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I took the day off today so that Lily and I could have a date together. Honestly, we don’t go out “just us” enough, and so it was such a treat to spend the day with Lily.

On the ride up I talked a lot about the lengthy Jordan Peterson lecture I had just listened to. Our first stop was a wonderful restaurant called Harvest, where Lily and I got brunch.

Weather was perfect, and afterwards, we walked around and ended up at the Park City museum. We learned all about the mining history of Park City, which was fascinating. We also had a discussion about the role we want religion to play in our family’s lives and that was productive.

Then we went swimming which was a highlight for me. Their rec center was $30 (or more) per person, and the person at the register said he just could bring himself to charge us that so we got in for $12 each. Thanks!

Lily and I got in a great swim workout outside. It was soooo nice to swim together and just enjoy the water, the weather and the company together. Lily and I are both trying to get more in shape and it was fun to pursue that goal together.

Then we had about 30 minutes before it was time to go. We then stopped into Meredith’s shop and talked to the shop keeper. I noticed a jean jacket Meredith wore on the show selling for over $1,900. Also, Lily almost bought a hat.

Then we stopped into an art gallery that had the most amazing photography either Lily or I have seen. It is a couple that works together and they use film cameras and don’t doctor their pictures. The color and detail is absolutely stunning. Here is their web page.

I wasn’t sure if it really was the best photography ever or if Lily and I were just caught up in the moment, so we stopped into another photography gallery. The photos were great, but not near on the same level as the McMillan gallery, so that solidified it. We LOVE McMillann photography.

Then we drove back while listening to Trevor Noah, picked the kids up from school, and talk to our dear friend Amy while the kids had tennis lessons and played together.

In the evening, we had a family movie night and watched Inside Out together which was so wonderful.

What a great day! I loved all my time with my sweetheart and kids! After all of my and Lily’s pushing on the house together (to get it clean and organized), it was so fun to all have a fun day together. I am totally in love and grateful for this beautiful wife, my kids, and this life.

I’ve been really into “Girls Chase Boys” by Ingrid Michaelson and I had fun dancing to it with Basil:

https://youtube.com/shorts/JbjocxTiMFg?feature=share

I ended work early to help my dad and Suzanne move. As always, it was really nice to see them. Lily continues to work insanely hard with her exercise, the kids and the home.

Today I was blessed to go on a long bike-ride with my great friend Daniel Olsen. He’s way more in shape than me, so I feel like he’s very patient to have me along. We went over 40 miles, and I was completely gassed by the end. I then dropped off some bikes at the bike shop to address yesterday’s challenges (especially with Mary having to use a bike that was too small) and went home.

Back at home, Lily and I focused hard on organizing again. Lily has completely caught a vision, and she has been energized and highly productive. It’s hard to keep up with her. I help her with the projects, but she’s been cranking on moving her vision forward even when I’m not there helping. Today we focused on deep organizing the piano room (including the closets), the entry way close, and the kitchen. It was so satisfying and everything feels so much more functional now.

Here is something Lydia made that we loved so much, but we just didn’t really know when or how we would use it. We took a picture to remember it. Also, Lily and I both showered Lydia with comments today. She is growing up to be so beautiful, but more importantly, she has a complete heart of gold. She entertains siblings, says kind words to people, forgives when we are stressed and short with her and just overall exudes love. She’s also so profoundly intelligent, introspective, and sweet. Lydia, we love you!

Today was such a fun day. Lily continued working hard on the house while I assembled Clarissa’s new bike trailer and loaded all the bikes for our outing. Then we all went to Park City!

It just so happened that Park City was having a “Park Silly” Sunday market which they have every week. It was so fun and festive. Here we are walking around.

https://youtu.be/FmORusx_dos

We ate at the market and I think the highlight was the chocolate dipped bananas that were so good!

After eating at the market, we biked the trail starting at the Farmhouse in Park City. Clarissa’s new bike trailer worked wonderfully. There were a few obstacles, like the heat, Ammon falling on his bike, and Mary being super frustrated because the I brought the small Schwinn bike for her that is way to small for her. I need to get a couple bikes fixed up so that some of the kids can jump a bike size, I just haven’t done it yet. Mary felt her bike was way too small, and to make matters worse she then had a bad crash on it. Aside from Mary, everyone ended up having a really fun time, and I promised Mary I would fix the bike situation so she would never have to ride that tiny Schwinn again.

Here are some videos of us biking:

Then we met up with David and Olivia and to see Oslo. Lydia and the girls were in Chicago when Clarissa, Ammon and I met Oslo for the first time, so this was their first time seeing him! Also, I left my wallet in Park City in a backpack left in the parking lot from when I was putting bikes away. Lily was so kind to offer to go back and get it for me, so she joined dinner late. But there was still good conversation with her included. It was so fun to catch up with David and Olivia and learn all about how their lives are going.

Recently it seems Lily had some sort of a vision because she has been on a passionate quest to organize and clean our home. She’s been working so hard to make her vision come true, that frankly I’ve been inspired and I’ve jumped in to help. I also love these cleaning and organizing projects, and was the catalyst to get me excited too.

Today the project was deep organizing each child’s room with a special focus on everyone’s clothes (getting rid of clothes that no longer fit, preparing for winter wardrobe, making sure things are stacked neatly to make putting laundry away more sane etc).

I had a tone of fun working with Lily and we kept commenting how fun it was to get the house in order. Here are some scenes from the day as well as some journal pages we captured digitally from Mary’s mostly-empty travel journal before we pitched it (I also appended some to blog entries of our Greece trip):

I think these entries in Mary’s journal were all written sometime within the last year:

Lily found another piece of Mary’s writing, I assume from within the last year:

Here is a cute picture of Ammon who is in full-swing of losing and growing teeth.

Clark flew home today which was sad, but before he left we all had a nice dinner together with Nana, and then Clark even gave us a surprise. He bought us a soda-maker. We love carbonated soda so much! Thank you Clark! The environment also thanks you that now we are not burning through thousands of cans of La Croix!

Clark is in town which we are loving! Also, Basil got lice from the boarding house (we think) and got a shot yesterday to kill the lice. He was supposed to get a bath from groomers today, but we learned we need to wait two weeks until they will take him. Our family has gone through such horror with lice (years ago) that I can’t figure out why they’ve figured out how to kill lice with a shot for dogs, but they haven’t figured out a cure that simple for humans, lol. Oh well. I’m just glad we aren’t needing to bust out the nit combs for Basil.

Also, Lydia has been sick all week (it started in the Tetons) and she stayed home from school again today. She’s been working on a really fun book about different characters that win a trip around the world.

Because Lydia was sick, it was Mary only who had tennis practice. The younger kids played, while Lily, Clark, Georgia and Amy all talked. Lily and Amy talked about Amy’s book that she is working on.

I worked today and also had two fantasy football drafts, one with my old spartacus team and one with my uncle Kurt and his side of the family.

Dinner was delicious salmon, pea pasta, salad and bread. It was great!

Before Georgia left, Ammon and Clarissa performed a dance. It was very cute!

Also, I ready Harry Potter to the kids tonight and that was very fun. It was also a really easy way to get Clarissa to go to bed!

I ended work early to help my dad for 6 hours with his and Suzanne’s project of moving to their new home. Suzanne has been super tied up with her new management job and I briefly saw her, but my dad and I moved a ton of boxes, listened to good music, chatted a ton, and worked through some of his decisions together. I love that man so much and will never forget the way he invested in and cared for me during my formative years. I have so many deeply meaningful memories in that home and it is sad for me that I will possibly never visit it again. It was fun to bump into some old memorabilia though. Here is a first grade (I think?) pencil chart and my middle school report on the Wasatch Fault:

Unfortunately, both Lily’s and my phone died and we didn’t have power until after we drove to Jackson so we did not take pictures of our morning activities in the Tetons :(.

We did have an amazing time though. We hiked almost 3 miles round trip to see Taggart lake. Ammon and Clarissa especially had fun playing on a big rock that I think they were pretending was a ship. Lydia has been feeling very sick on this trip, and she was crying at times on the hike. We were so grateful she found a way to hike so everyone else could have the experience, and our hearts really felt for her and how bad she was feeling. Thank you Lydia for a team player and we are sorry for your discomfort!

After hiking we drove to Jackson and had a delicious brunch at Cafe Genevieve.

We then wandered around Jackson and took a picture at the antlers. It was cool to learn that they were all shed by bucks, and not the result of hunting.

Then we had delicious ice-cream at Moo’s Gourmet ice cream.

After a great stint in Jackson, we boogied home and made it by 9:30. What a quick, but wonderful trip to the Tetons! Lily, thank you for always organizing such fun for this family!

I am so grateful that Lily encouraged us to stop at a cabin an hour outside of the Tetons instead of getting in at 1:00 to set up camp. I’m not always thinking clearly when I’m trying to save a buck. Because we all got rest, we were able to have such a fun day today. We were to String Lake by mid-day and we had a wonderful picnic together right next to the lake. Lily had made the most amazing Panini sandwiches and the balsamic vinegar in them really made them pop!

Then we all enjoyed String Lake together. Honestly, I was afraid of the temperature of the lake, so to confront my fear, I just jumped right in really quickly. It was cold, but actually very refreshing and it got better over time….until it stopped getting better and then I started shivering and left. But before I left, Lily joined me and we both had fun swimming in the lake. Lily especially got some good laps in swimming to and from rocks.

The kids had fun playing on the beach.

At one point it got a little windy, and a toppled tree that was hanging over our heads (stuck on another tree) started to creak. We got freaked out (especially Clarissa) and decided to wrap up our time at String Lake. No trees falling on us to today, thank you!

In the car, Clarissa showed off her fishlips.

Then we all went on a short (I think about 2.4 miles) hike to Heron lake.

We loved looking at this beaver dam which seamed to be a true beaver mansion. The water was really low, which was a theme throughout our Teton’s trip (Jackson lake was at 33%) so we actually saw a dam higher up on the shore too (which we assumed was built when the water was higher). If you look closely in the picture below, you can also see the dam higher up on the shore.

We said, “Hey Bear!” multiple times to help stay safe.

Ammon and Clarissa LOVED looking at the beautiful and massive mushrooms all around. We also found a friend on the trail who taught us about mushrooms. She thought these were edible, but that they were older, as in past their prime for eating.

It was very tough getting Clarissa to walk, but things turned around when I encouraged her to tell me all about a Halloween party she was planning in her imagination. She talked all about it as we walked.

After hiking Heron lake came my favorite part of the day, and a highlight for the entire year for me. I got to cook Lily and Mary’s tin foil dinners on the fire, and then we had the MOST delicious family meal together. I LOVE seasoned roasted vegetables. The weather was perfect, and it was so wonderful to be together. Then we all had banana boats, and they were the yummiest ones I’ve ever had. They were cooked perfectly. Then after everyone went to bed, I sat by the fire and pondered and wrote a poem. I was feeling very inspired with thoughts and felt so grateful for every moment of life (which is what my poem was about). What an incredible gift life is!