svp finals and a solo parenting weekend

wow, i can't believe october is on its way out already. but first, let's back up to last tuesday. for the past few months, the women's business incubator has been involved in a competition called svp fast pitch. socially-minded non profits and for profits compete against each other with the help of coaches to pitch their organization's mission to a panel of judges and a chance to win $ for their organization. we made it really far in the competition (semi-finalists). unfortunately we didn't get to compete in the final showdown, but we got to have a table there and watch the finalists compete. it was held at mccaw hall at seattle center. six of our eight board members attended, including me. they had wine and appetizers followed by the program, which was 2.5 hours of hearing the finalist's pitches. it was long, but pretty cool! here is a picture of all of the board members who attended (er, except me because i think they took this before i arrived. ha!). 

friday kicked off a weekend of solo parenting for me. thatcher flew to minneapolis for the 15 year reunion show of the ska band flipsyde. he was good friends with the members of the band in high school and college and had been looking forward to this since it was announced a month or two ago. it was a no brainer that he would fly home to enjoy it :) i never saw flipsyde play live as they broke up not long after thatcher and i started dating. here's a picture he posted from the show: 

 friday was my "easy" day with the kids. mostly because they both had school. ashford and i hung out in the afternoon and then after we picked up azalea, we headed to my friend erica's for a "make up" birthday halloween party for her boys. it actually morphed into more of a playdate since it was a friday at 4pm. the kids had a blast running around, ate pizza and cake (and wine for the moms of course!). it was a great way to kill a few hours of the day. i didn't take many pictures, but here are the birthday boys blowing out their candles: 

after the kids went to bed that night, my neighbor friend martine came over and watched a christmas movie with me. i knew our friendship was destined for greatness when we discovered our mutual love for christmas (yes, even before halloween arrives!) very early on in our relationship 2 years ago. haha. 

saturday morning the kids were awake right at 6am (sigh). we didn't have any plans for the day, but i thought maybe we'd head to the library and go out for lunch after. those plans were quickly scrapped when azalea told me her throat hurt and i could tell she was running a fever. we spent the whole day at home instead, so she could rest. we watched a couple movies, she napped on and off. ashford played independently really well most of the day. as if having a sick kiddo while solo parenting wasn't enough, our hard-wired smoke detector (that doesn't have a battery backup) started chirping saturday morning. i could not figure out how to fix it. i texted back and forth with thatcher, googled it, and emailed our landlord. it eventually stopped on it's own, but troubleshooting that took up way more time than i'd like to admit. it's always something, right? ;) we had creamy white chicken chili that cooked in the crock pot all day, and i may or may not have watched another christmas movie after the kids went to bed (yes i did). 

sunday the kids slept in a little later. after no chirping for about 20 hours, the alarm started up again. sighhhh. azalea was still a bit under the weather, so we spent the morning at home. we cleaned out one of our pumpkins and roasted the pumpkin seeds. the kids only lasted about 2 minutes for this task, but i enjoyed it. we didn't even carve the pumpkin, just cleaned it out. maybe we'll get to the carving tonight.

 

i love roasted pumpkin seeds!

 the afternoon got a bit rough around here. i was running low on patience and ashford was running high on threenager antics and it was not a good combo. oof. thankfully azalea was feeling almost back to normal by the late afternoon. we took a drive to our friends' house we went to on friday because azalea forgot her all-important fairy wand there. we ended up hanging out in their backyard for an hour while the kids played. then i took my kids to chipotle for dinner. i was in the home stretch! ashford fell asleep in the car on the way back...at 6:15pm. he stayed asleep when we got home, so i changed him into his pajamas and put him to bed. you never know how the night is gonna go after that! 

now it's a new week with two parents under this roof and it's halloween tomorrow. i am feeling good! :)