Amber's Primary Talk

Amber gave a talk in primary at church today! She got to choose her topic from a general conference talk, and she immediately knew which talk she wanted to use. The most memorable conference talk for Amber last month was the one that mentioned salmon. Amber got on the Gospel Library App and found that talk all on her own before church: Our Heavenly Guidance System by Elder Sergio R. Vargas. Then I asked her questions to get her writing. She was so focused on the life cycle of salmon that she didn't have much to say for an introduction, so I typed out a few simple sentences and had her read them to see if she wanted to add anything. She approved my sentences. I asked her to tell me why she liked the talk and give a testimony about what she learned from it, and I quickly typed what she said at the end of the talk.

Amber did a great job giving her talk in primary at church today!

Big steps

It was a week of big steps:

Jay got his first PR of the year in the 1600m race on Thursday night! He shaved .60 of a second off his best time from last year, finishing in 5:17.90. A PR is a PR! I was sad I missed it--the meet was in Wenatchee on a weeknight, and I had to coach middle school track practice in Sunnyside at the same time so I couldn't make the 2.5 hour drive. (Plus I honestly don't drive to Wenatchee on a weeknight unless it's for the district meet.) But Jeff was there for Jay's PR! Jay ran 4 races in 48 hours this week: he ran the 1600m and 3200m on Thursday night, and then the 2k steeplechase and the 1600m on Saturday! It was his first time ever running the steeplechase, and I was impressed that he volunteered to give it a try because he is no hurdler. But he managed to hurdle at least a third of the barriers, and hand-vault-clamber over the rest of them in the five lap race, finishing in 8:11. It was so fun to watch, and I felt so proud of Jay for trying something so difficult and new!

Flowers, sugar, and track meets

Flowers, sugar, and two track meets defined our week: Our lawn is polka-dotted with happy yellow dandelions, and our pear trees are blooming fluffy white blossoms. In a mid-season, tired-and-maxed-out effort to celebrate Holy Week more fully, I got a variety of sweet treats from the store and we had one every time we read some Easter-related scriptures as a family. Hopefully it made the week and the scriptures sweeter on more than just the tastebud level. And of course, there were two track meets this week: our first middle school meet and yet another high school meet. I spent nearly 14 hours at track meets this week! One was cold and windy; one was hot and sunburn-y.

The pear trees in our front yard bloomed beautifully.

Track track track track

Track track track track... Track is life for us right now. Let me list 16 track-related things that happened this week:

1. Five afternoons of high school track practice.
2. Five afternoons of middle school track practice.
3. Middle school track uniform distribution.
4. Middle school spring sports parent meeting.
5. We finally received our official middle school track meet schedule, 4.5 weeks after the first day of practice.
6. At 5:15am on Thursday morning, Jeff left to drive our high school star Andrew Garcia on the first leg of his journey to southern CA for the Arcadia track meet. Jeff drove Andrew 30 minutes east to meet Coach Winger en route to the airport. Coach Winger drove Andrew the rest of the way to the airport and the two of them flew from Pasco to southern CA.
7. All day Thursday: donations for Andrew's trip to Arcadia flooded in until the whole $2,300 trip was paid for within a few short hours. With a surplus.
8. From 7:30pm-8:45pm on Friday night: we had 25-30 high schoolers in the barn for a watch party to see Andrew Garcia run his 3200m race at Arcadia.
9. Saturday morning at 6:30am: Jeff left home for the high school to send off the varsity track kids to Pasco for a local big fast meet. This was the first year that enough kids qualified for Pasco to need a school bus to transport them there!
10. Saturday, after those kids and two coaches left on their school bus, Jeff began setting up for our home JV Invitational, the 4th Annual Crowe Classic. 
11. Saturday at 8:45am, I left home with our 3 kids and drove to the HS track to work at the meet.
12. Jay ran four races at the Crowe Classic: the 4x800m relay, the 1600m (5:23), the 800m (2:29), and the 4x400m relay, for a fun finale.
13. At the Crowe Classic: Jeff was head timer and meet host, I was head clerk, and Rose was my assistant.
14. Partway through the Saturday track meet, Amber walked over to the church to attend her friend's baptism. She walked back to the track afterwards. 
15. Our meet ended by 3:30pm, and after cleanup, we were home by 4:45pm. 
16. After a brief dinner break, Jeff and I spent another hour or so entering meet results for field events and distance races. We were officially done with all meet results by 6:30pm, 12 hours after Jeff left that morning.

Spring break at home

We spent spring break at home, doing daily track practices and yardwork. Journal excerpts from the week:

Monday, March 31st: Tired. I ran Coach Winger's track workout with the high school kids today for some reason. It just sort of happened, haha. My previously sore sartorius muscle felt fine! I'm doing the hip PT morning and night. It was chilly and blustery today and I lounged through the late afternoon after taking care of some businesslike phone calls: making appointments, etc.

Rose and Amber played outside for a long time with their neighbor buddy, who lives out of town during school, but came back to Sunnyside for spring break. Jay mowed another section of the lawn. (He mowed the first section on Friday.) Jeff oven cooked ribs for dinner. I got the ribs from Costco as a spring break treat for Jeff and Jay, but I don't really like them. Too stretchy and gristly and fatty for my sensibilities.