Weekly Album

A photo album from our week: 

School pick-up. Ideally, Jay and Rose would ride home from school with Jeff, but he started coaching high school swim team a week after cross country season ended, and schedules have been all irregular ever since. For the past few weeks, Jay and Rose have gone running on the track after school before calling me to come pick them up afterwards. My fit diligent children!

Mother daughter couch-lounge time.

Amber wanted in on the snuggle time.

Last week we had several sunny days. It was frigid outside, but the sun was shining, which is rare for our area at this time of year. Usually it's cold and cloudy all winter long. That 20 degree breeze bit my face and gnawed it raw. So painful.

Amber was feeling discouraged on Monday afternoon, so we went to the library on our way to piano lessons. A fresh heavy bag of books cheered Amber right up.

On Monday after piano lessons, we got a car wash to get the mountain gunk off of our van after the Christmas tree quest. It felt like we were getting eaten alive when we looked up through the moon roof window!

I don't get car washes often, but it's way more fun to get a car wash with kids in the car.

On Tuesday night we finally had a family game night, playing a hotly contested card game called Cover Your Assets, which involves stealing cards from each other as much as possible. Jay won. Amber was so upset to have her precious valuable cards stolen at the last minute, she cried inconsolably for at least ten minutes after the game ended. It was somehow tragic, annoying, and hilarious all at once.

Rose, showing her mixed feelings about finishing in the middle of the pack in our family card game.

I found this adorable thankful turkey in Amber's backpack. "I am thankful for beautiful nature" melted my heart.

Doesn't this icy frosty frozen landscape make you COLD just to look at? It froze hard all week.

Tuesday night I got creative and made turkey puffs for dinner, using half of our leftover Thanksgiving turkey mixed with mushrooms, bacon, and lactose free cream cheese. And FIVE rolls of Pillsbury crescents! An entire Costco five-pack. It took me over an hour to make this meal--a lot of effort for a weeknight. They were a huge hit, though. Jay and Rose both had four puffs, which equaled out to an entire roll of crescents. Jay only stopped because I capped his intake at four turkey puffs. He said he could've eaten one or two more.

When one couch cushion isn't enough, sit on the throw pillow? For some reason I think Amber looks like a little genie hovering in this picture. All three kids have been deeply engrossed in the lame Diary of a Wimpy Kid books that Amber picked out at the library this week. They're like the lowest of lowbrow kid lit with drawings and potty humor and middle school cynicism galore. Joy.

We had our first dusting of snow on Wednesday.

Thursday morning the SUNSHINE came back and didn't really warm anything up, but still was soothing.

Gorgeous. I love winter sunshine.

Jay had his first band concert of the school year on Thursday night! Jeff had his first swim meet as head high school swim coach on the same night (2 hours away in Moses Lake, WA of course because they actually have an indoor pool). Rose, Amber, and I went to support Jay in his concert. He played the baritone--his third new instrument in three years--because his school tuba had a rusted valve and was in for repairs. Jay says he misses playing the string bass.

Zoomed in.

Jeff got home close to 9pm on Thursday night after a very long day of teaching high school, then driving a van of 7 boys two hours to Moses Lake for their first swim meet. Only two of the kids on the team had ever even swum in a meet before, so Jeff brought his suit and got into the water during the warmup to help teach the other boys how to swim. After the meet ended, Jeff drove the van two hours back to Sunnyside. When he got home, he was like a shell of his normal self. His throat was scratchy and he was zombie-exhausted. He was clearly coming down with a cold. He used the last of his energy to create sub plans for his classroom, then he went to bed. I had been looking forward to having him home, talking with him, and spending time with him. But alas, it was not to be. Jeff was sick. I tried not to be too forlorn about it.

Jeff stayed home on Friday with a fever and chills and a cough and pure misery. I made a giant pot of beef lentil stew on Friday night which was medicinal to my sick husband. That was about all I was able to do for him, because the man is very stubborn when he's sick. He's not one of those baby men who want to be taken care of; he wants to be left alone. I know to just avoid him when he's sick because he refuses 99% of my offers for help (can I get you some medicine? No. A blanket? No. A drink? NO.) but when my favorite human is sick and miserable, I can't resist trying to help a few times each day. The result is me feeling inordinately worn out, shoved aside, and unloved. It's not my favorite.

Saturday was not much better for Jeff. When he was still feverish and not much improved on Saturday night, I had a random thought for him to take our last leftover Covid test from last winter. Those two lines appeared within a minute. Soooo Jeff has Covid. Again. Cool Cool Cool Cool. I must admit to a moderate spiral of worry after I saw his positive test. ALL of the awful unknows and fears rushed back in. How long would this last? What would the recovery look like? Would this reset his long-covid clock and make him fatigued and ill for the next six months like last time? Would it make his still-not-healed first round of long-covid get worse? How long can an adult man have a fever without needing medical intervention beyond Tylenol? It took me a while to fall asleep on Saturday night. 

Sunday (today) was a little better. Jeff managed to shower and he had a bit more personality back and less of a fever. The kids and I stayed home from church as a precaution because I felt a little tickle in the back of my throat and it seemed foolhardy to go out in public with a known infection exposure. Now I'm just kind of waiting to fall ill myself, and hoping that the kids and I don't all get it at once. Happy winter, everyone!