Swim, Hike, Jam

 Sunnyside was trapped in a heat advisory all week, with triple digit temperatures every single day. Our busy summer life kept coming; it was just hotter than usual! Activities this week included: church girls camp for Rose, church boys camp for Jay, a swim meet for Jay and Amber, a hike for Rose and me, jam-making for Amber and me, and mowing for Jay and Rose. I also did enough running, lifting, weeding, cleaning, and pantry-restocking to require daily naps that I did not take, haha. Jeff is much better at pausing his day to take a nap than I am. 

Where are we, Arizona?? The sensor for this thermometer is in the shade on our back deck. Yes, the deck heats up and radiates that heat onto the sensor, so the actual air temp off the porch probably wasn't 117 degrees, but once the temperature rises above 105 it's hard to feel anything more than sheer misery out there. Thankfully it was usually only in the mid to upper 70s during our daily morning runs with the cross country kids. I mean, it sure felt hotter in the sun and we sweated BUCKETS, causing us to chug fluids all day after each run.

This was my first week at home after two weeks away, so I was playing catch-up with pantry supplies, house cleaning up to my personal standard, and weeding the driveway to my personal standard. Living up to my own self-imposed personal standards of cleanliness, pantry-ness, and weedless-ness wore me out! It was a lot of exhausting work, even though I only worked for the first half of the day most days: we did our exercise and work in the morning and then sheltered the 105+ degree afternoons away in our cool air conditioned house, (except for the one boiling evening of misery that we ventured forth to the swim meet and about got roasted alive with heat radiating off of the concrete pool deck). 

Amber and I discovered that the vacant lot in front of our house has two apricot trees, so on Tuesday morning we picked a 2 gallon bucket of soft tender cots with grand plans to make them into apricot jam. The bucket sat on our kitchen counter for three days, the apricots slowly pressing down on each other until they were a semi-bruised juicy mess. Finally on Friday, Amber and I bought pectin and got to work. It had been well over five years since I made any jam, so we started with one test batch. It turned out great, but I was too tired after that one batch to make any more on Friday. On Saturday the smushy state of the apricot bucket was reaching alarming levels of goo, so I had Rose and Amber remove all of the pits and mash the fruit into a bowl. I poured lemon juice on top and covered it in plastic wrap, buying us another couple of days before we make the final push to finish the last three or so batches of jam. Ugh, jam is so much work! But it is SO GOOD! 

Rose had girls camp from Monday through Thursday, and our house felt so empty without her! All week I had this feeling that someone was missing, and it was so good to get Rose back on Thursday afternoon. But on Thursday morning, Jay left for boys camp and was gone through Saturday afternoon. The camps were at the same location; the boys just switched out with the girls on Thursday. 

Since dropping Rose off on Monday morning for girls camp made me miss the beginning of the cross country practice run, I went home and attacked the driveway weeds that had snuck in during my two week absence. Thankfully I was able to get most of them pulled in two hours, but what a sweaty two hours it was. I was drenched in sweat and the weeds were just tall enough and thick enough that I couldn't simply kneel down and pluck them out; weeding these noxious tormentors was much more similar to doing two hours of dead lifts. My entire posterior chain was incredibly sore for the rest of the week after that Monday weeding session! I weeded for another hour on Tuesday and felt that the weed situation was under control again at last. 

On Wednesday, I got up bright and early and carpooled with my friend Camille to Camp Z (short for Camp Zarahemla), which is located in the Cascade Mountains near White Pass, just a 90 minute drive from Sunnyside. We were signed up to help out with the second year girls' hike. It turned out to be a 7 mile hike with 3.5 miles uphill to Cramer Lake, and then 3.5 miles back downhill to the parking area. The mosquitoes were a force to be reckoned with. Thankfully I have heard horror stories about the mosquito situation up there for years, so I was expecting it and ready for it, but that didn't make it much better. While we hiked, I kept my bug spray in one of my backpack's hip pockets, and we re-sprayed regularly until we were sweating Deet instead of salt. 

I was the caboose of the hiking group, and ended up helping another mom who was underprepared for the physical challenge. About a mile into the hike, we had to cross a shallow river on two logs, and I ended up holding her hand with my left hand and her backpack in my right hand. Slowly we inched our way across the logs. The 40 people in our group hiked on ahead, and I stayed with this sweet sister and helped her up the trail. I realized that one of the things that I do in this life is hang back with the stragglers and help them along--I do it daily as a cross country and track coach, and I do it with youth on hikes. It is a magnificent opportunity to practice patience, and even though it is often exasperating to be trapped at the back of the pack, it is also a very sweet place to be, helping people through genuine physical challenges. 

On the way back from the lake, the leaders let me hike at the front of the group. Rose joined me and we cruised down the trail with just one other girl with us. Rose told me everything about what she did at camp so far, and it was fun to have that time with her. I nearly fell asleep on the way home that afternoon while my friend Camille drove--it was a long long day. We left Sunnyside at 7am and got home at 5pm. 

Thursday morning I ran 5 miles at cross country practice, and then after second breakfast drove 45 minutes to West Richland to a physical therapy workout session. Once my legs and hips and core were sufficiently shredded with various intense weights and band exercises, I drove to Costco and did a major pantry restock for several hundred dollars. I about wept when it was time to load all of that into the trunk of the van in the hot hot parking lot at 2pm, but I made it through and Jeff helped unload when I got home. 

Friday morning was our first watermelon long run of the summer where the cross country kids met at our barn and ran in the countryside. Jeff and our top runner Andrew ran 11 miles, and I ran 8.5 miles. After the run, we had a divine watermelon that I cut and refrigerated before the run so it was all ready for us. We all feasted on its sweet juicy goodness after the run. I started a Team Watermelon Tally on the white board in the barn, to count how many watermelons we eat this season. Watermelon number one was practically medicinal to our parched throats.

Saturday I finally cleaned our house: bathrooms and floors. Just saying bathrooms and floors makes it seem simple and quick. It was not. I deep cleaned the main floor of our house and scrubbed all the nooks and crannies of the bathrooms. I vacuumed the carpets and floors, and then mopped the floors. It was very satisfying. The entire rest of the day I felt so calm and peaceful as I lived in my sparkling clean house. Then Jay got home from boys camp, all sweaty and dirt spattered...haha. Really, he didn't get the house dirty; he was just desperate for a shower and the only things he told us about boys camp were that he had fun, he shot a gun for the first time, and he was one of only two boys who did not throw up after the pie eating contest. I don't love gender stereotypes, but I had to laugh at Jay's report about camp!

Sunday (today) I had a meeting before church and after church. Before church was ward council (our Relief Society president is out of town for the summer, so myself and the other counselor take turns filling in at ward council). After church the temple and family history council (I'm the RS councilor assigned to that group) met with the stake high councilor over family history. It was almost like "the old days" of three hour church! Hah! In between those meetings, we had a wonderful Relief Society class during church. Our group was small today so we circled our chairs and had an amazingly uplifting sharing session about how we can show God we love him, and how we can show others our love. We went around the circle and everyone shared something. It was beautiful to hear from the 50 year span of experience and perspective in our 9-10 person circle. 

Pictures from this week are not consistent--I have zero pictures from Jay's boys camp, only pictures from the hike I went on at Rose's girls camp, and it was too hot for much photography otherwise. Here's what I've got:

Jeff made ribs for dinner on Monday night--something we've never cooked before. Jeff just popped them in the oven since we don't have a grill (although come to think of it, our back deck could probably have doubled as a grill most afternoons this week).

The Apricots:

How pretty are these cots??

Amber, picking an apricot. We didn't feel bad taking these from the vacant lot in front of our house because the owner of the lot never even waters the land. We figured we were doing him a favor by relieving some of the weight off of the apricot branches. We were also not sure how the apricots even grew without water!

Orange apricots against a blue sky: one of my favorite summer produce views.

The Swim Meet:

Go Amber!

It was so hot, the kids all stayed in the pool as long as possible after each race. We had to tell them to get out every time. I worked as a "place picker", which meant I handed a "heat winner" ribbon to the kid who won each heat. The rubber band around the packet of ribbons I was given melted and broke into several pieces that stuck to the ribbons. Heat winner ribbons indeed!

My one and only picture of Jay--that's him in the middle, swimming the butterfly.

The Hike:

I was prepared for a day in the woods!

With Camille at the trailhead--feeling peppy and energetic! 

We hiked the Cramer Lake Trail. 

The infamous log crossing. The girls crowded onto the logs and slowly sidestepped their way across. It was much harder to walk on the log that slowly, but thankfully nobody fell into the 2 foot deep cold water. Someone did lose a lunch in the river and each baggie'd item had to be fished out with a stick.

I took a selfie while standing on the log in the river waiting for the sister in front of me to inch her way across. It was very tranquil.

My heart was HOME in this gorgeous Cascade forest. This was my first hike all year, and it made me want more!

Most of the trail was in shade, thankfully. There was less shade on the way back though, because the sun was higher (obviously).

A lake and mountains in the distance--this was the best view on the whole trail. Not a hike to a view by any means, but still a solid trail that was less than 10 minute drive from camp.

Sunlight through pine: an iconic PNW favorite.

I met up with Rose at Cramer Lake. My little caboose group got there so far behind the main group that we barely had time to eat our lunches before it was time to leave, so we didn't get to go wading in the lake.

Cramer Lake.

Camille and me, ready to hike back down--energy ebbing with every spritz of bug spray, haha. I only got one mosquito bite. The miracle of Deet.

This was such a beautiful green pine scene on the trail.

Rose! I don't know how she wore her sweatshirt on the 3.5 mile sunny descent. I was quite sweaty in my short sleeves and pants.

The view!

Rose and another girl from our ward, Rachel, crossing the river.

Rose and her friend Elsie at the Sunnyside Ward campsite. Camp Z has large canvas tents on platforms, which sleep up to 10 people each. Rose's tent had 6 girls in it. Rose showed me all around camp before I left for home.

Apricot Jam:

Stirring the lava--boiling jam gets HOT! Poor Amber got splashed and singed.

Adding sugar. This was the only other picture I took during actual jam prep. It is too sticky and messy and involved for much photography.

Saturday afternoon apricot salvaging.

On Saturday evening post-boys-camp, after dinner and a shower, Jay wanted to watch an episode of the Flash together as a family. So we lounged in our luxurious cold basement together.

Summer is flying by! I keep wondering if we will have any lazy days of summer...we get maybe a lazy evening here and there, but so far no full-on lazy days.