the last of 2018: more winter break happenings

our final week of 2018 was a good one. thatcher went back to work on the 26th, so it was just the kids and me for a few days. after a nice couple days laying around the house over the christmas, we were ready to get out! 

on wednesday, i took them to see "ralph breaks the internet" at the theater in our neighborhood. it was a really cute movie - we all enjoyed it!  

on thursday, we went to "the inc" in the morning. ashford went to the preschool room and azalea hung out with me while i got some work done. we also took a trip to target. in the afternoon, we met vanessa and ewan at the zoo. we looked at a few animals and spent a good chunk of time in the zoomasium where it was warm :) 

on friday, the kids and i hopped on the bus to go downtown to visit thatcher. 

he met us at zeitgeist coffee for a treat and then we all went to his office to say hi to the (few) people who were there. they always enjoy seeing/meeting the kids. 

thatcher had a meeting to attend, so we ventured off on our own for the rest of the day. we went back into the core of downtown and rode the holiday carousel at westlake park. well, azalea rode it. ashford didn't want to ;) it was raining pretty hard, but at least it was covered. 

then we walked to the sheraton hotel where they have the annual gingerbread village. the theme was "whoville" and the grinch. i went last year with azalea and we were able to walk right in. this year was a different story. there was a fairly long line when we got into the lobby, but i figured it would maybe take 30 minutes to get through. after waiting 10-15 minutes it was clear it was going to be much longer than that...but were were feeling committed at that point, so we continued to wait. it ended up taking an hour and 20 minutes! omg. i would not have stayed if i knew it would be that long from the start. the kids did remarkably well waiting. they had lots of moments of squirreliness, but it was manageable. the houses were very cool to look at, but not worth an hour and 20 min wait. oy! 

it was after 1pm when we finished, so we were hungry! we walked over to pike place market to get some lunch. we went to "the athenian" restaurant. i've been there many time before and it's always a great experience. good food, good service, nice views. the kids and i had a great lunch together. i'm starting to feel like i'm dining out with big kids these days. how did that happen?! we were all pretty tired after our downtown adventures, so we headed home on the bus. 

saturday we pretty much stayed home all day aside from getting groceries and thatcher buying a new coat. 

sunday morning we hung out at home, then in the afternoon we met our friends chrissy, zach, and eli at the pacific science center. it was fun to hang out with them and the kids had a good time.



 here is azalea modeling her new unicorn hoodie before we left. in case you didn't know, unicorns are very "in" with elementary school girls these days: 

when we left the science center there was a beautiful rainbow right behind the space needle: 

monday was new years eve. thatcher went to work. i woke up with a super sore throat, so i didn't feel like doing much. one of ashford's buddies from preschool's mom invited him over for a play date. while he was gone,  i took azalea to java bean and we played at home. on the way back from picking up ashford, we ended up playing at the playground for almost an hour. it was chilly but sunny! thatcher came home early from work, which was nice. tonight we are going to our friends chrissy, zach, and eli's house to have takeout for dinner and i'm pretty sure we'll be home by 8:30pm :) 

happy new year to you!