clothing swap, date night, zoo lights

before i get to the weekend recap, i have to share that...dun dun dun....i caught a stomach bug (or food poisoning) last monday. it was horrible, but thankfully thatcher was able to stay home from work for part of monday and tuesday and took care of everything (parenting, cooking, cleaning, chauffeuring) while i was sick. he was such a lifesaver.  i don't know whether to laugh or cry about the amount of sickness we've had in our house since halloween. i'm cautiously optimistic that we are on the other side of it now, but i've been saying that every week and every week i've been wrong! haha.

most of our weekends lately have been of the "choose your own adventure" variety (aka not much on the calendar), but this past weekend was busy and it was so fun! friday night i had my holiday fundraiser for the inc. coworking space. we hosted a women's clothing swap for our members (and really anyone who wanted to attend). the idea is you pay $25 to enjoy a night of clothes swapping (you bring some of your own to donate), food, wine, and vendors. we had so many clothes because in addition to everyone bringing some, there was a good amount donated as well. we set up little dressing rooms, so you could try things on. there was a great turnout and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. my pictures are sort of dark and blurry, but it was such a fun night. i brought home a bunch of cute tops and a skirt. success!

  

saturday morning i took azalea to a toy store to look for a christmas gift for ashford (her request). this was the first year that she's been excited to pick something out. then we popped into a new coffee shop nearby that was so cute! i'll definitely be back. 

we hung out at home for most of the afternoon. azalea and i got a nice nap in while the boys played legos and trains. in the evening we headed to vanessa, matt, and ewan's to drop off the kids before our date night. i think september was the last time thatcher and i went out for dinner just the two of us, so we were due! we went to rays cafe, which is on the waterfront. granted it's winter and dark at 5pm, so there wasn't really much of a view, but it was super cozy in there with a fireplace, christmas decorations, etc. 



we had a nice time chatting without interruption. after dinner, we drove back to ballard ave where we stopped by a store called venue that is part of the monthly 'ballard art walk'. one of my friends amy is an artist and she was there displaying her art. thatcher had never met her before, so that was fun. we got back to vanessa and matt's around 7:30 to pick up the kids. we hung out with them for a little bit before heading home for bedtime.

sunday we didn't have anything planned until the evening. we hung out at home in the morning (azalea has always been the type to want to go go go so we are trying to get her to be better about downtime). after lunch i took the kids to the library while thatcher ran some errands. we drove all the way to northgate because apparently that sounded more exciting to them than our neighborhood library. ;) 



when we got home, i went grocery shopping by myself and then we all headed out to a brewery/restaurant called hales ales to meet up with thatcher's cousin lloyd and his wife jammie who were in town from portland. we had a nice dinner with them and they gave the kids christmas gifts, which was so sweet. (and a great way to keep them entertained at the restaurant. win!). after dinner we headed to the zoo to see the wildlights display. we went two years ago, but not last year, so i was excited to go again, especially because it was a warmish, dry night. the night before i saw someone's picture on facebook saying there was an hour-long wait to get into the zoo, so i was a little nervous. when we got there, the line looked super long, but it ended up only taking about 15 minutes, so that was good. it was very crowded there, but still fun to see the lights. i didn't take any pictures of jammie or lloyd. oops!

after a full weekend, it was off to bed when we got home. i guess overdue kid bath night will be tonight :)