Concerts, recitals, performances, speeches, projects, celebrations, activities, birthdays: the end of the school year is always full to bursting! Here is a photo album of the end of the school year, with captions for details.
Jay's one and only birthday present was a trip to visit his cousin Steve before Steve leaves on his mission to Mexico City in a few weeks. The last time Steve and Jay saw each other was last summer at our family reunion, so without this trip they would not have seen each other for four or more years, thanks to overlapping missions! Since Steve is 18 months older than Jay, they won't see each other for three or more years after this visit. It was a sweet "last visit of childhood" for these cousin friends. I feel a little nostalgic thinking about it all, because my sister Em and I used to get our kids together every year when the kids were little. Visiting when our oldest sons were on the verge of leaving the nest was bittersweet!
Jay turned 17 on Thursday! He was also born on Thursday, May 21st so it felt extra birthday-ish, to me at least. I can and can't believe my firstborn is 17 years old. Jay summed it up when asked the question "what is scary?" on his birthday interview. Jay answered, "The future."
We hosted the high school track awards "banquet" (potluck) in our backyard on Tuesday, May 19th. Jeff and the 7 other coaches presented certificates and awards to the track athletes and we feasted on the potluck. The team brought mountains of food and beverages, including a 4 gallon clear plastic barrel of horchata (a sweet creamy vanilla Mexican beverage), and another plastic barrel of agua de pepino (cucumber agua fresca, or cucumber water--a divinely refreshing sweet green cucumber limeade). Cucumber agua fresca is my favorite! There was also a large assortment of sodas (not my favorite). The abundance of beverages led to lots of leftovers--mostly in cups that were tossed half full into the trash bags we set out.
I spent the whole week recovering from last week, and the week before that, and the weeks before that. My body felt dully, heavy, and lethargic. My brain wasn't much sharper. The end-of-season slump is a phenomenon that we experience after each sports season, but it hits a little differently each time. This time it hit me harder than it has in the past. My motivation plummeted. My energy was nonexistent. Even though my middle school track season was over, high school track was still in full force! So I couldn't just completely surrender to the fatigue. I managed to get a good amount of recovery in anyways, and by Saturday I had a bit more spring in my step.
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.
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!
