Sheep Lake Smoke Escape

 Wildfire smoke blew into our valley on Monday, August 3rd, and would not go away. The AQI hovered in the red zone, between 150-190, for four days. Even though this has happened in the past, worse, and for longer, it is never fun, and it messed up our outdoor plans (running and yardwork). I took Tuesday off from running, and it felt nice to have a recovery day. By Wednesday, though, Jeff and I were both ready for a real run. So we hauled Jay, Rose, and Amber up to the highest mountains that are the closest to Sunnyside: Chinook Pass. Rose drove us the entire 100 miles (1 hour and 50 minutes) to the parking lot by the Pacific Crest Trail in Chinook Pass. 

Sunset on Tuesday night was thick and smoky. We had low-grade smoke headaches, even after a day inside. It was time to escape to the mountains!

Torrey Pines Adventure

On the morning of the wedding (Saturday, August 1st), I went on an urban-nature fusion adventure run to Torrey Pines Preserve. At 8am I caught the city bus #30 and rode it for 45 minutes up to the base of the steepest section of Torrey Pines Road. Jeff had run that segment the day before, and I was curious what it was like. After a quick pit stop at a gas station, I started the ascent. This section of Torrey Pines Road is about 1.5 miles uphill, but it's only about a 5% grade so it was very runnable. I didn't push the pace; I just ran up. When I got to the top, I decided to follow the mental map I had created with research and continue along North Torrey Pines Road to the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. 

San Diego Wedding Weekend Day 2

Saturday, August 1st was wedding day!! I started the day with a nice long 10 mile run (that's a separate post). We were instructed to meet at Balboa Park in downtown San Diego for wedding pictures at 3pm, so we left our motel at 2:15pm to give us time for traffic and parking. Except...we couldn't get out of the motel parking lot! A large SUV had parked crooked and half out of a compact car space next to us, and a big pickup truck had parked in the space behind ours, and our rental Mazda mid size SUV did not have the requisite tiny size or turning radius to squeeze out. I had to go to the "lobby" building of the motel and wait for the guy to help us. Thankfully the owner of the badly parked SUV was in his room and was able to come out right away to move his vehicle, but the whole process still set us back at least 10 minutes. 

San Diego Wedding Weekend Day 1

Jeff's brother Sam got married!! We went to San Diego for it. Our original plan was make the 20 hour drive from Sunnyside, WA to San Diego, CA, but the closer it got the more I dreaded the 40+ hour round trip of driving. We were going to swoop up through Utah on the way home to check out BYU. It was going to be a whole weeklong family road trip. Jeff's health is generally good during summer break... until it's suddenly not, like when he accidentally eats anything with even a smidge of tomato, potato, or chili pepper in it. This summer Jeff has also been navigating how to hydrate sufficiently with his dysautonomia, with bouts of dizziness and migraines in the mix. If any of these carefully managed areas were to be affected while we were on the road, the potential fun of a family road trip would be OVER. 

Those thoughts came to me over and over while Jeff was dealing with a flare-up a few weeks ago, prompting me to find relatively cheap plane tickets on the budget Allegiant Air to replace our road trip. When I crunched these new numbers and discovered that flying and renting a car for 3 days would actually be $1,000 cheaper than driving, I was sold. We flew, rented a car, and arrived at our motel a little after 8:30pm on Thursday, July 30th.

Budget Travel Woes

We made a quick trip to San Diego for Jeff's brother Sam's wedding last week. It was a 3.5 day trip, from Thursday afternoon, July 30th to Sunday, August 2nd. We crammed a lot in during our short stay: 2 epic runs, 2 visits to the beach, 2 train rides, 1 pre-wedding party, and 1 wedding plus reception on a boat. It is always happy to show up for family and support them on important days. I loved being there to see Sam marry his true love, Katherine. I will write about  all of the happy wedding festivities. But first, these are the words that I needed to siphon off before I tell about the many fun beautiful parts of the trip. I don't want my memories of the happy wedding festivities to be overshadowed by the woes of budget travel. Trust me, this whiny princess post has nothing to do with how glad I was to be there for Sam and Kat.  

Rose in Wonderland

Rose and I went on a mother daughter hike on Tuesday, July 28th! I love spending time outside with my kids, and it was so sweet to have one on one time with my Rose girl. 

The Quiet Week (FSY)

The Quiet Week Outline:

I. Heat Advisory
II. Lincoln Grade
III. Violin Surgery
IV. Presentation
V. FSY

PCT Hike to Kendall Katwalk

 On my way home from dropping a van load of 6 kids off at FSY in Tacoma on Monday July 20th, I hiked to the Kendall Katwalk on the Pacific Crest Trail. It was my first time on this section of the PCT, so it was extra exciting to explore and add a new place to my list of best hikes within 2 hours of Sunnyside.

Walking along the Kendall Katwalk.

Weedy Post

 This week was hot and dry with triple digit temperatures more than twice, but somehow the weeds kept growing, while our vast backyard grass keeps looking crispy-er. The weeds always know when I am away from home, because they grow fastest when I'm gone. During my recent 3 week absence, for example, an alarming quantity of thick noxious weeds popped up all around the borders of our front yard and driveway. I sacrificed body and soul to pull those evil thick tormentors: on Monday, I sweated and weeded for over two and a half hours. That massive effort thrashed my muscles after my 3 week vacation from yardwork, and I was sore for the rest of the week.

Cue the battle cry!

Mother Daughter Denver Week

When everyone else went home after our family reunion, I got to stay in Denver an extra week with my Mom! We started this tradition five years ago, and it is one of my favorite weeks of the summer. We do all of our favorite things all week long and since we have so many shared interests.  As the second of five siblings, I especially relish one on one time with my Mom!  

Brown Family Gathering 2026

Our annual Brown family reunion was from June 27-July 4, 2026 in Denver, Colorado. This was the first time in nearly 10 years that we were missing people from our family. The last time we were missing a someone at our family gathering was when my youngest sister Melody was serving her mission in Cambodia 9 or 10 years ago! As the oldest grandchild, Steve was the first of the next generation to go. He began his mission on June 24th with two weeks of home MTC, so Steve stayed home in Missouri with his dad/mission companion Jesse while the rest of us gathered together in Colorado. We missed them, but Steve was in the right place and it was cool being able to see him wearing his missionary nametag on video calls a few times during the week! 

Our first Steve-less cousin picture in 18 years!

36 Hours at Home

When we got home from our trip to Virginia and Pennsylvania, we had almost exactly 36 hours at home before our next trip: we got home at 1am on Friday morning (June 26th) and left again at 1pm on Saturday afternoon (June 27th). The next trip was to Denver for the Brown family reunion. But before  that, let's talk about our 36 hours at home. It was productive.

Piano hug: 9 days was the second longest I've ever spent away from my piano baby, and it was good to be reunited.