had a great time chatting and enjoyed some Mrs. Cavanaugh’s chocolates for desert. Carla and her family are moving in May and we are really going to miss them!
Before we left, Kuzma took pictures of Ammon and Clarissa in their home-made photo/video studio. They turned out great!
In the evening, Lily continued her reign of domination at Wingspan. I think she beat me three times in a row (by a large margin)
Recently I discovered that we still had a pirate costume from a Peter Pan dance that Clarissa was supposed to perform in (and never made it to) a very long time ago. I felt embarrassed that we never returned the costume, so I drove to Smash Dance yesterday to return it. The lady there told me that we had actually paid for it, so it was our costume. We gave it to Clarissa for a dress-up and she spent all day Friday and Saturday in it!
Lily and I have been passing the time with A LOT of Wingspan. It is our favorite game, and lately Lily has been beating me consistently with huge margins!
