3x3 + Mother's Day

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. 

Since Rose and Amber didn't run qualifying times beforehand, they ran the open race at the beginning of the meet. Rose ran a 15 second PR of 6:19, and Amber ran an 11 second PR of 7:05. After that, the seeded heats of the 1600m kept getting faster and faster. Each heat had around 20 kids, all with mile PRs of less than 10 seconds apart. Every heat was anyone's race! They ran closely packed together and the jostling was intense! We brought 14 kids from our team to the meet, and wore ourselves out dashing back and forth across the track to cheer them on. Jeff must've run diagonally across the infield at least 50 times. 

Jay ran in a heat with 20+ other guys whose times were within 3 seconds of him. Jay ran a one second PR of 4:58! It was his second 1600m under 5 minutes! The meet was so much fun, but the drive home was absolutely brutal. I was so frazzled and overstimulated from 5 hours of loud music at the meet that I didn't listen to anything the entire drive home, even though I was so tired. We started the 2.75 hour drive home after 10pm. We all slept in on Saturday morning, mowed 4 acres like zombies all day Saturday, and slept like rocks on Saturday night. Sunday all five of us felt much better, just in time for Mother's Day.

Mother's day: my traditional nemesis. It was fine this year. I was too tired to even remember that it was happening until Friday, when I suddenly realized I hadn't mailed my mom a card! Then I forgot about it again in the midst of the tired track haze on Saturday. Jeff made croissant cookies without chocolate chips for me. Yum. My parents-in-law brought me some flowers on Saturday afternoon. 

Jay made me a mother's day card at church on Sunday, and he actually drew a picture and colored it in! I don't remember the last time he did artwork voluntarily. It was very cute. 

I made dinner on Sunday: experimental carne asada made from ground beef instead of skirt steak, and without nightshades (chili powder and paprika--we all add our own chili powder now that Jeff can't have it). I even marinated the ground beef in asada seasonings and it turned out very good! I cooked pinto beans from scratch and nailed the seasonings in those too, and Rose and Amber helped me make masa tortillas on the griddle. It was a success. I told myself "happy mother's day" over and over while I cooked. I felt too finnicky for my family to cook for me, and nobody had gone to the grocery store or made any plans to cook, so I made the meal I had planned and gifted it to myself.

On Sunday afternoon before dinner, we piled into our tiny electric car and Rose drove us 20 minutes to Grandview so Jeff could give flowers to his mom for mother's day. We stayed and chatted for a while, then came home and made the tortillas for our dinner. After dinner, we played some intense family bocce ball outside. A few years ago, I got an ancient, never-opened set of bocce ball from Goodwill for $6 as a gag gift. Jeff begged me to find something else for the gag gift because he wanted to keep the bocce ball. So we kept it, but then didn't play it for years. Our house has a gravel back patio, which last Sunday Jeff suddenly realized would be perfect for bocce ball. We played our first rounds of family bocce ball last Sunday, so today was our second time, and we were ready. No more wondering how to toss the ball, no more newbie mistakes--we were competing! 

Bocce ball is kind of like curling, but without the ice. Basically, you toss a ball at a target and try to knock other people's balls out of the way in the process. The ball closest to the target wins. It's simple and addicting! We cheer every time someone makes a good throw and awwww when a ball goes off course. Bocce ball is a silly, absorbing, oddly unifying family game. It was a fun finale to mother's day. 

Bocce ball: these pictures are from last week's showdown. This week we played facing the opposite direction so we weren't throwing heavy balls towards our house, haha. Jeff has an affinity for bocce ball--on his mission he saw a lot of old French men in parks playing bocce ball, and I think he aspires to be like them.

View from our back deck down onto the bocce ball patio. Jeff and Amber stayed out later for a few bonus rounds together.

Last Sunday we also played a family game of Pick Two, wherein Jeff decimated us. Track season has been so busy and tiring that our family time has suffered. So last week I gathered my energy and re-instituted family game night on Sundays. It is a Good Thing. I love my family.

I killed my shoulder pulling the trash can in from the road with my arm out the car window, all the way up our long driveway on Monday.

We had our middle school track team party on Monday. We did an "anything but a baton" relay. I brought several props to use for the relay: baby Yoda was popular. One team used the xylophone and played it while running across the finish line. One team scootered around the track. Nobody used the loaf of bread I brought, although they took it and ate it afterwards. It was a fun silly way to celebrate our season. We had our last meet two days later: middle school track is OVER! I can hardly believe I have been the middle school head track coach for FOUR seasons already. 

The middle school boys with their various creative batons. One team used a slice of pizza.

The girls with their batons: I told them they didn't have to show their faces if they didn't want to, and they didn't want to.

My right hand man, assistant coach Freddie, filled in for one leg of a team who only had 3 runners. Baby Yoda baton! We did this relay on May 4th--Star Wars Day--so baby Yoda was perfect.

This little number 1 on our event choice form made me so happy! The 7th grade girl that I slowly convinced to run the 400m this season finally CHOSE it on her own as her FIRST CHOICE for our last meet! I was so ridiculously happy and proud.

Amber started state testing at school this week, and she showed me the pages of math review they did. Rose taught her more complex math at bedtime one night, and Amber added the formulas to her booklet.

LAST DAY of middle school track practice was Tuesday, May 5th. This is a picture of some kids working on block starts.

It was in the upper 80s last week and we were melting and thirsty after practice! Meanwhile my brother texted that it snowed 8 inches in Colorado.

I had a glorious 7 mile run through the countryside on Wednesday morning, and then regretted it while standing on my aching feet and ankles for hours on end at the track meet later that afternoon.

Manual field event result entry: it took till 9:30pm on Wednesday night after the middle school meet, but we were a bit faster on Thursday night after the high school meet.

Rose made her debut in the 300m hurdles on Thursday! She ran a 1:04 while overthinking and stutter-stepping the hurdles, so she can totally run it even faster next time!

Rose is flying over the first hurdle just to the right of the girl in black--the girl in black is almost covering Rose up. I was working as the clerk at this meet, so I wasn't able to get very good pictures of Jay and Rose running.

That's Rose going over the second hurdle--I took both of these pictures from the bumpy video I recorded during Rose's race.

Jay ran a PR in the 800m of 2:17! That's him between the guy in blue and the guy in black. I was so excited watching Jay race that I forgot to be in my position at the finish line recording names and places. Jeff shouted out to remind me as the runners were crossing the line, and I sprinted over and managed to get all of the places written down. But I missed Jay's finish because of it. BOO.

My favorite, first lull in the track meet is always after I have lined up all heats of the 200m race. I like to go sit on a stack of sand covers by the long jump pits. 

Rose and Amber played cards with another coach's daughter.

Thursday date night: cleaning up another home meet together! The sunset felt extra peaceful after the noisy chaos of the track meet.

After my run on Friday, I checked just how long our grass was getting. The answer was TOO LONG. Our backyard has taken the brunt of the busyness these past few weeks. We managed to mow the front portions of the lawn, but the back was left wild for over 2 weeks!

The backside of our row of berries was especially overgrown and alarming.

The cheapest gas in town on Friday was $5.51 per gallon. I filled up in preparation for the drive to Issaquah. Jeff and Coach Winger drove school vans, and I drove our van with our 3 kids in it. That way, we maximized the number of kids we could bring to the meet.

Jeff took a nap in the bleachers when we arrived at the meet. Kennedy, one of the girls on the team, sent me this picture with the caption "rest in peace". It cracked me up--he really did look like a dead body!

Rose and Amber, all warmed up and ready to race!

Go Rose! It was so fun to see her with spring in her step during a 1600m race! She has had some rough races this season, so it was awesome for her to get her first mile PR since 7th grade! 6:19!

Amber was in the mix but lost focus during her 3rd lap. Her 4th lap was 21 seconds faster than her 3rd lap! She was going for a sub-7 minute mile and almost made it! 7:04!

Rose, striding out to the finish!

Amber's finishing kick is no joke.

The daughters with their dad-coach.

Amber borrowed Jeff's bleacher bed.

The weather was perfect. The air was sweet and fresh from all of those green Issaquah trees. It was a great day to be at a track meet!

Jay!!

This is the mob that Jay ran with. He's just a bit to the left of that last metal light post in the background.

I always love a good finishing clock picture: there's Jay, crossing the finish line in an official 4:58! He forgot his spikes for the first time in his life, and had to borrow Jeff's Nike Zoom Fly shoes for the race. Luckily he loved the shoes.

The aftermath of a sub-5 minute mile is no joke. We all stood there and looked at Jay while he laid on the ground gasping. It was funny.

Near the end of the meet, our team started doing a "sea lion" to cheer on the faster heats: they laid on their stomachs, grabbed their heels, and bounced in a ridiculous way when the runners passed on the track. The hilarious part was, almost the entire homestretch of people joined in!

Rose labored and mowed our overgrown 2 acre backyard for 4 hours on Saturday afternoon. Bless her exhausted body. She told me that she sat down on her bed at 6:30pm on Saturday and the next thing she knew, it was 8am on Sunday morning. We know Rose is tired when she actually can sleep with the lights on!

Mother's Day picture 2026: Jeff declared that since he holds all 3 of his kids on Father's day, the kids should hold me on Mother's day. I trusted their strength just fine; each of my 3 kids can pick me up on their own. I was more worried about my dress sliding up, up, up! Haha.

I kept my legs crossed extra tight. It really is surreal having adult sized kids who can pick me up like it's no big deal.

I love my kids!