Flowers

On Saturday, we went on a family adventure to the alpine desert hills between Yakima and Ellensburg: the Yakima Rim Skyline trail! Well, we started out for the Yakima River Canyon, but somehow we ended up at the Skyline trail instead, nearly 2 hours later. It was a HOT, sunny, dusty-dry desert day, but we made the most of it and had a nice slow trudge up some hills to admire the panoramic views. And a ton of flowers!

The starting point. We actually didn’t drive all the way to the official trail head because the “gravel” road was so intense. Our guidebook said that the “reasonably tough family car” could handle it. Our beloved Civic held out valiantly for 6 or 7 miles of rocky bumpy terrain before we decided to park and start hiking. I think I developed an ulcer during that drive. It stresses Jeff out when I verbalize my worries in the car (he’s Mr. Confidence), so I clenched my jaw and gripped the seat and held it all in. Let me tell you, it was not easy. I kept thinking we were going to bottom out and slash the oil pan! Or tip over. Or flip over.

The wildflowers were lovely, and utterly unexpected after that nerve-wracking, ulcer-inducing bumpy drive through sagebrush, rocks, and dust.  The guidebook I checked out from the library practically spouted sonnets about the dozens of varieties of desert alpine wildflowers, but I didn’t believe it 100%  till I saw `em for myself. I have no clue how these pretties grew at all in that parched place, but they were everywhere, perfuming the hot wind with a very unique baked-flower scent.

Rose lasted about 5 minutes walking on this rough rocky road in her softy little baby crocs. Then Jeff carried her for most of the way up. I’d like to say that Jay was happy and living up our family adventure, but in fact he was rather tired and moan-y for a lot of the way up. He kept wanting to sit down, so I told him stories and we talked about the things we could see and did our best to distract him from the hard work at hand. It was an exhausting combo: hot wind sapping moisture from our bodies and a steep rough hill to climb under the merciless blazing sun. Thankfully, Jay perked up on the way down, and we arrived back at the car in good spirits.

Sweeping panoramas. That’s snow-capped Mount Adams on the horizon about an inch to the left of Rose’s head.

I felt like such a foreigner in this place. It was unlike anywhere I’ve ever been before. So treeless and dry and rocky, but with flowers? It was fascinating.

The more you look, the more flowers you see! It wasn’t lush, but there were far more flowers than you’d ever expect to see in the desert.

Rose really is a flower girl. She loved the white ones so much that she tasted one. Note the petal on her cheek.

When we finally made it up to the official parking area/trailhead, we could see Ellensburg and the Stuart Mountains! From our starting point, we could see Yakima and Mt. Adams. It felt like we had walked across the whole state! We turned back here instead of continuing onto the actual Skyline trail because it had already been about a mile and a half up steep crumbly rockyness, and the children were feeling tired. And a bunch of dudes on four-wheelers were revving noisily up the hillside past us.

I took this video on the rough road home. It cracks me up so much to see their poor tired flushed faces flopping around back there! I can hardly stand it. The paved road felt like velvet after the teeth-rattling vibrations of those rocks.

Some of the sagebrush clumps were nearly as big as our car. Ok, these pictures are making me thirsty.

The variety of this wide world is so intense. Is all this sagebrush really less than 2 hours from the lush cool greenery of Bellevue? Few places beat the Northwest for landscape variety. There’s so much to see! I’m glad we got to enjoy another style of nature.

Keeping track

It’s a dilemma of motherhood: finding the line between enjoying each child’s current SELF and trying to sufficiently document the sweetness. I kept a baby book for Jay’s and Rose’s first year of life. Then I tried to write  a few cute things they say/do in a small notebook, one page per month. That seems nice and low-key, right? Well, I kept it up for a few months, but after my sickness last year I never started up again. It felt like too many records to keep up with: I have my personal journal, my [often neglected] scripture journal, and this blog already, and that seems like more than enough. We have to LIVE life, not just write about it! And yet…I wish I could remember that one awesome thing that Jay told me the other day…

It’s hard to remember the funny little things that kids say long enough to write them down. Any time I sit down to write a blog post about their cute sayings, I can’t think of a single one. It makes me sad—I feel like I’ve lost that moment of their cuteness forever! I have to remind myself that everything they say doesn’t have to be written down, or even remembered next week. I can just smile and feel like the luckiest person on the planet that gets to bask in such personality and giggle with them in the moment (and then breathe deeply and count to ten before I tell them to stop doing____ in the next moment). As long as I get a few cute videos here and there, and write a few stories about them now and then, I’ll have plenty of moments preserved.

Rose is a musical girl. She can be surprisingly in tune at times.

Next I want to interview Rose and record some of her funny mushy 2-year-old language on video. She started talking in sentences before she could pronounce 2/3 of the words right, and it cracks us up. She’s getting pretty good at praying. We still have to help her start out and tell her when to end, but now she can usually think of 2 or 3 things to say on her own. She says “pee beh Tao on hih missin, teeh peepuh dah-puh.” Almost every night. It is darling. [translation: “please bless Kyle (my brother, her uncle) on his mission to teach people the gospel.” love]

These two are BOOKWORMS. They sit on the couch and read to each other all the time. They memorize the exact words of their faves and recite them. Jay will remember the storyline of less-familiar books and tell the tale to Rose in his own words, describing the pictures when he forgets a part. I love listening to them read. The two or three days after we get a new stash of library books is like Christmas to them. Read-a-thon!

One more thing I want to add: Jay is such a tender sweetheart. For one thing, his freckles are multiplying like crazy this year, and they are one of my joys in life. This afternoon, I noticed that Jay and  his friend had dug HOLES in the only patch of dirt where we were starting to get a few pathetic little sprouts of grass in our back yard. They had left the two big shovels out there as evidence, and then the sprinklers came on and watered the metal shovels and the holes. The sight made me moan, and the whole day just kind of went plop and I got kind of cranky. Jay was very concerned about me not being happy, so when I sunk in defeat into my chair, he climbed up and snuggled up to me, put his arms around my neck, and said, “Mommy, I’m sorry that you’re sad. I’ll go smooth out the holes later.” And he went out and tried his very best to fix the holes (and got rather dirty in the process). Then he came back in, sat with me, and told me in a tender little voice that he wanted to help me be happy again. So we snuggled in the recliner together for a while. He kissed my cheek and hugged me, patted my arm, and offered to read me stories. It was so sweet, I couldn’t help but cheer up!

Look out, it’s Sunset Season again! The smudgy winter-spring haze has given way to the bright clear WIDE sky that I love about this place. Check out that halo around the mountain.

Speaking of peaceful scenes,

Layne and I are finally getting used to each other [4 weeks later] and she actually sleeps at our house now, which helps all of us immensely.

Bellevue-ing

Today was stake conference. 45+ minute drive, 2 hour meeting, 45+ minute drive. It’s always a beast, but at least the drive isn’t longer. And thank goodness for the video feed they piped into the Primary room. It’s always tempting to use stake conference like a get-out-of-church-free card, but as we were driving home today, I was glad we went. There were some good talks, but I didn’t have any lightning bolts of inspiration or tears of joy (although Jay and Rose shed some not-so-joyful tears). We were simply in the right place at the right time. There is power in being where we’re supposed to be, when we’re supposed to be there. That’s one of the things I really hope I can teach my kids.

My parents taught this to me by example, but I didn’t OWN the principle until one meeting/fireside/lesson/talk (it was some kind of churchy gathering, can’t remember which) in my youth when a speaker talked about this very topic. He used David from the Old Testament to illustrate the point. Samuel 11:1 says, “And it came to pass…at the time when kings go down to battle, …David tarried still at Jerusalem.” David was not where he was supposed to be—fighting battles—and it led to his major mistake with Bathsheba! It’s not like every time we miss church we’re in danger of committing murder and adultery, but you know. Being in the right place keeps us out of the wrong places and puts drops in our spiritual buckets in the process. Bonus! Or should I say…bono!

It’s so worth it to be where we’re supposed to be at the right time. So even though stake conference is usually rough, it’s worth it…but you betcha I’m glad it’s over now!  I came home and made us some spicy cinco de mayo rice with enchiladas verdes for dinner and some fried ice cream with strawberries on top for dessert. Bonus!

Ok, now that I’ve got that off my chest, it’s time for the real reason I sat down to post: cute pictures and a visit! (dare I add another… “Bonus!” ?)

On Wednesday, Jay, Rose, and I pulled the classic Daddy-ditch and slipped away from the windy dusty desert to lush fresh Bellevue for a few days. It was such a pleasant, relaxing trip. For one thing, they have these gorgeous tall green things called TREES there. Plus, my Mom treats us like royalty—soft beds, tasty dinners, spongy trails, on-demand babysitting, SHOE SHOPPING, and even a friendly chauffeur service. Even without all those things, though, we’d still love to visit. 

We went on a few walks. My parents’ house is surrounded by trails with numerous explorable nooks and bends. Running there is a sun-dappled cool-green dream (until the hillfire builds up in the ole quads and hammies). Walking is a much easier way to enjoy the greenery, but I did still enjoy/destroy one solo trail run and a run with my Dad while we were there.

Jay loves the “steps coming down in an orderly way,” as he calls this staircase. [that’s my parents’ house on the left]

On Thursday, we went to my sister Mel’s track meet. In the classic track meet style, we waited for an hour and a half to watch her run for a few short seconds. She won the 300m hurdles with a PR of 49.3! My sister the speedster. It was so exciting to watch—she looked ah-mazing.

After the race, we loaded the tired kids onto the single “banana stroller” and hiked back to the car.

On Friday we went shoe shopping and found Rose some Sunday sandals and summery pink crocs. [I was also on the lookout for some hiking shoes, but came up empty]

Then we got apples and a box of deadly delicious pastries from The French Bakery and went to the park for lunch. While I was putting sunscreen on Rose, Jay ran all over the park playing and then couldn’t find us. So he went on a search. When I looked up, he was nowhere to be found! Just as I was starting to get that strangled scared feeling, I saw a nice lady holding a sobbing Jay’s hand and leading him away from the parking lot back to the park. He thought we had left the park and he went to the car. I don’t know which one of us was more traumatized! We still enjoyed the park though. I took some “sunshine pictures” of Rose because she just looked like the perfect little summer girl with her yellow shirt and pink trim.

  

Jay got all wet in the fountain.

Rose was on a shoe-high so she had to try on Mel’s high heels when we got home from the park. I’m glad Rose has dear aunties to let her try on their cute spiky shoes because I sure don’t have any of those, and every little girl needs to clunk around in some too-big high heels at least once. It’s a rite of passage!

 

We loaded up the car and drove home to the desert and the Daddy-dear on Saturday afternoon. We sure love visiting Grama Meri’s house.