Aug-tober

The high almost every day this week was 80 degrees, causing us to joke that this isn't October; it's August part two, or Aug-tober. We usually have one more burst of warm weather before full autumn takes over, but September was so hot straight through that I was hoping we'd miss that second summer this year. We had about two weeks of cool fresh fall weather and then hit the 80s again this week, right after I finally broke down and hung our fall leaf garland. I was not planning on hanging the leaf garland this fall since we thought we might be moving by mid-October, but this week our contractor said they need "about" four weeks to finish our house, which brings us to the beginning of November. I am mentally prepared for the house to take longer, but I sure hope it's move-in ready by Thanksgiving. (hopefully not later than that!)

Our bright cheerful leaf garland, hung for the last time around our rental house windows.

Whew, this week was thick. We are in the THICK of so many things right now: cross country season, house renovation, Jeff's unpredictable post-covid health (random bouts of fatigue and nausea), early morning seminary, 3 kids in 3 different schools, parent teacher conferences for both Jeff and Jay at the high school, piano lessons, menstrual cycles, church activities, church callings, and conditioning. This week those already intense thick things seemed to get thicker somehow. 

As coaches, we dealt with several sources of draining drama from multiple sides: athletes, parents, and school administration. BLESS my support circle for listening to me vent and mourn all of the difficulties that come with coaching an undervalued sport in our community. 

This week we learned that our house renovation will not be done on the original timeline, so we have longer to wait. (We weren't exactly surprised at the delay, based on the progress we could see with our own eyes, but it was still disheartening to have our suspicions confirmed.) 

Jeff had another night where his heart rate wouldn't lower enough for his body to rest, followed by a bout of nausea two days later. We have tracked and mapped and pondered and experimented with Jeff's symptoms but we can't find any rhyme or reason to their frequency or severity. They come when they come, and then they are suddenly over again when they are over. Thankfully he hasn't had any symptoms last more than 24 hours in several months, so that still seems to put him on a trajectory of overall improvement. The unpredictability of Jeff's health is hard on both of us--Jeff because he has to feel rotten at random intervals, and me because I have to pick up all of the slack whenever he starts feeling ill. 

Early morning seminary is exhausting! I am so glad Jay gets to go, but it is tiring. Especially when Amber had a nightmare and had to come tell me about it at 3am on Tuesday morning. I'm not very good at falling back to sleep when I wake up in the middle of the night, so I was a zombie for days after that! Thank goodness Jay's teacher opted to have seminary 4 days a week for an hour instead of 5 days a week for 45 minutes. Fridays are a welcome break. 

Jay is in the young men's program at church. Rose is in the young women's program. Amber is in the primary girls activity group. Their activities have not been well synced lately. Amber will have an activity but Jay and Rose won't, or Rose will meet somewhere other than the church while Jay and Amber meet at the church. Amber's group only meets every other week. 

It's a miracle that we can manage piano lessons AND dinner on Monday nights during cross country season. Rose and Amber have had as little as 7 minutes to grab dinner between XC practice and piano lessons, and as much as 20 minutes. Regardless, it is a tight turnaround time and the driving back and forth is wearying.

I am 3 weeks into an 8 week strength and conditioning program at the physical therapy clinic. It is Mondays and Wednesdays at noon for an hour each day. This is exactly what I need to banish my weak spots, but it is also a lot of HARD drippy-sweaty work. My legs are significantly fatigued for 75% of each week. That on top of coaching cross country six days a week has me at a high energy output! It's not the same type of output as when I train for a specific time, but it is a lot of time and energy. Whew, what a year of building 2023 has been for me. Beneath my soft stretched stomach skin is a core of steel, and my hammies and glutes are powering up every week! I'm not sure what (if anything) I plan to do after I complete this training program, but I am learning a lot and gaining strength. I did seven knee push-ups in a row without any shoulder pain the other day! I beat my 14 year old son in an arm wrestle a week ago! It is satisfying to feel stronger, even if I don't have a ton of time or energy for my usual running regimen right now.

Jeff survived the first round of parent teacher conferences on Monday and Tuesday this week. It's hard because he gets very little introvert time, what with teaching all day, coaching at practice, then going straight to parent teacher conferences after grabbing a sandwich for dinner. Parent teacher conference days are LONG. After cross country practice on Tuesday, Jay took me around to some of his classes for conferences. We didn't make it to all of his classes because there were lines out the door and we went home after an hour, but it was good to see how well Jay has settled into the high school. He is interested in his classes and he is working hard! 

Yesterday (Saturday, October 7th) we went to the 54th Annual Max Jensen Invitational in Richland, WA. It was our 7th year going to this race. The kids' race here was the first cross country race Jay and Rose ever ran. Including our middle school team, we had Sunnyside runners in seven different races at the meet. Counting Amber's half mile kids' race, we were involved in eight races! Of course this day happened to be the heavy day of my period, which made using the sun-warmed port-a-potties even less appealing than usual. During the races, we did a LOT of dashing back and forth across the large field to watch and cheer on our teams. Jeff and I did a good amount of that back-and-forth running together. Every time we got to a string of pendant flags, we'd say "over!" or "under!" and both duck or leap together so we wouldn't get tangled up, clotheslined, or wedgie'd by one of us going over while the other went under. Once we were through, we kept running hard. It was fun and exhausting! 

Rose ran the first race of the day, the middle school girls 3k (almost 2 miles). She finished with a time of 13:29 in 10th place out of 36 girls, and second on her team. She said her legs felt so dead during the second half of the race!

Next up was Amber, running the kids half mile race in 3:53. Amber's best friend ran the race too, and Jay ran it with them to encourage Amber. It was a very cute race. For the rest of the time at the meet, Amber was off playing and roaming the large hill and fields with her friends. 

Jay ran in the Division 2 varsity race (small schools varsity, big schools JV) with his group of our high schools' top 7 JV boys. It was a massive race with 134 boys crowded onto the starting line. Several hairpin turns posed a big challenge for Jay, and on one of the turns as he was trying to pass a guy, Jay got spiked in the leg! The guy's racing spikes left two long red gouges in Jay's shin. Jay kept pushing and finished the slightly long 5k course in 20:31, 90th place overall. I felt quite emotional watching my sweet son duke it out on that crowded cutthroat course! Jeff was proud of Jay for getting spiked for the first time, haha. 

This morning (Sunday) I found a few baby lice nymphs in Amber's hair. Jeff's post covid nausea kicked in soon after. It was not a great day today. I went to church with Jay and Rose, and we stopped at Walmart on our way home to pick up another RID lice treatment kit. After eating lunch and doing dinner prep, I kept my apron on and gave Amber a full lice treatment. My head is itchy in response. I had BETTER NOT GET LICE after all of this. Amber's lice treatment was my third time going through that process in two weeks--twice with Rose, once with Amb. Make it END! Thankfully Amber didn't have too many lice in her hair (a couple dozen, all young, no eggs). Also thankfully: even though Amber has an extremely sensitive scalp, she did not scream and cry while I picked bugs out of her hair with the special comb. But it was a long arduous process, even though I am way faster at it than I was two weeks ago. UGH. NOT how I wanted to spend my Sunday. 

MY WINDOW!!! This was the single improvement I was most excited about, and my big beautiful wide window above the kitchen sink was installed this week! In Rose's words, "it really opens up the place." 

We had an exceptionally clear morning after a rainy night and Mt. Adams showed off his latest coat of snow on the horizon.

We don't allow kids to run with their cell phones during cross country workouts (phones are allowed on regular runs, just not during workouts). I had quite the collection before our workout on Tuesday afternoon.

Waiting at parent teacher conferences.

More waiting at parent teacher conferences.

Jay, with his red backpack, walking out into the dark early morning to catch the carpool to seminary.

A hot sunny tank top run in October!

Rose, heading to school laden with her dual instruments: cello and clarinet.

One of my least inspiring things to do in the kitchen is deal with ground meat. I made a massive triple batch of meatloaf patties this week and the log was bigger than my arm. I cut the log into patties and baked them during the day, then refrigerated them so we could microwave them for dinner after practice.

Jeff gave his traditional Donut Speech to the cross country team this week, and I brought the donuts out at the opportune moment. I crouched down to open the boxes as the team swarmed around me. Every year I swear the donuts disappear faster! We're talking 15 seconds tops. It's the closest thing to apparation I've ever experienced.

Jeff let Jay drive to our new house across the street and back and Jay swung wide while parking and almost hit the trampoline. We were all laughing. Still, not to shabby for his second or third time behind the wheel! We are just over six months away from Jay turning 15 and getting his driving permit. 

The cross country meet:

Rose's cute middle school girls team at the starting line.

Run Rose, run!

Amber and her BFF, Kamila, along with Kamila's younger sister Arieanna and another girl from Sunnyside, Veda. They were an adorable team. Jeff and I had them pile their hands in a circle and do a modified version of our high school team cheer. CUTENESS.

Jay, motivating Amber with Kamila not far behind. Amber ended up passing that tiny kid next to her, haha.

Jay, leading three teammates up the first hill!

Go Jay!

Jay's battle wounds looked pretty gnarly.

I forgot to pack knives in our team PBJ cooler, so we had to get creative with a tent stake. It was gross and hilarious.

This year we used some of our team budget to buy walls to our canopy tents. Some of the walls had these plastic windows in them. Our triple tent complex looked like a plastic mansion.

The Yakima River looked rather scenic on our bus ride home.

Before church today, I gave Jay a haircut. He looked extra snazzy in the Cambodian tie that Mel and Braxton gave him.

Jay and Rose were actually kind of coordinated in their church clothes today.

Head lice treatment. UGH. But I managed to stretch the shower hose over to the sink to wash the gunk all out of Amber's hair, so that was nifty. Small bathroom win.

Blue candy.