Leaky Pipes

 We have been trying to water our new yard all month. Yard seems like such a tame, tiny word for the vast fields that are under our care. We have about 13 acres to take care of this summer while we wait a few months for the boundary line adjustment. We weren't planning on jumping into full on irrigated Yakima Valley farm life so abruptly, but here we are! It's not bad; it's just overwhelming. I know very little about irrigation and there isn't exactly a how-to manual on it. We don't have a map of how our irrigation system works. We do have a brother in law who's a farmer, though. BLESS HIM. Jasen came twice last week to fix broken valves and pipes so we could start watering. And he made it look easy. 

Willow Tree House

 It was a four day weekend for Memorial Day, and Rose and Amber took full advantage of the time to put the finishing touches on the tree house they've been "building" in our favorite willow tree down by the irrigation ditch behind our rental house. (I have to differentiate between houses right now--strange.) The girls started working on this tree house earlier in the week, then spent hours and hours out there on Friday and Saturday. We finally got some more acceptable May weather, with highs in the 70s and plenty of sun all week long. It felt mild and mellow after the dual heat waves we suffered through earlier in the month! I love it when kids are so happily and busily engaged in playing outside that they only come in briefly for food, water, and toilet needs before heading back outside again. Even though there was no school on Friday, it was a very quiet tranquil day around our house because the girls were outside for most of the afternoon and evening, and Jay was at a friend's house during that whole time. 

Jay Day

Jay turned 14 last week! His birthday was on Sunday, May 21st. He is 5'10'' and counting. He hit a low G during a hymn at church today. He starts high school in less than three months. Ever since Jay's birthday, I have been residing in that narrow space between denial and awe at this amazing human being who is my firstborn son.

Jay opened his 3 birthday gifts before church: In bag #1, he found a $20 bill. In bag #2, he found a $20 bill. In bag #3, he found the new Legend of Zelda Nintendo game. He was so happy! The other part of his gift was permission to play the game all afternoon, which he took full advantage of after church. 

The Last Week of Track Season

 It was the last week of track season! Middle school track is over! I can hardly believe it. The week started off shaky with only a discouraging 50% of the team attending Monday's practice, but the truants came back after Monday and we made it to the end of the week and the season with most of the team intact. We had our fifth and final meet of the season on Thursday, May 18th. It was also Jay's last middle school meet!

Under a merciless 85 degree sun, Jay ran the 1600 in 5:54, finishing less than a second behind his friend and training buddy Jordan. It was a good end to his season. It was a total sweat fest the entire afternoon, from the time I left my house at 2pm to the time we got home at 8pm. I checked Amber out from school early at 2pm and brought her and Rose along in the bus to the meet, since Jeff was at the 2-day high school district track meet. Usually on middle school meet days, Jeff takes care of Amber after school, but he was at a track meet too, and since my track meet was closer and shorter than his, I took Amber. Next year I refuse to have any middle school meets on the same days as high school meets. Anyways, Amber is experienced at entertaining herself at meets of various kinds, so she was content. There was a lot of dust and dirt near the track, and she made good use of it. Billowing clouds of dust practically followed her around wherever she went. My assistant coaches got a kick out of Amber's affinity for dirt. That girl is like Pigpen from Charlie Brown, haha. 

Mother's Day with My Mom

I got to spend Mother's Day with my Mom! She and my Dad planned their visit through Sunday, May 14th so we could be together on mother's day, and it was my favorite way to spend that day. I have the best Mom of all time, and it felt so special to have her at my house on mother's day. This was my favorite mother's day in years! Due to the busyness and stresses of track season, my husband and kids don't really do mother's day. They wait till sometime in June and we have Shaina Day then, a day all to myself where my family showers me with love and presents. Usually mother's day itself just annoys me. Stupid calendar, making me wish my family would just ___ for me without being asked on one day of the year. Hah. This year I was too busy to even build up any pre-mother's day angst. I simply didn't think about it until it came suddenly upon me. 

Demolition Week

It seems fitting to call the week of Mother's Day Demolition Week. Mothers are involved in demolition of so many kinds: the physical demolition that comes from pregnancy and childbirth, sleep demolition from babies and young children, the house demolition that comes with messy young children, and the withering verbal demolition from pre-teen and teenage angst. (Not that my preteens and teenager are particularly angsty in general; they're just opinionated with a splash of hanger and/or irritable angst every now and then.)

Beginning on Tuesday, it was demolition week at our new house. They removed the kitchen, a wall, and the remaining floor, and various other cabinets from the main floor of the house in preparation for the renovation (all that's left to rip out is the basement carpet and bathrooms). Each day on our way home from track practice, we stopped at the house to see the progress. Since the house was already pretty empty and torn up inside, it wasn't as drastic of a demo, but it was still fun to see what looked different each day. 

Double Triple Threat

Last week might have been the busiest week of my adult life: 

• Monday: housework, track practice, kids piano lessons, grocery store, 6th grade beginner band event for Rose, I had to submit middle school track meet entries online, and parent teacher conferences till 7:45pm for Jeff. 
• Tuesday was our "easy day" of the week: demanding physical therapy appointment for me, housework, cooking, track prep and practice, and nothing else! We had dinner together as a family for the first and only time all week on Tuesday.

The Steep Hill

When I was eleven years old, my family moved into a house in the middle of the woods in west Tennessee. Our driveway was a half-mile long bumpy gravel road with a steep hill in the middle. Plumbing the depths of our creativity, my siblings and I named it The Steep Hill. It wasn't a particularly long hill, but it was steep enough to steal my breath both ways: going up and coming down. Us kids squealed as our stomachs dropped when we drove down the hill in the family mini van. It took me months to get my courage up enough to ride my bike down The Steep Hill. Riding a horse down the steep hill was next-level stuff. I huffed and puffed some of my first daily runs up that hill. 

The Steep Hill is a vivid childhood memory of challenge, courage, and stomach dropping speed. When I looked back at my week, it reminded me of The Steep Hill of my childhood. Every day this week had a Steep Hill of a different variety, and each one tested a different aspect of my mettle.

The First Middle School Track Meet

Another week of April, another track-centric week. This week was different, though, because on Monday, April 17th, after four full weeks of practice, we finally had our first middle school meet of the season! It was also my first track meet as head coach! It went relatively well. From the time I left home to the time I got back home was just over 6 hours, so not too shabby. The actual meet went from 4pm-7pm. Not too bad, although it did get colder than I expected it to. I had two jackets and a coat on by the time I got home, and I was still freezing. The team was cute, wide eyed, and enthusiastic about being at a real track meet. I did a LOT of explaining and question-answering and heat sheet-shuffling to get kids where they needed to be. At the meet, I lived off of peanut butter pretzels and a granola bar and had reheated pasta when I got home at 8pm. 

Track-Centric Week

It is a very track-centric time for us--not anything new for mid-April, but definitely busy busy busy! The first week back from spring break always hits a bit harder than I'd like, but we made it through with minimal fallout. It was just a super busy week! How about some journal excerpts to sum it up: 

Monday, April 10th: Time is marching along. How are we already a third of the way through April? Spring break is over, and it's the homestretch of both the track season and the school year. We still have 5 weeks of track left, but still. It was a bit of a shock to the system, getting back into the routine today. Track practice felt jumbled because I wrote down everyone's uniform sizes while taking roll, and then I talked to close to half of the team individually again, about which events they want to do. All of those 1-on-1 conversations left too many kids at loose ends. It had to be done, but I still didn't like it. Anyways... my next track project is to rearrange the training groups. Also, prep a pre-meet day practice routine. And then upload and enter kids into their events for our first meet, which is a week from today! Also, organize and hand out uniforms.

Hosting and Clerking

Saturday, April 15th was the first home track meet of the high school season. It was the 2nd Annual Crowe Classic JV Invitational, which Jeff started in memory of Dustin Crowe, the former Sunnyside High School head track coach who passed away a year and a half ago at age 41 from aggressive brain cancer. It was a great event in his name. Jeff was the meet host, announcer, and timer (normally there are 3 separate people for those jobs, but we had nobody to spare). Jeff volunteered me as tribute to be the head clerk. I didn't even know exactly what that job entailed, but I was willing to help. The night before the meet, Jeff told me "the clerk is the person with the clipboard telling runners were to go." It sounded simple enough. When I arrived at the meet, Jeff sent me to the infield with directions to "get the volunteers going." Whatever that meant! I knew Jeff was working on at least 15 different things at the same time and he wasn't trying to be difficult, so I tried my best to be helpful with no information.

Queen Anne

 A few weeks ago, my sister Mel and brother-in-law Braxton bought a house in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle. We we planned to visit them during spring break. Their new townhouse is a 2 hour 50 minute drive from our house in Sunnyside, so it seemed doable to go for a one day visit. Jeff was pretty worn out from all of the coaching and house planning that we did all week, so I encouraged him to stay home for a low-key rest day while I took the kids to Seattle. It was a benevolent wifely sacrifice to do six hours of driving by myself, but it was worth it for Jeff to catch up on rest and for me to see my sister!