Eastern Washington

My family has always been very close.  Like I've said before, my parents live in eastern Washington.  My dad is a wheat farmer with his older brother.  My mom grew up in western WA, but has now lived east of the mountains for far longer than she lived west of the mountains.

middle of summer near where I grew up.

If people aren't familiar with this area, WA is pretty much two different states.  There is western WA, where Seattle is, and where it rains.  This is the area most people associate with WA.  It used to drive me nuts when I lived in e. WA to tell someone I was from WA state and they'd always talk about the rain.  It rarely rains in e. WA.  In fact, where my parents live it is more desert like than rainy.  And, other than rolling hills, it's pretty flat and brown.  I always find it funny to see the "Keep Washington Green" signs along the highway in e. WA in the middle of the summer.


I didn't go for a run today but my sister and I went for a walk.  We walked to my grandma's house, which is my parents' closest neighbor 2 miles away.  This next Saturday we're walking in the Tulip Run which is 5 miles.We thought this would be a good indication of how fast we can walk it.  We did the walk today in an hour and fourteen minutes.  But going back there are more hills going up.  I'm pretty confident we could walk the Tulip Run in an hour and a half.  I'm really looking forward to it.

This is the view headed back to my parents' house. 
Their house is visible at the top of this hill.

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At my parents' house I find myself snacking all the time. I don't know why, my sister said she does the same thing. I wonder if it's because growing up my mom always had lots of snack foods around. We were very active kids, played a lot of sports so the snack foods didn't affect us then. Now we all struggle with weight (I have 3 sisters, but am closest to one). Add I type this I'm sitting here eating dried mango, which sounds healthy but has 160 calories in 6 pieces and 32g of sugar. That's crazy! I've had way more than 6 pieces. Cathy, put. the. mango. down!