Sports, hybrid, and misc.

TWO EXCITING THINGS THAT WERE ALSO STRESSFUL AT FIRST: 

1. Hybrid elementary school is back on the schedule! Our district delayed the start time of 2-days-per-week hybrid model so they could get all of the details negotiated and nailed down. Rose and Amber will start in-person school on November 9th. They will attend two days each week, and do regular online school the other three days. Hybrid school starting up wasn't stressful until the second piece of news hit me hard moments later...

Carving and Costuming

The Halloween obligations--I mean festivities-- continued (and hopefully concluded) on Wednesday, October 28th with pumpkin carving and costume-concocting. Parental interest in pumpkin carving has been waning over the past few years, but Jeff and I have always managed to carve one pumpkin apiece. This year we were feeling sort of worn out by both life and the lack of life and we didn't carve pumpkins at all, even though we had over twenty home-grown pumpkins to choose from. We didn't even feel bad about our unenthusiastic non-pumpkin-carving. In fact, it was a relief! Jay didn't feel like carving a pumpkin either, but Rose and Amber each carved two. Jay and I drew faces on a few pumpkins with a Sharpie and called it good. Jeff and I both helped the girls by cutting the tops off of their pumpkins. 

Picking and Painting

Over the summer we planted three pumpkin seeds, hoping that one of them would grow. As far as we can tell, all three seeds grew, and we ended up with 30 pumpkins in our wild sprawling square pumpkin patch. Instead of journeying far and wide for a Wedventure on October 21st, we decided to pick our pumpkins. Jay clipped each pumpkin from the vine, and the girls followed him around collecting the pumpkins and piling them on the grass. The kids gathered 29 pumpkins. Pumpkin #29 ended up being small and squishy, so we tossed it. Pumpkin #30 was underneath the trampoline and looked pretty green, so we left it there. Then we carried our abundant orangey-rific harvest onto the porch, where the pumpkins glowed in the afternoon sunlight. 

The Upper Eastside

The Upper Eastside sounds so New York City, but it's part of a trail. A few weeks ago I ran beginning on the southern end of Mt. Rainier's Eastside Trail. This week I decided to try the other end, so on my designated trail Tuesday I drove to Chinook Pass and picked up the upper tail of Eastside Trail near Tipsoo Lake. My goal was to run all the way to the point where I turned around last time I ran on the Eastside Trail, so I could say I've done the whole trail. It turned out to be quite a misty cold wet slippery steep run with few views and lots of walking, so I did not make it all the way to my turnaround. There is still about a mile and a half of the Eastside Trail that I have not run, but I was proud of myself for watching the clock and responsibly turning around before it got too late. No more headlamp trail runs for me, thanks!

Dancing and pedaling

DANCING: Some days you just need a good silly kitchen dance party. On Friday (Oct 16th), Amber and I had three kitchen dance parties. She turned on the poppy, peppy song "Try Everything" from the movie Zootopia, and we danced in our skinny kitchen until the song ended and we were out of breath. Then we did it again. A little later, we turned the same song on for a third time and Rose joined in, which made the skinny feel kitchen even skinnier. None of us are what you'd call natural dancers. We don't have moves. Our gross motor skills are minimal. We barely have any rhythm, but none of that matters when you're dancing in the kitchen! So we held hands while jumping around, twirling each other, and laughing our heads off. 

At-home album

In between our various weekly outings, we are at home, home, home. Here's a home life album of the White Things at the White House, for the first half of October:

Sunset walk with my best friend.

Cowiche Canyon Wedventure

A windstorm in the valley and cold steady rain in the mountains deterred me from my trail Tuesday this week, but the wind eased up enough in time for a Wedventure! After last week's longer drive and hike to Thorp Lake, the kids and I were all in the mood for a shorter, closer-to-home adventure. So we went to an old favorite: Cowiche Canyon. It's less than an hour away from home and bursting with variety: rocks to climb, tunnels of trees, textured undergrowth, bare cliffs, and a rolling creek--all contained within this small three mile long miniature canyon.  

An informational sign near the trailhead informed us that some of the rock formations along the trail looked like Easter Island heads. We had been to this trail several times and never noticed the head-rocks before, so we resolved to look for them. I'm not sure if we saw the exact rocks referred to by the sign, but we definitely saw a very Easter Island head-shaped rock. With Elvis hair. It was awesome.

Easter Island Elvis!

Apple Capital

On Saturday (Oct 10th) we went to Wenatchee for a family bike ride on the Apple Capital Loop path. Grampa Dan and Grama Leslie joined us to bike in the steady headwind. It was a beautiful bike path, with half of the path on each side of the river, joined by big bridges. Jeff and I spent many hours coaching at cross country meets at the park along one side of this path, and the nostalgia was strong. 

From the beginning, Amber and I fell back from the frontrunners. She was still tired from our six mile hike the previous day, and I couldn't blame her! She does so much more than Jay and Rose did when they were five years old. So my Ambuddy and I rode a very slow five miles far behind the rest of the family. Then we stopped at a sand spit along the river and played for half an hour or so until everyone else finished the full ten mile Apple Capital Loop. 

Thorp Lake Fredventure

If Wednesday + Adventure = Wedventure, then Wedventure + Friday = Fredventure. The awesome thing about word math is that it doesn't have to be quite as precise as number math. If only we knew someone named Fred! 

The kids had a day off of school on Friday, October 3rd, for teacher in-service. In our house that means Jeff has work, and the kids don't. We decided to move our weekly Wedventure to Friday so we'd have more daylight to work with. Moving it to Friday also conveniently gave my pulverized quads and hammies more recovery time after my intense Tuesday sunset run on the Wonderland Trail. Rose and I combined four words and decided to dub the outing Fredventure! 

Walla Walla and Waffles

Normally over the past three years, we have been lucky to hear any of the Saturday sessions of General Conference live, due to cross country meet (in October) or a track meet (in April). Since cross country season has been postponed to springtime this year thanks to the pandemic, we were faced with New Territory. What to do on conference weekend? We always get so antsy when we spend all weekend slouched on the couch listening to five sessions of conference, so Jeff and I hatched a scheme that allowed us to both listen to the inspired messages from our church leaders and get moving all at once.

The bonus to our clever plan for listening to General Conference was we would have our kids as a captive audience. They've never heard as many Saturday General Conference talks as they heard on Saturday, October 3rd, 2020! 

Sunset in Wonderland

It was a rare sunny warm October day in Mt. Rainier National Park on Tuesday (October 6th). When I saw the mild weather forecast, I knew I had to make one more trip to the Wonderland Trail this year. This time I accessed the trail from the southwest, and ran/hiked 7.4 miles to an area called Indian Bar. I dislike the name for both social and poetic reasons, but I was mostly able to distract myself from the lame name by enjoying the surrounding beauty. The trail climbed 4,700 feet in elevation, which was my biggest climb of the year. It was tough, and I went into it knowing that I would walk a lot of the uphill portions rather than run. Even hiking was a doozy! Once I emerged from the wooded four mile uphill grind into the pristine alpine meadows, every ache and gasp became worthy payment for the gift of the scenery.

Home Life

Tuesdays are my solo trail run day. Wednesdays are our mom-kid Wedventures. Saturdays are our family bike rides. We adventure hard, and then we stay home the rest of the time (minus a weekly grocery trip and Jeff working from his empty classroom at the high school because it's bigger and quieter, with faster internet). Our three adventures per week are keeping my travel itch scratched just enough so I feel an unexpected, slightly precarious balance in my life. Maddening online kindergarten policing on one hand, intense mountain adventures on the other. It works.