Hello from raspberry central! We are buried in tender fresh sweet juicy raspberries, and we are not sad about it. Highlights from our week include: raspberries, Father's Day, raspberries, hanging a tree swing, raspberries, running, raspberries, a date, and raspberries, a youth temple trip, and raspberries.
I. Father's Day (Sunday, June 15th)
We gave Jeff his Father's Day gifts before church. I had bought these gifts for his birthday two weeks before, but Jeff picked out his own birthday gift that he really wanted, so I simply saved the other gifts for Father's Day. It worked great, and also made this Father's Day extra plush for Jeff! Before we left for church, Jeff did our favorite Father's Day tradition and lifted all three of his kids. It gets more impressive and nerve wracking ever year! Jay's foot was about an inch off the ground, but Jeff lifted all three kids off the ground for a solid three seconds!
We had German pancakes for Fathers day dinner, with fresh picked raspberries and whipped cream on top, and sausages on the side. Amber and I picked raspberries for 20 minutes while the German pancake was in the oven, and we came in with two big bowls full of berries! Yum! I managed to make the pancakes and whip cream all dairy free, thanks to oat milk and "plant cream," which whipped up fluffy and so creamy.
After dinner, Jeff and I both called our dads for Father's Day.
II. Tree Swing 2.0
Ever since we moved across the street a year and a half ago, we have missed our rope swing that we left behind in the front yard tree there. But we didn't have any trees big enough for a new rope swing until my parents acquired the 2 acre lot in front of our house a few weeks ago. The lot has a massive beauty of a thick old tree on it, and I knew we would be hanging a rope swing as soon as I finished mowing the prickly grass. In preparation, I researched and purchased tree swing hanging straps from Amazon. They are super strong, and safer and better for the tree than a plain rope. They look like a car seatbelt strap, but with a D-ring on each end for easy swing hanging. Amidst that research, I came across a deeply discounted saucer swing, and bought that as well. It felt a little off brand to get actual equipment for my classic DIY rope-and-wood tree swing, but it also looked like a lot of fun! So we went for it.
Monday was swing hanging day (after our morning run with the cross country kids). It was scary! And hard, and took way longer than expected. It was also hilarious. Amber and I started out together, carrying the swing, hanging strap, and a rickety old wooden fruit picking ladder, out to the tree. We leaned the ladder against the tree, and I climbed up to the thick branch we had chosen for the swing. That part was relatively simple, but when I got up onto the branch, I realized I had zero courage to shimmy out far enough on the branch to hang the swing! The bark was very rough, and the branch was not flat; it was pitched at a steep slant. The ground looked very far away and my body refused to venture forth out onto the branch.
I laid on my stomach along the branch and strettttched my arm out to try and reach far enough out where the swing would hang, but I couldn't reach it. So I stood up, leaned against the trunk, and tried lassoing the branch from there. Eventually I got the strap over the branch, so I asked Amber for a long stick. I used the stick to pull the strap farther down, so I could climb down and loop it through the D-ring. It worked! But the strap was way too long. We had to figure out how to wrap it around the branch a few times to get it to the right length to hang the swing. We couldn't cut the strap because we needed the D-ring on the end for the saucer swing carabiners, so we needed to wrap it around the branch enough times to shorten it to the proper length.
This is the part that took forever. Rose joined us and we ended up lugging out our big 2 story ladder. We had to ask Jeff for help extending the complicated ladder, so he watched while I shakily climbed the ladder. That height was waaay too scary for me when it was leaned up against the branch. It felt like the whole ladder was going to tip over backwards when I was at the top, even though Rose was holding it steady for me. I climbed back down.
Jeff decided to try climbing the tree to help, but he needed pants to protect his legs from the tree bark. I had my running clothes on under my overalls, so I loaned him my overalls on the spot. They were a bit snug on him, but he climbed up the fruit ladder into the tree. He did everything that I had done already: stretched out on his stomach on the branch and realized it was too far. At that point I moved the fruit ladder under the branch, climbed up, and tried helping Jeff wrap the strap around the tree from ten feet below. It was hilarious and ridiculous, and I could barely reach the strap way above my head with the stick, even from the shaky top of that rickety old ladder. I kept cracking up and laughing so hard, it took forever and we were not successful.
Finally, Jeff said in a strained voice "I need to climb down to save my testicles from being smashed." From down below, Amber said "testicles?" clearly asking what on earth that weird word meant. I laughed so hard while moving the ladder back to the tree for poor Jeff. Amber kept saying "testicles," testing the word out. I managed to stop laughing long enough to explain "it's the official name of a man's body part! Usually we call them balls." At that point, Amber said "oh, balls. [Thoughtful pause] Balls. [Thoughtful pause] Balls." I had tears of mirth blurring my vision.
Meanwhile, Jeff was easing his smashed self out of the tree and down the ladder. "Smashed is a very mild description for how this feels," he muttered. "It wasn't from straddling the tree branch, it was the overalls riding up that did the damage! I may have a hard time walking for a little while." I told Jeff we would figure this out, and I laughed until tears filled my eyes as he peeled off my overalls and walked gingerly away to continue working on setting up a drip line. He turned back and said "I would just stack up the plyo boxes and do it that way." Light bulb!
Jay had finished weed whacking, so he came and helped carry out five plyo boxes from the barn. We set two side by side to make a wide firm base, then added two boxes to the top of that. Once I was standing on top of those, I had Rose slide a fourth box under my feet while I stood on the edge of the third box, holding tight to the swing strap that was wrapped around the tree branch. Rose and Amber stabilized the tower of boxes while I stood there on a stack of boxes, nearly 100 inches above the ground, and finished wrapping the strap around the branch. I held onto one side of the strap for balance and felt very secure. Amber was the one who was worried! She kept stressing and saying, "these boxes are shaking so much, Mom!"
Once I had the strap at a good length, I climbed down and helped Rose attach the several carabiners between the strap and the saucer swing. We adjusted the swing ropes so it was a good height from the ground, and voila! It was done! It took almost 90 minutes from start to finish, haha. We took turns swinging on it (Amber went first) and it was so breezy and fun! Since we had the plyo boxes out there already, I decided to hang our rope from another branch so we could have the traditional rope and wooden seat swing along with the fancier saucer swing. That went super quick and easy.
Rose said, "it's going to be so nice to have something to do outside at this house, other than the trampoline!" Amber stayed outside on the swing for a while before coming in, and both girls went back outside before dinner. Swings are the best!! Terrifying to hang but so worth it.
III. Running
Summer running is always a highlight. We've got a fun core group of cross country kids coming to our team conditioning runs on weekday mornings. Fridays are adventure days, and this week we ran up Lincoln Grade in Prosser, about 25 minutes east of Sunnyside. I've probably written about this route every time I've run it, but Lincoln Grade is a 3 mile uphill run up, up, up to a view of the Yakima River winding through the valley below. We maxed out the capacity on our two vehicles, and transported 13 humans from our house to Prosser for the run (including ourselves, so 8 kids from the team not counting Jay and Rose).
Jeff and I have anticipated our current group of girls coming up through the ranks for years (Rose's class, plus a few others), and this run proved how strong they are. All four girls who came on the run made it to the top of Lincoln Grade! 3 of them took a few walking breaks on the way, but they did not give up! They kept going up that long 3 mile grind straight uphill! Among the girls cross country teams we've coached over the past 7 years, maybe four girls would've made it to the top out of all those teams. But on Friday, we had four girls on one team make it up! This group has a will of iron! I was so surprised, excited, giddy, happy when the last girl's head bobbed up on the horizon at the top! We took triumphant group picture with the view as the backdrop before running the 3 miles back downhill to the car. I made sure to give the girls a lot of words of celebration, encouragement, and gave them a little time to appreciate what they accomplished.
Seriously, this is the stuff coaching is made of: the end-of-season qualifiers are super fun, but this everyday grinding effort that only the coaches and teammates see is my favorite part. It's one thing to show up to the district meet and run hard, but showing up and working hard every day before then is the what really makes the difference. I always feel honored to be there for the gritty tough day to day work as a coach.
IV. Date Night!
Jeff and I have never had a weekly "date night" during our marriage. For the first 10 years the sheer cost of going out was financially not possible, even if all we did was pay a babysitter. Back then, we acknowledged how much we like staying home, and did dates at home together instead. Over time, those dates became less intentional and less planned, until they turned into simply watching an episode of a show together a few nights a week while giving each other foot rubs. Once we hit 10 years of marriage, we were able to start saving up enough for a yearly date trip to France or another location. We decided we'd rather spend all date money for the year on one amazing trip together. That is super fun and we will keep doing that when it is possible.
This year we took our kids to France with us and then bought a car a month later, effectively draining our saved fun-money for the year. So no annual date trip will happen for us in 2025. This week Jeff took matters into his own hands and staged a date intervention, where he and I talked it over and figured out how we were going to have date-time this summer. We decided to have two date nights per week, since we have the time.
Our first date night was on Thursday this week. We announced to the kids that on date nights, the main floor of our house was closed, so we could feel like we were going somewhere alone together while still staying home. The kids dutifully stayed in the basement while Jeff and I had the main house to ourselves. We played a game of Scrabble for the first time in what has to be at least a decade. It was so fun!
Our second date night was on Saturday night. I had been craving tacos for weeks, so we left our actual HOUSE and went OUT to eat for dinner! We were going to go to our favorite taco truck because I had a very specific desire to eat the fish tacos from El Pelon II taco truck, but it was oddly drizzly, breezy, and barely 65 degrees outside, so instead we went to the heart of downtown Sunnyside 2.5 miles from home to Javi's Chicken and Churros (pronounced Ha-vee's, as in short for Javier). Their fish tacos were different than El Pelon's but still deeply satisfying. While we waited for our food, I looked across the table at Jeff and said "it's so weird going out to eat together when it's not my birthday, our anniversary, or after a cross country meet at a fast food place with 50 teenagers!" We laughed and reveled in the ability and novelty of simply going out to eat together when we wanted to. I know that going out to dinner is not an earth shattering event for many, but it kind of was for us! It was special and fun, and we decided we really like Javi's food.
Yay for forging new marriage territory!
V. Youth Temple Trip! Jay and Rose were finally able to go on a youth temple trip this Saturday, June 21st! All of the other youth temple trips during the school year conflicted with sports. Jeff was all dressed up and ready to drive a van full of youth to the temple, but when he arrived at the church, they had plenty of drivers and adults to help, so he came home instead. It would've been awesome to be there though because Jay got to baptize for the first time as a priest! He said the first person he baptized for the dead was his friend Kai, and then he baptized Rose. Yay! In six months, Amber will be old enough to go to the temple too and then all five of us will be able to go to the temple together!
--PICTURES--
I could have put the pictures after each corresponding section, but I uploaded the pictures before I started writing the post. Afterwards, reorganizing it all seemed too tiring, so here are the pictures, divided into their corresponding sections.
I. Father's Day Pictures:
1 comment:
Jeff! Amber! Testicles! Balls! Dad and I laughed our heads off….and I keep bursting out laughing every time I think of it!🤣 You have some comedy writing SKILLS!!
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