Spring Break at Home

Spring break was only a week ago, but it already feels like a distant speck in the rearview mirror. As a teacher-family, we are always on the school schedule, and once spring break ends, we enter the long, almost unbroken 2 month homestretch of the school year. It is also the "meat" of track season, which ramps up the intensity of that homestretch! Before I go on about all of THAT, let's drift back in time a few days to the blissful week of semi-relaxation we enjoyed during spring break during the first week of April.

I went to a chiropractor appointment and a physical therapy appointment during spring break. Jeff and I also coached a combined middle school-high school track practice at 10am every weekday morning of spring break, so it wasn't all complete relaxation. 

We made a family goal/plan to play a game or do an activity together every single day of spring break, and it was just right for our needs and energy levels. Family time is always at a premium during track season, so it felt extra special and decadent to just BE together in a leisurely way, playing silly games or doing other activities. 

The canals are full and life is returning to our valley. Yay for springtime!

The House Across the Street

We're moving across the street! Yes. After renting our skinny little house for almost six years, we have taken the plunge back into home ownership once more. When we sold our house in Grandview and moved to Sunnyside six years ago, we thought we'd rent for a year while looking for a house to buy. When we bought that mythical house, it would be our last move--the place we'd live forevermore. Over the next year, two things happened at the same time: none of the houses for sale were right for us, and we fell in love with our little rented corner of countryside. Over the next few years, we came to love living right next to the canal more and more, with the sweeping vistas and bucolic peace of the Yakima Valley. We didn't want to move back into town. But country houses out on our gorgeous road are notoriously out of our price range, so we continued to rent our little house and share that one bathroom with the whole family, and we were happy. 

Marched

 March has marched away already. Here are a few excerpts from my journal at the end of March:

Monday, March 27th: Today was a good day. I felt way more at ease all day before track practice than I did last week. I didn't feel like I was overly preoccupied with the upcoming track practice, and I was able to have a much more normal day at home. It felt good to have some room to breathe. Tomorrow I may even try making bread for the first time in a few weeks! 

The running game I invented for track practice today WORKED! It was fun, the kids were engaged, and they ran more than if I had just told them to jog for 15 minutes. I put them in their 3 training groups and gave each group a baton. The groups had to run in a line, with the last person running up to the front of the line and the front runner passing the baton to the person coming up from the back. They could only walk on curves of the track, and the challenge was to see how many baton passes each group could get. I joined in with the girls group and ran with them. Everyone was happy, and the running time passed quickly for them. Success! I feel so happy and satisfied that my idea worked. 

Middle School Track and Field, Week 1

Good news: I survived the first week of practice as middle school head track coach! It was a lot--it was good, but it was a lot. While my five years of experience as a high school assistant cross country coach were immensely helpful, I quickly learned that being an actual Head Coach is very different from assistant coaching. Being in charge, the decision maker, attendance taker, practice planner, workout writer, and the MC of every practice takes a lot of preparation, wits, brainpower, courage, and raw energy. But I did it, and it was fun! Using my mini voice amplifier was key.

Music, Sunshine, Projects

The week began on Sunday with my brother Brad's annual March Madness email. Every year Brad writes an ode to March Madness and invites the extended family to create NCAA basketball brackets and join the family competition in a private group online. I am not a basketball person. This year I felt especially uninspired to fill out a 60+ team bracket--my mental capacities were already maxed out by the impending track season and my Relief Society responsibilities. Jeff felt similarly. He said "I'll sit out of the Brown Family March Madness Throwdown this year if you do!" And I fell even more in love with him. Sweet freedom! Not wanting to impose our own anti-basketball-ness onto our children, we gave them the option to join the family competition with brackets of their own. Jay and Amber decided to do it. So on Sunday night, they chose screen names, made their picks, and locked in their brackets, representing the White family in the competition. After the first round of the tournament, AmberQueen was in first place out of the entire extended family! 

On Sunday night, we played a family game of our most competitive current favorite card game: Cover Your Assets (the game involves stealing money cards from each other). It is worth noting because Amber did not cry at the end when she lost! Jay defeated all of us soundly, and we took a family selfie to commemorate the evening. I took so few pictures last week, and I LOVE my photo memories from past years so much that I was determined to take more pictures this week.

Haircuts, Volcanoes, Track, PT,

The clock is ticking down toward the first day of middle school track season. Tick tock, tick tock. Even when I'm not actively making plans and lists and spreadsheets about track practice, that clock is ticking and the gears are turning in the back of my brain. It wakes me up before dawn frequently, demanding that my brain Figure Out More Details Immediately. The incessant mental ticking also makes me feel extra busy, like a time crunch--get as much done as possible before the time is up! It is maddening. I just want the season to start already so I can stop wondering, prepping, and worrying about it! We have one more week to wait. In the meantime, I try to limit myself to an hour or two of track prep per day and I am doing my best to also take some total mental break time each day where I don't let myself think about anything. K-dramas to the rescue! Some days this week I only managed to watch a few uninterrupted minutes of an episode, but it was still a necessary break. 

Track and Cold

March blew in on a strong cold wind this week. The first day of high school track practice was on Monday. As planned, I helped out at high school track practice every day this week. It was exhausting, both physically and mentally! Seeing 100 new teenage faces each afternoon caused my brain to freeze up with information overload, so I could only manage to learn and remember one new name per day. And then there was the weather. It was in the low 40s, calm, and partly sunny for the first two days, but I did not dress in enough layers. After practice on Monday I was nearly certain that I'd never feel warm again. I dug deep into my wardrobe after that pre-hypothermic experience and wore thick merino leggings underneath fleece lined wind pants, with a wool shirt, a merino-lined windbreaker, and a down coat on top and thick gloves plus a hat to track practice for the rest of the week. Track coaches have very few opportunities to run with the team (to generate body heat), and as my friend sagely commented, "it's pretty much impossible to wear enough layers to stay warm while standing around out in the cold." After this week, I concur with this statement 100%.

February Album

 February is somehow almost over. High school track practice starts tomorrow. It all feels so sudden. Ready or not, track season is upon us! I still have a few weeks before middle school track season begins, but that hardly matters because Jeff asked me to help with the high school team until then, so it's full steam ahead. The high school has been unable to find a 6th assistant coach. (which does not bode well for me getting an assistant on the middle school team...) I agreed to help out at the high school practices for three weeks until my middle school season begins. Hopefully spending time with the 130+ kids on the high school team will help me get used to coaching track, as well as maybe make my 41-person middle school team seem more manageable when the season starts. 

17 Hearts

Valentine's Day always creeps up on me unexpectedly. This year, I didn't remember to get valentines for Amber's classmates at school until the night before February 14th. I learned that Valentine's Eve is a scary time to be at the store in Sunnyside. I absolutely couldn't face a trip to Walmart, so I went to Safeway, which is the closest store to our house. The parking lot was jam packed with cars, and inside the grocery store was a chaotic explosion of red heart-shaped balloons and bouquets of flowers covering every surface. I walked around in shock searching in vain for a box of school valentine cards. There were none, so I settled for a bag of Hershey's Hugs (the Hershey's Kisses were sold out). I stood in line, paid for the waxy chocolate, and got out of there as fast as I could. 

Two Heads

Are two heads better than one? Time will tell. We now have two head coaches in our house. I have a new coaching job! Actually, I have a second coaching job. As of Tuesday, I am the head track and field coach for Harrison Middle School. It seems so sudden and intense, but this has been in the works for a while. 

It all started a year ago on the first day of the high school track season. It was Jeff's first day as head track coach, and one of his six assistants was out with a back injury. I reluctantly agreed to come help. I lasted part of that first practice before crazy air quality circumstances caused the schools to pause busses, which left Amber and Rose stranded at the elementary school waiting for a parent to pick them up. When I got that phone call, I left high school track practice early and never went back. My kids needed me! How could I ever be a track coach and a mom? I make it work during cross country season with great effort, much planning, and a solid dose of difficulty. But why would I want to do that twice in one year?

Rose by the dozen

Rose turned 12 years old this week! Her birthday was on Tuesday, but we began celebrating the Sunday before with a big family dinner. Four cousins, two grandparents, an aunt, and an uncle came to Rose's Sunday birthday dinner. We had Rose's favorite homemade creamy macaroni and cheese with pulled pork and salad. Since our kitchen table capacity is eight people, we ate in shifts: the seven kids ate first, followed by the six adults. The kids chowed down so much mac that the adults had to scrape a few spoonfuls off of the sides of the pot to get a few bites! Thankfully the pulled pork held out and everyone got enough to eat.

Rose and Amber used up the rest of our paper streamers to decorate the family room for the birthday dinner. They also blew up several balloons. It was a very chaotic festive family evening. I think Rose felt celebrated. 

Slow Week

 My week was a slow motion battle with my body: a slow four day recovery from last weekend's sickness, slowly easing back into physical activity, a visit to the chiropractor wherein my shoulder and hip were put back in place and we discussed the slow process of healing from the lingering side effects of these malignments. It was all very slow and maddening.

The kids had a regular routine school week. Rose did unintentional battle with the mean girls in P.E. class, and after a rude hurtful confrontation from them which later involved a stellar teacher, the mean girls left Rose alone for the rest of the week. Jay ran five miles with his friend after school one day and felt the endorphin rush. One day after school, Amber reported that "my friend freaked out and stood on the desk and started throwing crayons, and the teacher had to wrestle him down. Our class was evacuated." A few weeks ago, Amber's teacher told me how sweet it is that Amber is friends with the "hard kids" and genuinely likes and helps them. My heart was warm when Amber described the situation in her class as something her friend did--no judgement, just events. It is so Amber to see through to the heart of each human and I hope I can help her cultivate that kindness.