Nineteen & 1300

Our marriage turned 19 years old yesterday! I love living and laughing with Jeff. I love the busy, meaningful, interesting, teenager-laden life we have together. It's so much fun! This week we've been wondering if we're actually old enough to hit 19 years of marriage. Physically I definitely feel old enough, with my cranky creaky tendons and the ever-thickening white streak in my hair. But there's something about working with so many teenagers year-round that really keeps our brains from feeling old! Aging is just leveling up every year. It's the best. I love looking back and seeing how much we've done and how far we've come individually and together.

A quick anniversary selfie by our Christmas tree.

Wind and Sun

Wind and sun are not usually features of December in Sunnyside, but this year was full of both! We had an epic windstorm on Wednesday that whistled and whipped us for 24+ hours. The wind was revving up for that storm on Monday and Tuesday. It was also weirdly warm, with temperatures in the 50s. Jay said it felt like March outside, and I agreed, although March is often colder! Nothing like a nice weather report for a gripping intro. But the unseasonal weather made the week feel rather foreign and wild! We enjoyed some gorgeous sunrises and sunsets painted across the expressive sky--an unexpected joy during this usually dark time of year.

You'd think after owning a trampoline in the Yakima Valley for over 13 years we'd be more vigilant about staking it down. But Jeff had to move it for the Spectrum guy to do some wiring a few weeks ago, and it never got re-tied down. Thankfully it didn't blow far or sustain or cause much damage! During swim practice one day this week, Jay got some guys to help him flip the trampoline back over. 

First meet, first swim, first parade

The first swim meet was also the first swim of the season for the Sunnyside High School boys' swim team! Our school rents the pool at a fitness club for swim practice. The various parts of this pool's pump, heater, etc. are notorious for malfunctioning. The pool was out of commission for the entire first three weeks of the swim season! The first time the boys got into a pool this season was at their first meet in Moses Lake on December 4th. Jeff got in the pool with them during their team warm-up time and started teaching new kids how to swim. The really crazy thing is: this wasn't the first year that the swim team's first swim of the season was at the first meet, and it wasn't the first time Jeff has gotten into the pool at a meet during warm-ups to teach kids how to swim. So none of these obstacles are new, but that doesn't make them any easier or more fun to deal with! Somehow, these guys still broke several school records at the first swim meet of the season!

Go Jay!

The Clog

Tuesday and Wednesday this week were a comedy of errors. Journal excerpts tell it best:

Tuesday, December 2nd: I am snuggled on the couch underneath two blankets, in the glow of a Netflix fire and our Christmas tree. The house is quiet; Rose and Amber are in their bedroom talking and playing, and Jay is doing French homework by playing a computer game with the language set to French. Jeff just left for a track coaches' meeting in Ellensburg. I just ate a bowl of homemade soup with a piece of homemade toast on the side, and a cup of apple cider to drink. I am freshly showered and cozy. This moment feels like the reward for my trying day.

Behemoth Tannenbaum

Our Christmas tree this year is a majestic beast! The weather forecast for the mountains looked slick and dangerous, so this year on black Friday (Nov 28th) we opted to go to the Triangle Christmas Tree Farm in Zillah, WA to cut our tree. Since Zillah is only 25 minutes away, the net time we spent obtaining our Christmas tree was cut from 4+ hours down to less than 90 minutes. It almost felt too easy! That is, until Jeff fell in love at first sight with one of the biggest trees on the farm. The time we spent wrestling with our massive tree far exceeded our past mountain Christmas tree expeditions.

Posing with our enormous tree, before it was cut.

Thanksgiving

Let's be honest: Thanksgiving is all about the pie. Since I was gone for five of the six days leading up to Thanksgiving, I had to make all of our pies on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. Of course I decided to make 7 pies, because there needs to be enough pie for unlimited enjoyment! I made four pumpkin cheesecakes, 2 sour cream apple pies, and one raisin pecan cookie pie (the raisin content guarantees that I get that pie to myself--yum!). It took 3.5 hours to make all 7 pies. It was a lot. Rose and Amber helped. Amber helped for about 1/3 of the time, and Rose helped for about 2/3 of the time. It was fun spending time in the kitchen with my girls! Desserts are my least favorite thing to make, so having company in the kitchen makes a huge difference.

Sassy pie victory picture.

St. Louis last minute

 My dear friend from college, Laurs, turned 40 in November and decided to give both of us a joint birthday gift of a plane ticket: she flew me out to her place in St. Louis for a long weekend. It was rather last minute. I was boarding the plane barely two weeks after the ticket was purchased! It was such a random fun unexpected change of pace, and I loved seeing Laurs on her turf. I got to meet her girlfriend and other friends, and enjoy the mild Missouri autumn weather with her. We did some shopping, ate good food, visited my old Missouri stomping grounds at the Historic Daniel Boone Home, watched one of our old favorite movies (Hitch), and even participated in a trivia night at a place called Syberg's. 

A smooth driveway!

 For the past two years that we've lived in our house, our one tenth of a mile-long dirt driveway was a dust cloud in the summer and a slippery pothole-riddled mud pit in the winter. The high number of cars (from the three teams that work out in our barn) driving up and down our driveway caused it to age and erode way faster than the average single family driveway. But that's country life! We could live with it.

Rose is official!

It happened: 

NXR

The Nike Northwest Regional Cross Country meet (NXR) dominated the title of this post because more than 50% of the pictures I took this week were at that cross country meet. Before NXR, we had plenty going on at home all week long, even if there aren't that many pictures of it.

Jay lugged his bass home from school for the first time in at least a year. While he practiced, his sisters peered over his shoulder in the funniest way, like they were hoping he wouldn't notice? It made me laugh. 

State, etc.

Journal excerpts from the past week, edited for coherence as usual:

Monday, November 3rd: It's 10:12 p.m. I'm so tired. Tonight Jeff and I went to Ellensburg the district cross country coaches meeting. It was pitch dark and raining for 80% of the 80 minute drive there and back. Jeff almost ran a stop sign where there was a car crossing the intersection. That's a stop sign and I squealed, and Jeff slammed on the brakes just in time. It was scary because it was so wet dark. Thankfully we were okay, but my car anxiety was pretty high for the rest of the trip. I was dreading the gross diner food at the cafe we met at but this time I managed to get the massive plate of spaghetti that was pretty good. It wasn't $18 good but at least it didn't make me feel ill like the weird thing I ate there last year during this meeting. We left at 5:10 p.m. and got home at 9:35 p.m. It was so long and tiring.

It was cloudy and dark and wet all day today. The weather app says we got .63 inches of rain today. Our driveway is muddy mess with giant lakes of puddles. I went to the chiropractor and got my body cracked this morning, then came home and went on a 4 Mile run in the 41° drizzle. It was my longest run in almost 3 months, and I felt pretty good. It was a good farewell to age 38. 

Birthday!

Amber and I had some plans for our shared birthday this year, and we made up other birthday-ish celebrations along the way. Instead of attempting to separate the birthdays, we ended up just doing all the celebratory things we both wanted to do, whenever we could. Two days pre-birthday on Sunday night (Nov 2nd), we had Amber's extended family birthday dinner. One day pre-birthday, I made myself an experimental dairy-free pumpkin cheesecake that actually was pretty good. 

Amber's birthday interview. My favorite responses: 

Hero: Mom and Dad. 

Favorite drink: "smootie" 

(aka smoothie, written by Amber before Jeff took over writing her interview answers.)