water fun, vanessa's birthday, new fridge

another week of summer is down! under a month until school starts now. we kept pretty busy this week. azalea had volleyball camp each morning at the community center from 9-12:30. she seemed to like it (except for her arms hurting from the ball) ;) 

monday afternoon we got invited to a friend of vanessa's who has 2 little boys for a pool party and cake to celebrate vanessa's birthday (which was friday). it was a nice, warm & sunny day and the kids had a blast playing in the blow up pool - it even had a huge slide. then vanessa blew out the candles and we enjoyed some cake. it was a fun afternoon! 

tuesday morning while azalea was at camp and ashford went to a play date at his friend alden's, i met vanessa for brunch at "the hi life". we pretty much celebrated her birthday all week! ha. 

in the afternoon we went to the zoo with vanessa and ewan, but apparently i didn't take any pictures. 

wednesday morning ashford's buddy archer came over for a play date and our new fridge was delivered! so nice not to be living out of coolers anymore. 

that afternoon we hung out with the new doggies who live in the unit next door, mishka and luna - they are pretty cute and the kids love them! 

thursday morning ashford found five bird feathers on our walk home from the community center. then his buddy alden came over to play. 

friday afternoon we took the scooters to ella bailey park in magnolia. on the way home, we stopped at ballard commons to visit the art tent and ended up staying for over 2 hours because friends from azalea's school were there and brought card games and the kids got super into it. 

playing "dutch blitz" for the first time. have you ever played? 

saturday morning we took a trip to ikea. the kids were excited to go to the childcare area, which they remembered from last time. thatcher and i were excited to have a peaceful shopping experience ;) we went to look at storage options, a dining room table, and tv stands. the only thing we came back with was a storage cabinet. oh well. slowly but surely our place is coming together. the rest of the day we hung out at home, got groceries, and watched "night at the museum" after dinner. 

sunday we had no plans. i went to the gym in the morning and thatcher built the storage cabinet. it's going in the basement next to the computer desk to store office/craft supplies. we hung out at home for most of the afternoon. it was a cool and cloudy day. very weird for august. i took the kids to salmon bay school with their scooters, but they were bickering the entire time so we left pretty quickly. we made dinner and the kids played "battleship" which thatcher bought over the weekend. i'm not gonna lie, it was a tough weekend on the parenting front. just when i think it's not possible for the kids to fight any more than they already do, they find a way. between their non-stop bickering and ashford's tendencies to fight us on every little thing, our patience is almost non-existent these days. this too shall pass, right? 

this week the kids are doing swimming lessons together. the sessions are only 30 minutes, so we'll have lots of time to fill but we've already got some fun stuff planned like a trip to golden gardens and going to see "angry birds 2" in the theater.