orthodontics, soccer tournament, portland weekend

last monday morning was a liiiittle rough having to get up for school in the dark again. ashford only went to school for a half day because he had a big orthodontist appointment at noon. he got his expander off (after 10 months) and he is finished with his invisalign. now he moves on to a retainer until a possible phase 2 of orthodontics when he is older. he was in the chair for over an hour getting all sort of measurements taken and he did a great job through the obvious discomfort. 

i took him to 'mod pizza' for lunch after :) in the evening, i took him and arlo to karate. 

tuesday i spent most of the school day christmas shopping in lynnwood. i love to make the trip out there to the mall and surrounding stores every year at this time. it was a successful trip, but i still have more shopping to do, of course. wednesday it was back to the orthodontist to pick up ashford's new retainers. in the evening, he went to karate with arlo and his mom. 

thursday i had to take the retainers back to get them adjusted because they were uncomfortable when he got home. never a dull moment :) thatcher went up to our property for the day because the new shed was being installed. here she is! 

 that evening azalea had the first game of the city-wide soccer tournament. in 40 degrees and steady rain. oof. but they won 2-1, so they keep going until they lose 2 games...or they win them all :) 

every morning i get up 30 minutes before ashford to enjoy the cozy christmas lights and breakfast/coffee alone. 

and i busted out the cute coaster my mom got me for my birthday last year. no this wine isn't from the morning. ;) 

friday evening we just hung out at home and watched a christmas movie. 

saturday morning we hit the road for portland for the rest of the weekend. we got there at lunch time and stopped at 'hot lips' for pizza. it had been a few years.

 then we met our friends ian, joanna, and kyla at 'pittock mansion' which is owned by portland parks and rec and gets decorated for christmas each year. it was really cool! 

next we drove downtown to go to 'petunia's bakery' and to see the big lit up christmas tree. 

our final stop was 'baerlic brewing' where ian most recently worked. it was a huge place and had a christmas market going on, so it was wall to wall people. we ended up sitting outside. 

then we went back to their house for carnitas tacos for dinner and more catching up. it was so nice to see them. we didn't get to our hotel until after 9pm. 

sunday morning the kids went for a brief swim in the hotel pool after breakfast. then we set out to get coffee at a place in vancouver, washington (just across the river) that thatcher found online. i mean, how could we not go check this out? 

it was really cozy inside and the coffee was great! 

we made our way to sauvie island (directly outside portland) where thatcher's cousin jade and her husband ben live. we were so excited for this visit because they had a beautiful baby girl born in august named lyra may and this was our first time getting to meet her. both of my kids just adore babies, so they were in heaven playing with her for a couple hours. thatcher's other cousin lloyd was also there, but we didn't get pictures of anyone besides the baby. ha!

photo credit goes to ashford on this one. he took it and edited it on my phone. who knew he had such skills!

finally it was time to head back to seattle. we stopped at mcdonalds for a late lunch and then drove the 3 hours back. thankfully traffic was light, so it didn't take any longer. next weekend we have no plans, so i think there's going to be a whole lot of christmas cookie baking happening :)