Spring in February!

I'm briefly pausing France travel posts to stay current with the times: Spring came to Sunnyside this week, in February! After some seriously sloppy mucky wet weather, the rain let up and the air warmed up. We had one windy transitional day on Tuesday, and then POOF! Sunny calm 58 degree weather the rest of the week! I have seen enough spring weather around here to know that this golden week of beauty is no guarantee that we get to bypass the wild windy wet volatile seasonal transition that spring often is. That's what made this week all the more enjoyable: the ephemeral nature of such gorgeous weather so early in the season.

Seriously, did I just spend a whole paragraph talking about the weather?? It was such an unexpectedly pleasant surprise that it deserved its own paragraph. I ran outside in shorts four times this week. The sunshiny vitamin D seeped through my skin deep into my soul. Even though we were all pretty jet lagged this whole week, the mild weather made our post-vacation adjustment back to real life in February much softer than it could've been. 

We hit the ground running this week with activities:

On Tuesday (Feb 25th) I had a Relief Society activity at the church, where we cut fabric to donate for blankets. It was a low key sit-and-chat-and-cut activity, and it was pleasant to be there with 20 other women, but by the end at 8pm I was practically cross-eyed with fatigue, courtesy of jet lag!

On Wednesday (Feb 26th), Jay had a sports physical at the doctor, and Amber had her annual doctor checkup. We were at the doctor's office for nearly 2 hours on Wednesday after school! We had just enough time to eat dinner at home before heading out to the church for youth activities...

Also on Wednesday, Amber had her primary kids' pinewood derby at church. The wheels stayed on her car this year, so she actually beat one car! Improvement! I was still so exhausted that I did not want to go watch the pinewood derby, but then I realized that this was Amber's last pinewood derby--her last year in primary at church! So I heaved my tired bones into the church gym and watched the action unfold. It was another night out past 8pm that made my jet lag scream in protest! Worthwhile, but exhausting--like so many things.

On Thursday (Feb 27th), Rose had a middle school band concert. None of her fellow first clarinets showed up for the concert, so Rose carried the whole band with precise tempo and bold volume. It was seriously impressive! She played two long stretches of music as solos, and nailed both of them! After the concert, she told me "That was my best concert ever! I did amazing!" She was on cloud nine for the rest of the night. Our traditional post-concert visit to Pepe's Bakery was icing on the cake.

On Friday (Feb 28th), we hosted the end of season awards potluck banquet for the high school boys' swim team. It was a happy gathering, and so sweet to see the camaraderie of all those boys together one more time. I used the boys' swim banquet as an opportunity to dig in and really clean the barn, which collects spider webs and dirt like Amber collects rocks: endlessly and in every nook and cranny. So I spent two hours on Friday morning cleaning the barn and making the gross barn bathroom sparkle. I even brought my vacuum out and vacuumed the stairs inside the barn. They are carpeted with brown industrial carpet, so we've made do with sweeping them and using the leaf blower on them. Note to self: vacuuming works way better, as ridiculous as it feels to vacuum a barn. 

On Saturday morning (March 1st), I donned my gardening gloves for the first time of the year and went outside to do battle with the mole hills. I committed to knocking all one million of them down so I can go dump poison peanut pellets down every single new hill that pops up from now on until all the moles are dead. This is my year! It took forever to flatten the mole hills, and I got distracted by the neighbor's weeds encroaching on the long north border of our yard. Nobody has built a house on that 10 acre lot yet, but the owners do have livestock: cows and goats that they feed daily. 

While I was tangled in the 6 foot high forest of dead weeds, I saw one of our future neighbors come to feed the animals. Only pure necessity motivated me to climb through the weeds and ask him about his mowing plans. I introduced myself and noticed that he seemed a bit uncomfortable and spoke with a heavy accent, so I asked "prefiere espanol?" Do you prefer Spanish? He immediately brightened and we were able to have a good conversation in 85% Spanish, with a few English words that I wasn't sure about mixed in. He is planning on mowing next week when the ground dries out more--yay! We chatted more about the land and his plans for building a house, etc. It was my best bilingual conversation in a very long time. I felt amazing afterwards! I get so caught up in a perfectionist trap whenever it comes to conversing in other languages, and that compounds with my introverted inability to "chat" with strangers to the point that I can barely say anything in a foreign language. It was fun to just let all of that go and do what I could. 

When I was thinking about that experience later, I actually had a very sweet moment of feeling God's hand in my life in the big picture. Way back in college, I had a double major in physical education/recreation administration and Spanish. Right before my senior year, the PE department head moved away and the college cancelled my major. They gave us the option to finish the major, but without a department head, instructors and internship options were limited and didn't fit my interests. So I dropped that major when I was one class, one internship, and one senior paper away from getting the PE degree, and focused on my Spanish major. Ever since then I have chuckled at the fact that I am working in a PE job as a coach even though I didn't get my degree in PE, and I have struggled to keep up my Spanish--which I do have a degree in-- because it's hard and scary to talk to native speakers in a foreign language!

I have had these thoughts before, but for some reason, talking with our new neighbor in Spanish added another ray of light to my personal journey. I was able to see that God prepared me for where I am now, way back when I was an uncertain college student. It was a sweet reiteration of many past promptings: I am where God wants me to be, doing what he wants me to do, and he helped get me ready for it long ago. All of these combined in my heart to help me feel God's love for me personally. He cares about me. It feels so good and happy! 

High school track season begins tomorrow (March 3rd) and middle school track season begins March 17th. I will be helping out with the short-staffed high school practice until the middle school season starts. It's nice to have moments where I feel loved and connected to my purpose because when I look at the long months of the track season grind stretching out before me, I feel intimidated and tired. We can do this--we've done it many times before, and we keep getting better at it. I think.

My first jet lag buster run on Saturday, February 22nd was my only run in pants of the week. I was so sluggish, but happy to be home--hence the house selfie.

This was the first picture I took when we got home from France. It made me laugh. I went from taking pictures of famous art and beautiful cathedrals to documenting how my ramshackle placeholder plastic lid with rock on top of the mini split unit was working so well. We had to protect the fan from water drips from the roof, because the drips were freezing into ice and interrupting the fan. I still can't believe this plastic lid was so effective! The fan has been humming happily for weeks now.

Early morning workout with Amber! We were up long before 6am on Monday morning, so we went out to the barn for some exercise.

Rose and I ran together on Wednesday.

Rose's Wednesday night young women's activity was food art. Rose built an Eiffel Tower out of marshmallows and grapes. 

Amber and her pinewood derby car.

The pinewood derby participants!

Rose's 8th grade band! Note the two empty seats next to Rose--her fellow first clarinets were absent. There was only one other clarinet present, seated behind Rose.

Good job, Rose!

I busted out my work overalls to clean the barn, and good thing I did--I got coated in dirt. Vacuuming the barn was something I said I'd never do. It just seems so wrong and extra and ridiculous! But I suppose a few times a year I can stand to vacuum the stairs and behind the equipment.

Jay baked a big batch of cookies for the swim banquet. My cabinets were in disarray after he finished, but he did clean up the counters, and the cookies were good.

Rose has been carefully coloring dresses from around the world in one of her birthday coloring books.

Amber colored in a flower coloring book on the floor next to Rose.

Amber ran a mile with walk breaks in just under 10 minutes on Friday.

Girls' run!

The mud pit on the corner of our driveway. It never looks as deep and messy in pictures as it is in real life.

February 28th we had our annual White Family Whopper outing to Burger King, in honor of Jeff's Grandpa White's birthday. We squeezed this in right before rushing home to host the swim banquet.

The swim banquet! The kids clustered around the food tables right away after we got things going with a prayer.

Jeff, being his stellar head coach self and handing out awards while saying nice things about each and every swimmer.

Jay got his second year varsity letter for swim, and a scholar athlete award as well. (Yes, Coach Winger brought his sweet black dog Stella to the banquet. She blended in with his black jacket while he held her.)

Sitting in the back of the barn watching the swim awards with Amber, Rose, and that's Isais next to Rose.

Post-banquet barn Nintendo downstairs, with basketball and ping pong upstairs. The barn is living the measure of its creation.