This weekend was arguably one of the worst weekends of my life.😂 Wednesday night when I was packing for Boise, the forecast predicted high 60's with partly cloudy skies. Perfect! I packed two pairs of shorts, a pair of capris, my light jacket and threw in my long sleeve coaches shirt juuuuust in case I felt a little chilly.
Thursday morning it was a tad chilly here in Arco, so I figured I would put on a pair of jeans and wear sandals that would feel lovely over in Middleton. The bus was scheduled to leave at 10:30 and I was all ready by 9:45. I read to the kids while I was waiting to leave and got a phone call asking if I was riding the bus because it was leaving. Apparently they moved the time to 10:00 but failed to notify my - helloooo!!! We made our way to the hotel to unload and then head to Middleton to for the kids to practice handoffs, get their marks, etc. With all the 3A, 2A, and 1A schools there at the same time trying to do the same thing, it was an absolute nightmare! And it was FREEZING. I couldn't believe how windy and cold it was... a cautionary tale for the days to come. After dinner I worked with another coach who I was rooming with to get kids in their appropriate rooms, get them to sleep on time, keep them in their rooms, etc.
Friday was absolutely miserable. By now the forecast had wind gusts up to 40 mph with on-and-off rain all day and temperatures in the 40's. Long gone were the shorts/capris I had planned to wear. I wore my single pair of jeans all three days #noshame. One of my athletes had her 400 preliminaries that day. She wasn't scheduled to run until 5:30 or 6:00 that night. After arriving at the track at 8:30AM, they ran the two-mile from 9:30-11:30. Then there was NOTHING until 3:30PM. It was raining. It was windy as I'll get out. I was helping hold down the fort in the bleachers that we had set up. Remember, I had my LIGHT jacket, period. No umbrella, no blanket, no nothing. Not even a warm shirt! Thank goodness the AD had the heart to go buy a canopy so we were dry. From 11:30-3:30 we sat in those bleachers just waiting for preliminaries, and it was truly indescribably horrible. From there we sat for an additional four hours for our athletes to finish up their events and receive their medals. My 400 runner didn't make finals but she ran a decent time considering the awful circumstances.
This is Coach Laura, my roommate for the week. She felt me shivering and gave me her blanket. "You need this more than I do," she said. She's wasn't wrong!
Alayna getting ready for her 400 open
At some point during the day I texted Mitzi to please come to my rescue for the next day. She graciously met me at the hotel that night and brought her heavy jean quilt, a winter coat, hat, and an umbrella. Saturday went MUCH better all thanks to her. We had kids in field events at 9:00 and because we had our shelter set up better this time, I was able to leave and actually walk around to watch them. We did the parade of athletes at 11:30 and finals started at 12:30. I really enjoyed watching all the races. Natalya is our superstar track athlete (also the anchor on our 4X400). She was the defending state champ in the 800m, but she was seeded 4th in her race. She wanted to win gold SO bad and her race was incredible! She defended her title winning the gold, PRed by two seconds, and came milliseconds from breaking the state record. After that I got with my 4X400 team and made sure they were all in a good head space for their race. The boys 3A 4X400 was right before ours and it was the CRAZIEST thing I have ever seen! Every hand off (minus the staggered one) was neck-and-neck with boys stumbling over each other desperate to get their baton to their next leg before the next guy. It was awesome! My girls didn't do as well as they would have liked. They had a real shot at medaling and couldn't quite pull it off, but the points they earned moved us from a tied position to 4th place, so our 1A girls team took home a 4th place trophy overall. After everyone received their medals/trophies and all the things were packed up, it was finally time to head home. This was the LONGEST three days of my life and I couldn't wait for it all to be over. We rolled into Arco around 12:30 AM and I was in bed around 1:30. Church today was pretty rough and I'll welcome an early bedtime today.
Natalya holding the 4th place trophy.
Aside from the exhaustion of the track meet itself, helping out as one of the coaches had a lot of other responsibilities that made for an interesting week. I helped make sure kids were in bed on time, in their appropriate rooms, awake on time, etc. One of our coaches actually got taken away from the track meet in an ambulance for heart trouble on Friday. We were a bit of a hot mess all week! I decided I won't be coaching again unless I get to be in charge. With my personality (and my idea of how things are run, be it a team or a classroom, whatever) it was frustrating seeing how poorly things were being done all week. As one of the assistants I kinda had to smile and nod to back up those decisions when I would hold things to a higher standard. But I just reminded myself that it wasn't my job, and literally my only job was to not have a baby while I was over there while making it the best experience I could for those 400 girls. They were a total joy to work with and some of the nicest girls you'll ever meet, so if it wasn't for them I probably would have peaced out of the job a long time ago.✌ For now I get to be home and do nothing but love on my babies and my chickens and get ready to have this baby in the next few weeks. 37 weeks! It's time to test for GBS and get ready to give birth!
I'll never not put flowers in my hair that the kids bring me 💓
freshly washed eggs ready to go to friends for helping watch my kids while I was away at state
Eggs for Granny
We watched Urban and Sloane again this week - the kids had a blast collecting pine cones at the park.
Popsicle buddies
Granny came to take the kids asparagus hunting 💓
