Jay lugged his bass home from school for the first time in at least a year. While he practiced, his sisters peered over his shoulder in the funniest way, like they were hoping he wouldn't notice? It made me laugh.
Journal excerpts from the week:
Monday, November 10th: The driveway crew started smoothing out driveway today. There was dirt and large machinery roaring outside our house all day. We had a cross country run and the preseason swim meeting at the barn today, so everybody tracked all that dirt into the barn. I ran super hard with one of the girls during the run today, and also ran my longest run in 3 months 4.8 miles. My tendons handled it well today, although my body as a whole was struggling. My watch told me I needed 38 hours to recover from my run!
Jeff was feeling a lot better today [from one of his bouts of autonomic and digestive issues, which cause poor sleep], but we postponed our date (for my birthday Thai food) until tomorrow in hopes that he would feel even better.
After dinner tonight, Jay and Rose practiced the bass and cello. I like having instruments at home!
When I got the groceries today, I only ordered 3 gallons of milk (usually I get 4). When we were putting the groceries away, I discovered that we already had 4 gallons of milk in the garage fridge. So we have seven gallons of milk in our fridge right now. I need to just not get milk at all next week or something. This is the second one week in a row that I've gotten too much milk. My family milk habits are clearly inconsistent!
Tuesday, November 11th: Today was the last day off of school on our four day weekend. The driveway crew scooped and gouged and rolled and graded the driveway again all day today. They hit our fiber optic internet cable and killed our internet first thing this morning. Spectrum had told the driveway guys that there wouldn't be a problem with our conduit, but Spectrum apparently hadn't installed the conduit properly, and it ended up only being buried barely 6 inches underground instead of 2 feet. So when the big driveway grading machine scraped the dirt away, it also scraped our internet away. Thankfully Jeff called Spectrum and they were able to come out within an hour of the issue to work on a plan. We have temporary internet right now, and they're coming back next week to fix the conduit issue. I'm so glad Jeff was home to handle that, because he's the one who knows the most about the internet lines and all of that.
We had another cross country run at the barn this morning, and I ran over 4 miles for the second day in a row. I also did my pull-up negatives and push-up ladder, with some core work mixed in. I am taking tomorrow off.
Jeff and I went to my favorite Thai restaurant in Prosser for my belated birthday lunch date today. It was so fun to eat out with my favorite person and laugh and talk together, and to have him all to myself.
I am tired because running is hard.
Wednesday, November 12th: Today was a loud day at our house: the driveway crew revved up their machinery at 7am and worked till 3pm. It's starting to look smooth in some sections!
I took today off from running, PT, lifting, and exercise in general. Instead my exercise was vacuuming the house and playing the piano. I took a nap and worked on researching Christmas gift ideas. My tendons and muscles felt used from the past 2 days, but not painful. I am on the mend! Wahoo!
This morning after school drop-off and a chiropractor appointment, I drove to the eye doctor office in Grandview (something I dislike doing, so I have been putting it off) and got my glasses tightened. They were slipping down my nose so much and driving me crazy for weeks, and now they are nice and snug again.
Rose was feeling a bit emotional about having a big load of homework from honors English and mostly from Honors biology tonight, so I gave her the night off from doing the dishes, so I get to do a massive sink full of dishes tomorrow morning. Being a merciful mother can be rather tiring.
Thursday, November 13: I went to seminary as the second adult this morning, and boy that makes me so tired all day! I did take a 20 minute nap after lunch, which helped a lot. The driveway crew was still in full force today, with large machinery roaring and groaning past my windows all day, so it was a miracle I was able to fall asleep at all.
I stopped by LVFC (the fitness club) to ask about the pool for Jeff (and the upcoming swim season), and the guy said it is currently out of order because he's waiting for a part. Soooo boys high school swim season starts on Monday, and the pool is once again broken. And our driveway will probably not be paved by Monday afternoon at 3pm, soooo it's going to be a crazy mess when 35+ swimmers all descend upon the barn.
My two friends, Liz and Danae, came to lift this morning. It was a good workout, and also fun friend time. My muscles are all sore and tired, head to toe.
I ran with the XC team this afternoon. It is so nice to finally run with the girls team again! The last time I ran with them regularly was during summer practice back in August!
Tonight I went to a birthday dinner with friends to celebrate the three November birthdays in our group. Teriyaki with friends is my fave! I have such an awesome group of friends. I joked that Sakura better not go up in flames while we were there, because we had the RS president and one counselor, the YW president and a counselor, the primary president and the primary chorister/organist, the primary pianist, (plus me, a Sunday school teacher) all in one restaurant at one time. If the restaurant blew up, our ward would fall apart! Haha. I love these ladies and feel so blessed to be friends with them.
Friday, November 15th: We are in Spokane at a funny little motel, after a dark 3 hour drive. We arrived at 8:15pm tonight. Amber's NXR race is at 7:45 tomorrow morning.
I woke up for 90+ minutes at 2am this morning, feeling my sore muscles and hormonal anxiety, and also weirdly hot. I felt pretty tired all day today, and even took an almost 20 minute nap amidst the roar of the driveway crew's equipment. I ran a nice easy 30 minutes at XC practice, and we left home for Spokane a little after 5pm. Jeff stopped 25 minutes down the road in Prosser for smelly hamburgers en route for him and the girls (Jay and I ate before we left home).
At that point I felt the closest to a meltdown that I've felt in a LONG time, if ever. The greasy burger smell, the knowledge that my precious family members were putting that unhealthy food into their bodies, the dark congested highway with big trucks, my tall body folded into the seat of the van, a hotel bed of unknown comfort/firmness in my near future, my overall tiredness: all of that mixed with whatever PMS hormonal cocktail I have going on right now and put me teetering on the edge of tears/anger/stress/anxiety in a very potent mix. I felt so trapped in the van, with the fast food smells and 2.5 more hours of driving still ahead of us. I didn't know if I was going to be able to handle it! In fact, for about 20 minutes I was not handling it; I was griping and grousing and muttering and being basically the worst travel companion. I was even annoying myself!
Finally I told Jeff, "I am having a really hard time right now. I feel super anxious and stressed." Jeff asked what I needed, and I honestly didn't know. A minute later, he said "tell me about your day." At first I wasn't in the mood to tell him about my sort of lame day, but I also knew I needed help getting out of my stress-anxiety feedback loop, so I started telling him stuff. Eventually we started talking, and we ended up talking for the entire drive instead of listening to the [weird] audiobook that Jeff had picked out. (Sorry, Husband! 1950s science fiction is not my thing.) After about 15 minutes of talking, I started to feel calmer, and I was able to feel better and better as the drive progressed. It was a relief, and I love that Jeff knew how to help me feel better. He's the best. I also feel a little bit pathetic that I couldn't just pull myself together and suck it up on that drive, but I'm so glad Jeff helped me through it.
On Sunday night (Nov 9th), we had a hilarious family ensemble. Rose and I started playing violin cello duets from the hymnbook. Then we invited Jay to join us. Then Jeff came and sang along with our playing. Amber sang and took pictures and videos. It was silly and also a lot of fun!
Coach White, demonstrating a squat in the barn weight room during the preseason swim meeting. The stairs on the right side of this room were loaded with boys, watching from above like they were in bleachers.
Jeff is lying on the bench on the far left, demonstrating how to use the swim bands, while the massive driveway machinery roars past just outside the windows.
The driveway crew at work.
We played a family card game of Cover Your Assets, and Amber was miffed that everyone stole her cards. (I won this game for possibly the first time ever!)
Over the long weekend, Amber worked her way through a science book that she got at the book fair. She managed to drop an egg without breaking it from the porch way down to the basement gravel patio with some ancient balloons and a baggie of crepe paper to cushion its fall.
Thai food belated birthday lunch date! The Prosser Thai restaurant makes a divinely warming Tom Yum soup.
Driveway progress.
We parked out front and hiked to and from our house all week, because the equipment was always moving and we needed to be able to get in and out easily. A few cold mornings of that trek made me even more thankful for our warm garage.
After all that, on to NXR! Now that I'm to this point, I wish I had just done two separate posts. But I'm committed now!
Saturday, November 15th was a long day at NXR and I didn't write in my journal, so here's a quick summary of the day: After a skeleton-crumpling sleep on an iffy hotel bed with weird pillows that seemed to be wrapped in plastic bags, we left our hotel at 6:45am and drove the 5 minutes to the Spokane Polo Grounds, where the meet was being held.
The first race of the day was Amber's middle and elementary school 3k race. Amber started at the back of the pack and ran her very own race no matter what wild cheering we did. She ended up running a 3k PR of 14:55 and finished in 95th place out of 117 girls. Boys and girls ran together in that race, so the starting line was at least twice that size.
Next up was Rose at 11:20am, running one of the many girls' 5k races. She started out at the tail end of the large pack and ran a well-paced race. She got her second fastest time of the season, 24:06, but it was her first race where she ran all three of the miles in less than 8 minutes. She looked strong and said she was happy with her race, even though her legs were a bit tired from running earlier in the week.
Jay's race was at 1pm. He started strong and held on for dear life, to finish in 18:28, just 20 seconds behind his PR. It was his best NXR race ever. Since we train our teams to taper for the district and state meets, racing at NXR is tricky because it falls outside of that taper zone, so the kids didn't have their legs at full power. Jeff and I thought all three of our kids looked strong during their races! The 17 other kids from our teams who came to the meet also ran well. We love these kids!
The drive home was droopy and exhausting. Jeff did the driving. I did the drooping. We got home at 5:45pm.
Since Nike required all runners to have uniforms, (but no school uniforms since it's a postseason meet), Jeff invested several hundred dollars in custom uniforms for our unofficial running club, the Sunny Smiles Running Club. They turned out great! We collected all the sweaty uniforms after the races on Saturday so we can wash them and save them for the next out-of-season event.
Amber worked on writing a story about some part of one of her video games. I don't know much more than that, but I was impressed with her studiousness as she scribbled away in her notebook in our hotel room.
I jogged a short warmup with Amber. Since this was a postseason meet, I left all my red Sunnyside High School gear at home and busted out my 21 year old vintage green Southern Virginia University Cross Country jacket that I got my freshman season. It was fun to wear it to a cross country meet for the first time in nearly 2 decades.
Amber wore spikes for the first time in her race.
I let Amber wear my jacket while she waited in the chilly early morning breeze for her race to start.
On the starting line!
Amber's starting line. Her race was the sunniest.
Go Amber!
Those two long shadows across the path in front of Amber are me and Rose, cheering her on.
Amber, on the homestretch!
Amber gave this mischievous smile after she poked a hole in the lid of her water bottle and squirted water out the top.
The start of Rose's race. Rose is deep in the mix somewhere near the left of the picture.
Yay Rose!
Rose has been working on not slumping her shoulders when she gets tired, and she did a great job running tall and upright during this race! Our girls' team captain did everyone's hair in fancy braids and pigtails.
Rose on the homestretch!
Crossing the finish line in 24:06.
Nike really knows how to put on a fun meet. They had a drone following the runners and projecting the video feed onto this big screen by the finish line. This is a picture of the beginning of Jay's race.
Jay, in blue and white on the left, running with his friend Ricardo during the first mile.
Jay, making his way through the congested course.
Rounding the bend with a quarter mile to go!
Our cross country family. We love these kids.
The true miracle of the day was this moment, when Jimena actually SMILED in a picture! (Jimena is in the middle next to Rose, holding Anna.) These girls have my heart.
During the long drive home, I was conscious for part of the sunset, so I took this picture of the scattered pink clouds catching the afterglow.
My NXR coach wristband.
The 2025 cross country season is officially officially over! Boys' swim starts tomorrow.
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