solo parenting, 4 years in seattle, 12 years married

last week thatcher was out of town from tuesday-friday. he was actually in minneapolis for some conference planning meetings, so he will be there twice in one month. i am a "do all the things" mom when he goes out of town. the kids get the benefit of getting to do some extra fun stuff than they would normally do during the week and i get the benefit of feeling like the time passes more quickly. 

on monday (while thatcher was still in town), ashford and i went to the zoo with three of his preschool buddies. the boys didn't care that much about the animals, but they had a blast running around and jumping off rocks and climbing into little caves. 



callum's mom megan took a series of pictures of the 4 of them and they turned out so cute!

wren (in the 2 toned blue shirt) will be in kindergarten with ashford next year, but the other two still have another year of preschool.

tuesday ashford's buddy archer (in the green shirt) came over after school. then we picked up azalea early from school for her 8 year old check up. she weighs 50 lbs and is 51 inches tall. she did great on her hearing and vision tests. we talked to the doctor about her potential shrimp (all shellfish?) allergy and they are going to refer us to an allergist for further testing. in the evening azalea had swimming lessons, then we finally got to come home and relax for the rest of the night. whew!

wednesday was our 4 year anniversary of moving to seattle! it's hard to believe the kids were this small when we moved here. time flies! we don't know what the future holds in terms of when we would move back to minneapolis, but we are so thankful for the opportunity to live here in the mean time. 

that morning i cashed in my mother's day massage while the kids were in school. i went to a place in ballard and got to have a 15 minute private whirlpool session followed by a 60 minute massage. it was so nice! i hadn't had a professional massage since i was pregnant with ashford, so i was overdue! 



then i grabbed lunch at "biscuit and bean" in our neighborhood. it's only 5 blocks from my house, but it was my first time there. it was delicious!



 after early release from school, i took the kids to playdate seattle to burn off some energy. i was even able to get some work done while they played, so it was a win-win.

thursday was a pretty normal day, but in the evening we got invited to some friends for dinner and a movie. the kids were thrilled! 



ashford lost his second tooth while we were there. it was hanging on by a thread and really bothering him. it ended up falling out in the grass in their backyard and getting lost. oops! azalea helped him write a note to the tooth fairy and she still came and delivered a $2 bill. ;) 

friday i got to have a long stretch of time to myself because ashford had a play date after preschool. i worked in the morning, went to an appointment, and ran a bunch of errands. that night i took the kids to taco time (a local "taco bell" essentially). then we watched a movie when we got home. it was a cool and rainy day. thatcher got home late friday night. 

saturday we mostly hung around home/ballard. after lunch we went to REI, the kids played outside, and thatcher got a hair cut. we grilled dinner and then went down to ballard ave. to watch the ballard criterium bike rice. it's pretty fun! 



sunday was our 12th wedding anniversary! it's also been 17 years since thatcher and i started dating which is half my life time - whoa!! 

we had a pretty normal sunday, with the addition of going out for ice cream at parfait after lunch. 

ashford got a hair cut in the afternoon, and thatcher and azalea finished reading harry potter #5 and we watched the movie in the evening. 

two more weeks of school for the kids (two week + 2 days for azalea). lots of year-end fun coming up!