The sky was large and in charge all week long, with gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, and a variety of colors and clouds during the day. My posterior tibialis tendinitis was also a big factor. I hit the PT hard all week and started feeling pretty good. With sky-high hopes, I ran on Friday to reward myself annnnd... re-learned that tendinitis doesn't go away in one week.
Journal excerpts, interspersed with pictures:
We had an "off week" wherein we had zero cross country meets. Yesterday was our first meet-free Saturday in five weeks! I was expecting to get more done around the house and yard and feel more rested by the end of the week and then do more yardwork on Saturday, but instead I barely managed the minimum functional at-home-work and felt tired all week. Why did our off week feel like more of an off week than a rest week? When I was puzzling over this question, it occurred to me that I forgot to account for the attrition of the past five busy weeks. So instead of a catch-up and get-ahead week, it ended up being a rest and recover week...with 11 hours coaching at six cross country practices for Jeff and me, a full week of teaching for Jeff, and a full week of early morning seminary for Jay and Rose, with an orchestra concert and youth activities in the mix too. Hmmm the illusion of a rest week is fading away...
My parents flew in for a weekend visit to watch Jay, Rose, and Amber race at the Max Jensen Cross Country Invitational on Saturday, October 10th. Just now, as I started writing, I realized that that this was the last cross country meet where all three of my kids ran a race at the same meet. Woah. We all tried to make the most of the day: enjoying our visitors while doing business as usual at a cross country meet.
Each day this week had one Main Project that took most of my day. Monday was Rose Day: she had her first iron infusion and we also picked up her one year supply of contact lenses from the eye doctor. Tuesday was Mow Everything Day wherein I mowed 3+ acres in about 3.5 brutal bouncy hours. Wednesday was Fingerprinting Day for me, another step in the surprisingly complicated process of becoming a substitute teacher (my motivation wanes the longer the certification process drags on). Thursday was the cross country meet at The Gorge Amphitheatre, requiring me to leave my house by 10:15am to help get everything ready. Friday was Housecleaning Catch-up Day, since it was the first day I had time to clean all week. And Saturday was another cross country meet: the Max Jensen Invitational in Richland. Whew! As usual, lots of other things happened in and around these big daily projects, which filled the week to bursting!
Last Sunday evening (Sept 27th), Grampa Dan brought his two dogs over to visit. Amber threw a tennis ball for them and our puppies watched the bigger dogs play fetch. It was a rather idyllic backyard scene with the sunset melting in the background:
On Saturday, September 26th, Jeff and I took our varsity cross country runners to Spokane, WA to the Nike Bob Firman Invitational. The meet was held on The Course, a brand new this year purpose-built cross country course in scenic Spokane Valley. That means this course is ONLY a cross country course. It is not at a park that is used for other sports. It is not in playing fields full of divots from cleats and pivots. It's not even a golf course. It is a wide path of velvety grass that was planted and cultivated especially for running. It was the smoothest natural grown grass that I have ever experienced. The smoothness was noticeable even in the short time my feet were on the course-- I only jogged across the course a few times while watching the races. The Course just barely opened up in the past year, and this was our first time there!
We heard back from Nissan! When the factory recall procedure bricked and ruined Jeff's electric car six weeks ago, Nissan promised to pay us Kelley Blue Book value plus 40% to replace the car. Jeff estimated it would be about $14,000, which was not quite enough for an electric car with more than 120 miles of range, but still better than nothing. The replacement car he bought was $20,000. Once Nissan's payment came through, it would take us another uncomfortable year to pay off that last $6k, when we had just finished paying off the original car a few weeks before it was ruined! It was such an annoying financial setback, but what could we do? All month it was in the back of my mind, wondering how we would save any money over the next year while paying for such an expensive car. Nissan took its sweet time getting all of the information and paperwork together, and this week, nearly six weeks after the car died, they finally told us the amount they deemed sufficient to replace it. In a rare twist of fate, the replacement payout was more than we expected! On Friday, Jeff texted me one number with no explanation:
We are in the dog days of cross country season: putting in the work over and over and over. Yesterday we traveled nearly 4 hours by school bus to the Tacoma area for the Fort Steilacoom Invitational. This coming Thursday, we will be hosting a league meet on our home course. Two days later on the following Saturday, we are traveling 3 hours to Spokane for another big cross country meet. It's not the 17 hour days or the crowded busy meets that get me; it's those endless skeleton-wrecking hours jolting along in the school bus. I need to start doing yoga again or something!
We hosted our home cross country meet, The 4th Annual Sunburn Cross Country Invitational, on Saturday, September 12th. As usual, it was a lot of work! But at the end of the day, Jeff and I looked at each other and agreed that it all went smoothly--usually we have at least one big snag, but we didn't this year! Come to think of it, maybe this year's snag happened the day before the meet while we were measuring the course. We had a list of distances between landmarks on the course from last year, so we walked the measuring wheel between each landmark to make sure it was accurate. The numbers were not adding up! We were so confused, because we have hosted meets at this course four times (the annual Sunburn Invite meet three times, plus one league meet) and the distance has always been perfect. Why was it different this time??
Jay is a high school senior, and I am trying to keep up with all of the necessary traditions. I used to take pictures of my little kids with a real camera all the time. It was a self-taught hobby that reached a natural conclusion when the kids got older and weren't home as much. Since we still have the big Pentax K-5 DSLR camera that we bought on eBay 15 years ago, I decided to dust off my photography skills to take some senior pictures of our boy. First I did some online research to find some good photo poses for boys. Then I asked my sister Em (the professional photographer) for advice.
All of a sudden, we have two dogs! They showed up in our yard a week ago and we couldn't resist. They adopted us, so we adopted them. Nobody has claimed them, so we are keeping them. We didn't really have plans to get pets, but we have always told Amber that if another stray came along, we would feed it. These puppies are more than just gross traumatized strays; they are sweet energetic trusting youngsters who need a family. Sooooo we named them Sherlock and Watson and started feeding them everyday.
After a six year break from fundraising, we brought back the Grizzlython this year --our high school cross country team fundraiser-- and made it into a 24 hour relay, because why not start the grueling school year as sleep deprived and exhausted as possible?
I loved visiting SVU so much back in June that I went again last week! Actually, my friend's daughter Kennedy is interested in attending SVU. While Kennedy and I were talking after a cross country run one day in July, I offered to go visit SVU with her if she needed a companion. Her parents (also my friends) ended up taking me up on my offer, and they booked me and Kennedy plane tickets! Less than a month later, on August 19th, Kennedy and I were flying to Virginia together to see SVU! I have coached Kennedy for cross country and track ever since her 8th grade track season, so we know each other pretty well. I felt honored that her parents trusted me to take her across the country! We had so much fun on our girls trip, exploring, running, hiking, eating ice cream, and lots of good long talks. I loved showing Kennedy one of my favorite places in the world!
The end of the summer has begun. It doesn't happen all at once because Jeff goes back to work as a teacher a week before the kids go back to school as students. First, Jeff goes back to work. Then, fall sports practices begin. Then comes the first day of school. Basically, the end of the summer begins with Jeff starting work, progresses with Jeff and me both starting to coach official cross country practice, (with Jay and Rose attending as members of the team and Amber attending as daughter of the coaches), and finishes with all of the kids starting school. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't feeling all of my usual end of summer beginning of school year emotions, plus a few new ones since this will be Jay's senior year of high school.
Wildfire smoke blew into our valley on Monday, August 3rd, and would not go away. The AQI hovered in the red zone, between 150-190, for four days. Even though this has happened in the past, worse, and for longer, it is never fun, and it messed up our outdoor plans (running and yardwork). I took Tuesday off from running, and it felt nice to have a recovery day. By Wednesday, though, Jeff and I were both ready for a real run. So we hauled Jay, Rose, and Amber up to the highest mountains that are the closest to Sunnyside: Chinook Pass. Rose drove us the entire 100 miles (1 hour and 50 minutes) to the parking lot by the Pacific Crest Trail in Chinook Pass.
On the morning of the wedding (Saturday, August 1st), I went on an urban-nature fusion adventure run to Torrey Pines Preserve. At 8am I caught the city bus #30 and rode it for 45 minutes up to the base of the steepest section of Torrey Pines Road. Jeff had run that segment the day before, and I was curious what it was like. After a quick pit stop at a gas station, I started the ascent. This section of Torrey Pines Road is about 1.5 miles uphill, but it's only about a 5% grade so it was very runnable. I didn't push the pace; I just ran up. When I got to the top, I decided to follow the mental map I had created with research and continue along North Torrey Pines Road to the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve.
Saturday, August 1st was wedding day!! I started the day with a nice long 10 mile run (that's a separate post). We were instructed to meet at Balboa Park in downtown San Diego for wedding pictures at 3pm, so we left our motel at 2:15pm to give us time for traffic and parking. Except...we couldn't get out of the motel parking lot! A large SUV had parked crooked and half out of a compact car space next to us, and a big pickup truck had parked in the space behind ours, and our rental Mazda mid size SUV did not have the requisite tiny size or turning radius to squeeze out. I had to go to the "lobby" building of the motel and wait for the guy to help us. Thankfully the owner of the badly parked SUV was in his room and was able to come out right away to move his vehicle, but the whole process still set us back at least 10 minutes.
Jeff's brother Sam got married!! We went to San Diego for it. Our original plan was make the 20 hour drive from Sunnyside, WA to San Diego, CA, but the closer it got the more I dreaded the 40+ hour round trip of driving. We were going to swoop up through Utah on the way home to check out BYU. It was going to be a whole weeklong family road trip. Jeff's health is generally good during summer break... until it's suddenly not, like when he accidentally eats anything with even a smidge of tomato, potato, or chili pepper in it. This summer Jeff has also been navigating how to hydrate sufficiently with his dysautonomia, with bouts of dizziness and migraines in the mix. If any of these carefully managed areas were to be affected while we were on the road, the potential fun of a family road trip would be OVER.
Those thoughts came to me over and over while Jeff was dealing with a flare-up a few weeks ago, prompting me to find relatively cheap plane tickets on the budget Allegiant Air to replace our road trip. When I crunched these new numbers and discovered that flying and renting a car for 3 days would actually be $1,000 cheaper than driving, I was sold. We flew, rented a car, and arrived at our motel a little after 8:30pm on Thursday, July 30th.
We made a quick trip to San Diego for Jeff's brother Sam's wedding last week. It was a 3.5 day trip, from Thursday afternoon, July 30th to Sunday, August 2nd. We crammed a lot in during our short stay: 2 epic runs, 2 visits to the beach, 2 train rides, 1 pre-wedding party, and 1 wedding plus reception on a boat. It is always happy to show up for family and support them on important days. I loved being there to see Sam marry his true love, Katherine. I will write about all of the happy wedding festivities. But first, these are the words that I needed to siphon off before I tell about the many fun beautiful parts of the trip. I don't want my memories of the happy wedding festivities to be overshadowed by the woes of budget travel. Trust me, this whiny princess post has nothing to do with how glad I was to be there for Sam and Kat.
Rose and I went on a mother daughter hike on Tuesday, July 28th! I love spending time outside with my kids, and it was so sweet to have one on one time with my Rose girl.
The Quiet Week Outline:
I. Heat Advisory
II. Lincoln Grade
III. Violin Surgery
IV. Presentation
V. FSY
On my way home from dropping a van load of 6 kids off at FSY in Tacoma on Monday July 20th, I hiked to the Kendall Katwalk on the Pacific Crest Trail. It was my first time on this section of the PCT, so it was extra exciting to explore and add a new place to my list of best hikes within 2 hours of Sunnyside.
This week was hot and dry with triple digit temperatures more than twice, but somehow the weeds kept growing, while our vast backyard grass keeps looking crispy-er. The weeds always know when I am away from home, because they grow fastest when I'm gone. During my recent 3 week absence, for example, an alarming quantity of thick noxious weeds popped up all around the borders of our front yard and driveway. I sacrificed body and soul to pull those evil thick tormentors: on Monday, I sweated and weeded for over two and a half hours. That massive effort thrashed my muscles after my 3 week vacation from yardwork, and I was sore for the rest of the week.
When everyone else went home after our family reunion, I got to stay in Denver an extra week with my Mom! We started this tradition five years ago, and it is one of my favorite weeks of the summer. We do all of our favorite things all week long and since we have so many shared interests. As the second of five siblings, I especially relish one on one time with my Mom!
Our annual Brown family reunion was from June 27-July 4, 2026 in Denver, Colorado. This was the first time in nearly 10 years that we were missing people from our family. The last time we were missing a someone at our family gathering was when my youngest sister Melody was serving her mission in Cambodia 9 or 10 years ago! As the oldest grandchild, Steve was the first of the next generation to go. He began his mission on June 24th with two weeks of home MTC, so Steve stayed home in Missouri with his dad/mission companion Jesse while the rest of us gathered together in Colorado. We missed them, but Steve was in the right place and it was cool being able to see him wearing his missionary nametag on video calls a few times during the week!
When we got home from our trip to Virginia and Pennsylvania, we had almost exactly 36 hours at home before our next trip: we got home at 1am on Friday morning (June 26th) and left again at 1pm on Saturday afternoon (June 27th). The next trip was to Denver for the Brown family reunion. But before that, let's talk about our 36 hours at home. It was productive.
Part 3 of 3: After Virginia, our family adventure continued in central Pennsylvania and Washington, DC! Journal excerpts, edited for coherency and interspersed with pictures:
Let's be honest: aside from showing our kids where we met and went to college, one of the main draws of this trip was the gorgeous nostalgic running routes! I went on 3 memorable morning runs in Buena Vista, Virginia and felt all of the nostalgia and love of that Appalachian beauty in my soul. This place will always have a piece of my heart. I took almost as many pictures during my runs as I did during the rest of the trip, so I organized the running pictures separately here.
Long post alert! Even though I already hit the highlights of the trip, I'm doing the special blog extended edition of our family trip to Virginia and Pennsylvania because I like keeping track of my memories. The 3 parts of this extended edition are:
Our family roots are deep in Pennsylvania, where Jeff grew up, and Virginia, where we met and went to college. We took our kids back east on a family trip during the first week of summer break. It was so much fun showing our kids our beloved Southern Virginia University! And the rich rolling greenery of central Pennsylvania! We wore ourselves out running, driving, hiking, and exploring this cherished pocket of the country.
Concerts, recitals, performances, speeches, projects, celebrations, activities, birthdays: the end of the school year is always full to bursting! Here is a photo album of the end of the school year, with captions for details.
Jay's one and only birthday present was a trip to visit his cousin Steve before Steve leaves on his mission to Mexico City in a few weeks. The last time Steve and Jay saw each other was last summer at our family reunion, so without this trip they would not have seen each other for four or more years, thanks to overlapping missions! Since Steve is 18 months older than Jay, they won't see each other for three or more years after this visit. It was a sweet "last visit of childhood" for these cousin friends. I feel a little nostalgic thinking about it all, because my sister Em and I used to get our kids together every year when the kids were little. Visiting when our oldest sons were on the verge of leaving the nest was bittersweet!
Jay turned 17 on Thursday! He was also born on Thursday, May 21st so it felt extra birthday-ish, to me at least. I can and can't believe my firstborn is 17 years old. Jay summed it up when asked the question "what is scary?" on his birthday interview. Jay answered, "The future."
We hosted the high school track awards "banquet" (potluck) in our backyard on Tuesday, May 19th. Jeff and the 7 other coaches presented certificates and awards to the track athletes and we feasted on the potluck. The team brought mountains of food and beverages, including a 4 gallon clear plastic barrel of horchata (a sweet creamy vanilla Mexican beverage), and another plastic barrel of agua de pepino (cucumber agua fresca, or cucumber water--a divinely refreshing sweet green cucumber limeade). Cucumber agua fresca is my favorite! There was also a large assortment of sodas (not my favorite). The abundance of beverages led to lots of leftovers--mostly in cups that were tossed half full into the trash bags we set out.
I spent the whole week recovering from last week, and the week before that, and the weeks before that. My body felt dully, heavy, and lethargic. My brain wasn't much sharper. The end-of-season slump is a phenomenon that we experience after each sports season, but it hits a little differently each time. This time it hit me harder than it has in the past. My motivation plummeted. My energy was nonexistent. Even though my middle school track season was over, high school track was still in full force! So I couldn't just completely surrender to the fatigue. I managed to get a good amount of recovery in anyways, and by Saturday I had a bit more spring in my step.
3 track meets in 3 days: 3x3 = 9 times as tiring. It wasn't just having three track meets in a row that wiped us out; we hosted back to back track meets this week: a middle school meet on Wednesday (the last meet of my MS season!), and a high school meet on Thursday. Then on Friday, we drove nearly 6 hours round trip to Issaquah, WA (and got home close to 1am) for the Liberty Twilight distance-runners-only track meet, where they ran 30+ heats of the 1600m race. Loud spunky music played the entire night, with music videos on the stadium scoreboard screen. The ambience was quirky and fun--a total cross country meet vibe.
In the past 8 days, we have had six track meets. Jeff went to four of these high school track meets, and I went to one middle school meet and two high school meets. It has been an intense 8 days! Track season is our despot king, and we are mere lowly microscopic servants doing his bidding. Grinding weeks like this one are exactly what I dread all winter as track season approaches.
Amber gave her first sacrament meeting talk at church today! She was asked to speak one week beforehand. We talked about it on the way to school back on Thursday, and Amber already knew which conference talk she wanted to use for her talk. But then it flew out of all our brains, and I forgot to write it on the family calendar. Working all day at the busy track meet yesterday fried even more brain cells.
In our church pew after the opening song, Amber looked over at me with wide eyes and whispered "I'm supposed to give a talk today!" My initial thought was maybe she just shouldn't do it--how could an 11 year old be expected to give a talk without any preparation? Jeff said "just go up and bear your testimony." Rose remembered which conference address Amber liked best, so she found it on her phone and showed it to Amber.
We are in the thick of track season right now. I don't want to waste time bemoaning the weather yet again...but for track coaches, the weather makes or breaks a practice, a meet, a week. This week we had moderately good weather on Monday, then three back to back cold WINDY days that about destroyed my will to press on. On Friday, the great outdoors finally stopped trying to ruin our physical and mental health and gave us a sunny warm-ish afternoon with a light breeze. Saturday was even warmer and more windless. Wow, writing all that down made me realize that the weather was a 50/50 split this week between good and bad. But the toll of standing outside in 20mph sustained winds with a real-feel temperature hovering at or below 50 degrees for three days in a row skews the memory. Whoops, I tried not to write an entire paragraph about the weather and failed!
Ah, sweet spring break. That blissful breath amidst the swirling vortex of track season. Our break involved daily track practice, mountains of yardwork, and enough screen time to recover from it all. The highlight of the week was our one family outing: on Thursday, April 9th, we went to the temple together to do baptisms for the dead. It was the first time all five of us have gone to the temple to do baptisms all together. We have only all been in the temple together one other time, at our ward youth temple trip back in January. It was crowded and Amber didn't even do baptisms that day, so Thursday was her first time doing temple baptisms! Our family temple trip was so small and quiet and sweet. I savored it.
Jay reached his big goal to break 5 minutes in the mile!! It was so exciting! He was so happy to achieve the goal that he worked so hard for!
It has come, like it does every spring: the time when track season takes over basic life functions. I managed to squeeze in a few non-track things amidst the planning, prepping, coaching, and clerking this week, but mostly track is life right now. Journal excerpts are keeping this blog afloat right now:
Middle school track season started this week! While I made the spreadsheet with all 65 kids who signed up for MS track, I officially crunched the middle school track numbers. 86% of last year's 7th graders on the track team joined the team this year. 66% of my 8th graders last year joined the high school track team. Retention is looking pretty snazzy, but that's not all: middle school kids kept registering throughout the week, so by the end of the first week of the season, 77 kids were on my roster! I believe registration closed on Friday, so that should be it.
50 of those kids attended practice at least once this week, with a daily average of about 40. That's a 44% increase in attendance since last year! 8 more kids have COME to track practice this year than the total number of kids who REGISTERED last year! I don't know why numbers are up so much this year, but I am here for it! Every afternoon during and after practice, my neurons were exploding with the effort of learning and remembering so many new names.
High school track season started this week! The first day of practice was Monday, March 2nd. The weather was eerily perfect: sunny, mid 50s, with a light breeze. I kept waiting for the wind, rain, and cold blustery weather to come, but that waited till Tuesday. Monday was lovely! Being a track coach is a master class in savoring the golden moment and accepting that it probably won't last, haha.
After a gloomy wet Monday and Tuesday, we had the best February weather ever this week! It felt like such a treat to enjoy sunshine without wind at the end of February. It was a nice little gift during the one and only week between swim season and track season. Here are some journal excerpts:
Over the past 2 weeks, Jeff and I have had a lot of quality time in the car with Rose practicing driving. Rose's total hours spent driving since she got her permit on February 9th (13 days ago) is close to 13 hours! That's a lot of time for a full-time high school student who also attends early morning seminary and a 2 hour driver's ed class 5 evenings a week, while also preparing for the science fair and trying to sneak some running in to get ready for track season. Rose is cranking! She also performed four songs in the piano ribbon festival on Saturday. It's a lot, and she has been tired. I did all of her dishes and laundry this week because Rose wasn't home long enough to do them. One week done, two more weeks of driver's ed to go!
Jeff has been too exhausted to write about the swim team, and our local paper has not stepped up to report on the team's progress all winter, I took matters into my own hands and wrote a swim season recap last weekend. It was weird tempering my snark in order to focus on the theme of overcoming barriers, so I felt like my writing was a little off, but this is what I came up with.
I had jury duty last week. I have jury duty this coming week. I will not have jury duty next week. This sounds like an English language learner's lesson. Maybe I'll revert to journal entry excerpts to tell the tale:
Sunday, February 8th: I made my first call-in for jury duty tonight. My group has to report to the courthouse in Yakima at 8:30 tomorrow morning! So Jeff has to take Amber to his classroom 1 hour and 15 minutes before her school opens, she will walk to school from there, and Jeff will somehow take her home after school during swim practice. He also has to take Rose to the DMV to get her permit. I will probably miss my doctor appointment. It's also piano lessons for the girls tomorrow night. It feels like I'm the only one who ever remembers about piano lessons. Will I be home by then? The court didn't say. I'm worried that Jeff might forget some of these necessary activities. I don't know why it's fair to ask any busy parent to be on a jury. What do other people do in this situation? It's so frustrating! I feel no sense of civic duty. All I feel is annoyed at being pulled away from my #1 duty. Ugh. I have to leave home at 7:30am tomorrow and drive all the way to Yakima in a dense fog advisory to stay at the courthouse for an undisclosed amount of time.
Rose turned 15!!! Her birthday was on Saturday, February 7th. We planned her family birthday dinner for the day after because Rose was originally going to be at the district swim meet all day on her birthday, serving in her role as team manager. When that meet was moved, however, Rose suddenly had a full Saturday birthday at home! She opened her birthday presents in the morning, and later I took her out to get Thai food for a mother-daughter birthday lunch. On Sunday evening, our local extended family came over for Rose's birthday dinner of choice: pulled pork, mac and cheese, (also veggies, coleslaw, and salad), and cheesecake.
The saga of the swim season sans swimming pool continued this week. The district prelims were scheduled for Thursday, February 5th in Moses Lake (1 hour 45 minutes away) at 5pm. I chose not to attend the prelims, and instead just attend the finals on Saturday at the same location. Soon after the team school bus arrived at Moses Lake High School on Thursday, they were told that the pool facility HVAC system had blown out and the meet was cancelled. So the bus turned around and drove that long winding hour and 45 minutes back to Sunnyside.
I coughed my way through the week, grinding my gears back into regular life routines as my body slowly worked on recovering from the flu. Journal excerpts from the week:
Monday, January 26th: So. Tired. I went back to normal life post-flu today, and it was exhausting. I cleaned bathrooms, cooked dinner, played piano for an hour, did a pull-up prep workout, ran 30 minutes, and drove the girls to piano lessons, the library (Amber, for fresh books), and the hardware store (Rose, for science fair supplies). I am so sleepy. My slow run felt hard thanks to my cough and my feeble legs. Hopefully I can get all the way healthy again soon! I don't have anything else to say. I need sleep most.
It was a weak week for me. On Sunday afternoon, I came down with the sickness gifted to me by my family, and it was a rough one. I haven't been that sick in years. We think it was the flu. That fever was so painful! Once the 48 hour acute fever phase subsided, the cough-n-snot phase hit with full force, compounded by bone-deep fatigue. I barely did anything all week long. I was too weak to play the piano for more than 20 minutes at a time, and I definitely couldn't run. I didn't even start driving Amber to school until Wednesday, and I spent most of the week sitting: on the couch, in my recliner, in bed. I drove Amber to school and then existed until she needed to be picked up.
About the same time that freezing fog descended on our valley, some sort of sickness struck my family hard this week. The sky was sick; my family was sick. Was it the flu? A cold? Covid? Who knows! All I know is that it was a rough one: prolonged high fever, chills, and congestion, with a body-wracking cough. Jeff fell first, on Tuesday afternoon, followed by Jay on Wednesday night. But Rose was definitely in the mix, coming straight home from school and taking a 2 hour nap every day this week. The full-on fever didn't hit Rose until Saturday. Amber remained unscathed and went to school every day this week. I haven't gotten it yet either, but there's a telltale tickle in the back of my throat... so I feel haunted and hunted, since seemingly inevitable suffering is in my near future.
After all that, this GLORIOUS sunset from Monday night feels like a lifetime ago.
We survived our first week back in the school routine after Christmas break! It will involved some grinding gears as we adjusted to getting up early again and being busy all day, but we made it. Jay came down with a cold on Sunday, and stayed home from school on Monday. His lingering cough and congestion plagued him the rest of the week. Rose already had a cough from who knows what, but when she fell asleep for two hours after school on Wednesday, we figured she had come down with the cold as well. Between Rose and Jay, our house has a chorus of coughing and a NyQuil/DayQuil habit. So far the rest of us are fine...famous last words, I know. Yay winter!
2026 is here, ready or not! I love seeing a few basic stats from the past year. It's fascinating to see where I spend my time. This year I had a piano practice app which allowed me to track exactly how many hours I spent playing the piano. It was a lot this year, and I like to think I have improved my piano skills since last January. I spent over 40 hours practicing scales in 2025, so that has to mean some sort of improvement, right?
We had visitors after Christmas! Mel, Braxton, 2 year old Dahlia, and Pancha the dog came from their home in Seattle and stayed from Saturday-Monday. My parents came at the same time and stayed till Wednesday. It was so special and fun having my family here! I love them.
