Blackberry Beginning

Our blackberries are beginning! Last week (July28-August 3rd) we sadly said goodbye to July and rounded the bend into August. It always feels like summer will last forever during July, but when August hits out of nowhere, it feels like the school year and coaching seasons are staring us in the face up close. Am I ready for another school year and cross country season, swim season, and track season? I don't know! It's coming whether I'm ready or not, looming in the near future at the end of August. I enjoy coaching and the school day routine, but the minute school starts, we go pretty much nonstop full steam ahead for the entire school year, evenings and weekends included. Sundays are our only day off. That relentless grind is daunting! Thankfully we have another two-plus weeks before it all begins again. 

After our family hike to Sourdough Gap on Tuesday, my poor ankle was completely thrashed. It was already sore from my 15 mile run-hike on the Wonderland Trail the previous week, but running five miles on Tuesday morning and then going on that 7 mile hike a few hours later put my poor ankle over the edge. It ached to walk, it ached to move, and it wouldn't crack or pop like it usually does. This left me feeling totally crippled and tragic! I switched from running with our team outside in the glorious country morning scenery to sweating it out on the elliptical machine in the barn. I took the rest of the week off from running and went to the chiropractor to get my ankle put back in place. 

I kept wondering, if my ankle hurt this much, why wasn't it huge and swollen? It turns out, hiking and running on a slightly maligned talus bone caused the tissue and muscles around the inner ankle and Achilles to torque, pull, and work harder than usual, and that was the source of the ankle pain. So the trick now is to get my ankle adjusted frequently enough so it eventually stays in place and my poor abused fascia and muscles can go back to their regular workload instead of doing extra. My prime directive right now is to heal my ankle so I can function and coach the way I want to when cross country season officially begins in 3 weeks. Letting an ankle heal is BORING though, especially when our cross country team shows up to the barn for a run every day and I can't go with them! Not to mention, August is PRIME TIME for mountain time in the Cascades. I feel like I just finally healed from my last injury, but here we go again. I am very thankful that I never had issues with injuries back in high school and college, or even all through my 20s. But my 30's have been fraught with injury after injury! Arg! Welcome to the rest of my life, I guess--haha. 

Ok, I could probably keep writing all about how not fun it is having a bum ankle, but I'll try to dredge up something more positive and interesting to say. 

On Monday, Jay and I went to the tri cities together. I helped him open his first ever bank account, and then we went to the oral surgeon for an implant consultation. Eventually Jay will need one implant to fill the gap where he has no adult tooth. Thankfully he doesn't need that expensive procedure done until he's in his 20s! Because we are still getting random bills from his adenoidectomy. 

On Friday afternoon, I sent Jay to the store for a gallon of milk, vanilla ice cream, and some fresh parsley. He came back with vanilla ice cream and cilantro. We all laughed about it and didn't have parsley with our dinner.

Amber ran a 5k in 31:06 on Friday! It was her longest run with the least amount of walking ever. She said she only walked twice, all during the third mile, and one of those walks was because she was nervous about a dog. "But the dog came over and I petted it, and then it licked me." 

I got up at 5am on Saturday morning and drove a van full of youth 1 hour and 40 minutes to Moses Lake for a one day four-stake youth conference. Once the van was unloaded, I went into the Moses Lake Temple and managed to slip into the 8am endowment session. I had a reservation for the 10am session, but it worked out great to switch to the 8am one so I didn't have to wait around for 2 hours. I didn't even get drowsy during the session either! It reminded me of how much better my brain works first thing in the morning. I haven't been to a temple session that early in the morning in a long time! This was my first time doing a session in the new Moses Lake Temple, and I loved seeing this beautiful temple in action. We went to this temple open house two years ago, but it's always my favorite to go do a session in the temple. 

Since I had nothing else to do in Moses Lake (which is such a random city in the middle of nowhere central Washington), I stayed in the celestial room in the temple for a long time after my endowment session was over. It was possibly the quietest celestial room I've ever been in. The temple wasn't very busy, and all of the other patrons left the celestial room pretty quickly after our session ended. I sat there and listened to the quiet, soaking up the peace, praying, and feeling God's love. Eventually I realized that I was the only person in the celestial room--there weren't even any temple workers there! It lasted for about 10 whole minutes. That was a completely new, incredibly rare and special experience. I loved every second of it. I left the temple feeling spiritually fortified and so incredibly loved. It was a beautiful experience. 

Jay, hanging out at the oral surgeon.

Jay's perfect teeth, minus that one missing adult tooth on the bottom left that never existed in his skull.

Amber has streamlined our summer plan so she can get her daily exercise, yardwork, music practice, and chores done faster than I expected, thus maximizing her screen time. I don't love how much screen time she is getting each day, but I do love how proactive she has been with her chores and piano practice. So I guess that's a fair trade-off: lots of screen time for zero work reluctance. It still makes me happy to hear the daily cheerful question, "What should I do for yardwork today?" I like the ownership all three kids have taken over their summer days. They know what they have to do, and they do it! I still can hardly believe my plan is working! I might have to add to it next year, to see if I can leverage more work into the equation, haha.

Sunset out the back of our house. I am a window person. I love windows. And we have such a tranquil wide open view. It is restful living here.

Amber runs her 1-2 miles at cross country practice and then hangs out in the barn afterwards until practice ends. One day I found this scene: she built a throne out of plyo boxes and the pull-up bar, plugged in her Alexa device, and was meditating to instrumental Star Wars music. Classic all-in epic Amber. 

On Wednesday (July 30th), my ankle made me watch the cross country workout instead of participating. Even though it was a hard workout, it was also hard not to run it!

Another day, Queen Amber read a stack of books atop her throne.

I branched out and tried a new recipe on Wednesday: Greek pitas. We used Costco's new fluffy bakery-fresh pocket pitas. I used ground turkey instead of lamb for the filling, since lamb is way too expensive for the quantities my family requires. I had to use dry parsley (thanks, Jay) instead of fresh, but we did have fresh mint leaves, cucumbers, tomatoes, and lemon, making these a delightful summer dinner success! Even Amber ate them.

The barn lived up to its awesomeness on Thursday morning during a very rare summer thunderstorm that lasted for the first 20 minutes of cross country practice. The kids rotated between 10 minutes on the cardio equipment and plyometrics in the other room. By the time everyone had done one rotation, the lightning and thunder had moved on, and they got to go outside for an equally rare run in the rain.

Plyometrics: wicket hops

Rose picked a whole gallon of big blackberries and wanted to make blackberry cobbler with them, so we made it together. We still have two jars of the sweet cooked berries!

On Friday, I did my longest elliptical session to date: 45 minutes. Mentally, it felt like twice that amount of time, haha. Cross training gives you slightly less physical benefit than running, but with a much greater mental effort. Maybe my brain will be rock solid and strong by the time I can run outside again.

After cross country practice on Friday, we took a handful of kids over to help put away the pole vault pads. What a process. Pole vault is high maintenance to the very bitter end! We put these pads away at the end of track season, but the pole vault coach got them out for summer training. Now they are back in the shed, hopefully to stay there until March.

Rose and I started hacking and hoeing the ridiculous weed situation on our side flowerbed. Hacking at shoulder-high weeds with a hoe made my hands and shoulders sore. It felt like my forearm bones were going to shatter with every chop I made. We set a timer for 20 minutes, cranked some music on my phone in my pocket, and worked together till the timer went off. There's still plenty to do.

Making berry cobbler! Rose picked all the leaves and bugs out of the blackberries, and her hands got all purple-y.

Hot fresh homemade blackberry cobbler--I prefer calling it blackberry crisp--with whipped plant cream on top. A dairy free desert delight!

The Moses Lake Temple has some major landscaping with vibrant flowerbeds everywhere. It was so pretty!

Awkward temple selfie! There were groups of teenagers working in the flowerbeds all around the temple, so I felt extra ridiculous taking a selfie with them there. I managed to position my phone so you can't see any other people--it was tricky.

We had dinner with the local family on Sunday in Grandview. I love how these cousins get out random games to play together after dinner.

Jay, setting up his new debit card!

Sister duet! I am so happy with how well Rose and Amber have kept up with their piano playing this summer. It's totally worth a little extra screen time.