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!
