solo parenting on a saturday, work time bliss, school shopping

another weekend in the books. a pretty quiet one for us, which won't be the case for the rest of august, so we soaked it up! 

thatcher has been going on a long day hike with his co-worker(s) one weekend day a month this spring/summer. saturday was his hiking day, so it was just me and the kids. which i have to mentally prepare for on a weekend after being home with them all week ;) thatcher left the house by 6:15am and the kids were up shortly after that. siiigh. later that morning, we walked to a coffee shop up the hill called "royal drummer". we shared a couple muffins, i drank an iced latte, and the kids played with the books and toys they have there. win-win! 

at 11:00, azalea had a kindergarten meet up at the playground. it's the second one we've gone to this summer. it's just a casual way for families of kids going into kindergarten at her school to meet each other. it's pretty cool! i can't believe how soon school will be starting! the kids both napped in the afternoon and i worked a little, then relaxed. thatcher got home at 6pm and we ate together and then i headed out for a sanity walk. haha. on my walk i discovered that one of my debit cards was missing from my wallet (ok, i was at buffalo exchange!), so that was a huge buzz kill. i've never lost a card before, so i guess i was overdue. it had been a few days since i last used it, so i checked my account when i got home. luckily there were no charges on it. i canceled it right away. could have been worse!

sunday morning i needed to work for a couple hours, so thatcher took the kids to the zoo. most of the time i go to to a coffee shop, but i decided to just stay home in my sweat pants, make some coffee, turn on pandora and enjoy the peacefulness. it was heavenly! i know i say it a lot, but i am so thankful for my remote work-from-home setup with my employer in minneapolis. i'm not making any sort of significant $, but i love having this in addition to being home with the kids. 

in the afternoon while ashford napped, i took azalea to target to do some school shopping. say what?! it was so fun to have this little date with her. it's rare to not have ashford with us, and it was much more relaxing this way. we went a bit crazy in target (shocking, i know) - her supply list for kindergarten wasn't too bad, probably about a dozen items to be shared with the class. while she already has a backpack and a lunch box, i thought we would get her new ones for this fresh start. that's when i was smacked in the face with....character apparel! there was a gravitational force pulling azalea towards everything hello kitty, elsa, and peppa pig. i will admit that stuff makes my skin crawl, but she was obsessed with all of it. we had to compromise so that i wasn't the meanest mom ever telling her she couldn't get any of it, and so we didn't come home with everything we purchased plastered with some cartoon face on it. i let her get a lunch box with elsa on it and some pajamas with ariel on them, but everything else (back pack, clothes, shoes) had to be character-free. we were both happy with that. we went into the clothes section (read: the girls section - not the toddler section) for the first time! ahhh! we found a bunch of things for her to try on. she is not really into clothes shopping, but at the same time she is very picky about clothes, so i wanted her to choose things and try them on in hopes that she will actually wear them. we ended up buying a few items for fall, but mostly clearance stuff for next summer. it was a success overall. 

we grilled turkey burgers for dinner and got the kids to bed before collapsing on the couch. i've been really bummed that we aren't able to watch the olympics. we do not have cable or an antenna, just streaming. it's nearly impossible to watch it without cable or an antenna. i've just sort of accepted it. oh well. our friends heidi, sarah, and chad come on thursday! it's been feeling like fall here - 60's and cloudy and i'm actually okay with it! i love fall and it's been getting me excited for the change of seasons.