golden gardens, my 41st birthday, the 4th of july

 last monday vanessa stopped over in the morning for one final goodbye hug. talk about hard! i miss her already and it doesn't feel real, but new adventures await us both. azalea went off to another week of boys and girls club volunteering. in the afternoon ashford and i met up with kay, fritz, elijah, and trent at golden gardens. it was forecasted to by 82 degrees, so the perfect beach day. it actually got too hot there - we didn't have an umbrella and the sand was scorching. yet the water always remains freezing - ha!

tuesday morning thatcher and i had a zoom call with a real estate agent in minneapolis. if you have no idea why, you better check out my last post. :) it's exciting to move beyond just looking at houses online and dreaming...which i've been doing for months. ashford and i mostly hung out at home all day. it was over 80 degrees again so our townhouse was hot. ashford had piano in the late afternoon. 

wednesday morning i went to the gym and then took ashford to target and dick's to look for a mariners shirt because he was going to a game later and somehow doesn't own one yet (better late than never). he didn't find a shirt he liked, so he got a hat instead. then we went to chipotle for lunch. 

it's been really nice having the kids on opposite camp schedules this summer. later he will go to some camps and i'll get to have 1-1 time with azalea. wednesday also marked 6 weeks until we move. it's going to fly by! in the afternoon i dropped him and fritz off at their friend elijah's for a mariners game and sleepover birthday party. elijah's mom sent these pictures from the game, they managed to score amazing seats. he is such a lucky dude! they even talked to the players in the dugout during the game and the mariners won. 

thursday was my 41st birthday! since my birthday is in summer and so close to the 4th, more often than not i am traveling for it, but this year it was just spent at home, which was also nice. ashford got dropped off from his sleepover and i did some work in the morning before meeting rebekah and kay for lunch at 'la carta de oaxaca'. i hadn't been in a few years, but it's so good! 

i relaxed at home for the afternoon. my biggest wish for the day was no cleaning, no grocery shopping, and no cooking. i did do one load of laundry :) i read my book for a while. in the evening, our family went to 'tutta bella' in wallingford for dinner. i had a lemon garlic shrimp pasta dish, which was so good, but i was so full after. when we got home, i opened a couple gifts and we had the lemon blueberry cake thatcher made. i wanted something different and it was perfect and tasted like summer. i have so much to look forward to this year and i'm not taking any of it for granted. 

friday was the 4th of july! thatcher left early in the morning to go on a hike near mount baker with his friends ryan and koren. the kids and i didn't have any plans until the day before when we got invited to a pool party at some friends of ours from ashford's school. not a lot of people have pools around here and i had heard about this family's legendary pool parties for years, so we were excited to go. it was just four families there and we stayed for 6 hours and had the best time. the kids and adults swam, snacked, had some drinks, and the host family grilled everyone hot dogs and burgers for dinner. it could not have been a more perfect day. 

the kids (and adults) lit some small fireworks in the alley behind their house.

when we got home, thatcher was back and azalea headed to sisi's for a sleepover. 

saturday morning i went to the gym and thatcher and i both worked on moving-related stuff all day (mostly selling/donating things we are not going to bring to minnesota). we've only been in our current townhouse for five years and it's amazing how much stuff we've accumulated. i took another trunk load to goodwill. the kids both got to see friends - ashford went to trent's for a few hours in the afternoon and azalea had penny over. we ended the night watching some old home videos of thatcher's that his dad recently had digitized. 

sunday was another day of productivity (and some relaxation). i went through closets, read my book, and caught up on a show. ashford went to see the movie 'f1' in the theater with a few of his friends. 

we leave for our pre-move visit to minneapolis in just 6 days! we are excited to see thatcher's siblings who will be in town from their foreign service jobs.