4 years without my dad, magnolia summerfest, party bus + baseball

august 1st marked 4 years since losing my dad to lung cancer. i feel like these anniversaries are coming much faster these days than they did in the beginning. i hate thinking about how much of our lives (and his!) he has missed, but i know he would be so proud of how my mom, brother, and i are doing without him. i still think about him every day (multiple times a day) and wonder what it would be like to have him here with us. grief gets easier in some ways as time goes on, but harder in other ways. i shared this picture from 2012 of him, azalea, and me on social media and i got a lot of nice messages from friends and family, which helped make the day a bit easier. 

things warmed up in seattle this week! meaning it was over 80 degree multiple days. i guess summer is here? haha! the kids each had a morning camp during the week. azalea's was strategy board games and ashford's was preschool camp with his buddy ewan. we kept busy in the afternoons with some play dates and a trip to the north acres spray park.

we had our final walk through for our old apartment on wednesday night. i was sad to say goodbye to our home for the last 4 years, but thankful to have the cleaning/clearing out off of our plate finally. 

big news: i got a new full length mirror for our back hallway by the bathroom/walk in closet. ;) 

we spent a lot of the weekend doing house-related stuff. we hung pictures, mirrors, and organized. saturday morning we met vanessa, matt, and ewan at their house to go to magnolia summerfest. there was a 10am parade and food vendors, bouncy houses, etc. it was absolutely packed and the kids had to wait in line forever but they had a great time. 

saturday night i had a night out with our old neighbors joe and alice and a group of their friends. they invited me on a party bus to the everett aquasox game (minor league baseball). i didn't know anyone besides them, but every one was nice and welcoming and i had a great time. 

sunday was pretty low key. except for the fact that we woke up to a refrigerator that was 65 degrees inside! not good. we salvaged a few things, but most everything had to be thrown away. we contacted our landlord and he said they would get a new one for us asap. in the mean time we are living out of coolers. almost like camping in our kitchen ;) 

 i took azalea to ella bailey park in the morning with her scooter (ashford did not want to go) and then we picked up might o donuts to bring home. the kids have been really into playing chess together, which is pretty adorable. i don't even know how to play so i'm impressed by their skills! 

in the afternoon ashford's buddy alden came over for a couple hours followed by azalea's friend lily. i've been finding our new place much easier to do play dates. more space and the fenced in backyard. so, that's nice! we grilled burgers for dinner and thatcher and azalea watched a movie while i hung out with ashford (he didn't want to watch it because it looked scary). 

this week azalea has volleyball camp in the mornings. i'm pretty excited for her because volleyball was my favorite sport when i was growing up :) ashford doesn't have camp this week, but my little homebody is more than okay with that!