mn state fair, school open house, official move in

 last monday was our long-awaited return to the minnesota state fair after 11 years! i can't believe it had been that long. azalea says she has a few memories of going (she was only 3), but it's probably mostly from pictures and videos. ashford was a baby and has no memory of it. we probably built it up too much. ha. my brother joined us, and we got to the u of m park n ride by 8am to try to beat the crowds. it mostly worked. the morning was a very reasonable amount of people and the perfect cool weather to go with it. 

it was a glorious day of walking, eating, people watching, and more eating. 

we started off with pronto pups (corndogs) at 8:30am. when in rome! 

then moved onto cheese curds...

we check out the crop art, which is always so impressive. 

we devoured this cup of sweet martha's cookies.

thatcher even found a corn dog he could eat! 

it got a lot busier in the afternoon, but it's all part of the fun. 

we went in a few animal barns including everyone's favorite the 'miracle of birth' barn with the baby animals. 

in the midway, i let the kids each do one (rip off) game ;) they also both went on one ride, a very tame paraglider thing. they aren't big on rides.

their final activity was these bungee trampolines which they knew about from azalea doing it when she was 3. it was still a hit. 

we were pooped after 5 hours. i know people stay much longer, but we had our fill until next year. after the fair, i went to the furniture store and purchased our sectional for the living room and scheduled the delivery for the following week. so exciting! 

tuesday morning azalea and i went to the high school to meet with the counselor about her schedule. it was a quick meeting, but good. the open house was scheduled for the following night. the kids spent a good chunk of the day with addie and clare across the street at viv and dennis'. when kelli picked them up after work, they all came over to our new house to see it. my mom made us dinner and then ashford had his first piano lesson in 3 weeks on zoom with his teacher from seattle. i hope it works out going forward because we really love his teacher. we went back to our house after that, and thatcher ended up staying until midnight to finish painting azalea's room. it looks beautiful! 

and since i forgot forgot to post pictures of ashford's completed room, here that is. we want to replace to light fixture down the road. it's all one piece, so we can't just do a new shade. 

wednesday morning thatcher was back at the house bright and early to meet with a basement contractor (never ending fun!) i was doing my bookkeeping work at my mom's when i heard about the mass shooting unfolding at a catholic school 2 miles away from where we were. that set off a day of worry and very heavy hearts for everyone i know. it's a big deal when it happens anywhere but having it happen so close to home with kids you could potentially know is on a whole other level. i hate that we have to live this way. when will it be enough to enact new gun laws? no one needs these types of guns being used to kill so many people so quickly. when will the people who are obsessed with guns start actually caring about the mental health epidemic they are blaming this on? why wouldn't anyone want it to be harder for people with mental health issues/hate to get their hands on guns? it's absolutely mind boggling that we are the only country who has to live this way and people just throw up their hands like there's nothing that can be done. i was so looking forward to the kids starting at their new schools and now i have this dark cloud of fear over me. and i'm not alone. my kids are big enough that they heard about the shooting. they should not be scared to go to school. it's absolutely insane that this has been normalized. it should have ended 25 years ago with columbine.

anyway...i took ashford mini golfing and to davanni's for lunch in an attempt to get my mind off things. but there was a huge tv on in the restaurant and he saw it right away. we still had a nice time together. 

azalea's open house was supposed to be that night, but it was cancelled out of respect to the community grieving the shooting. thankfully our friend dave works at the high school and offered to take azalea and i around to her classes, which was super helpful. the rest of the day we spent time at the new house, got thai take out for dinner, and went to thatcher's parents' house for dessert. 

thursday morning thatcher went to the house early (seeing a theme here?) because the floor guy was coming to buff and seal half the floors (the other half need full refinishing this fall). the kids and i hung out at my mom's and then she took us out for chinese for lunch. yum! in the afternoon, i went over to the house and also ran some errands. we have a lot of the boxes inside, so i was unpacking kitchen boxes. we also had ashford's open house at the middle school. it was his first time inside the school. it was also my middle school :) we found all his classes and met his teachers. we made an easy dinner at the new house, which sort of felt like we actually lived there, but not quite yet. 

friday morning azalea got her first real babysitting gig (no parents around) for my friend caylia's 2 kids who are 6 and 4. she was a little nervous going into it because it was a new experience, but she did great. i hope it helped her confidence because she is so good with kids and truly adores spending time with them. she has lots of experience from being a teacher's assistant and volunteering at boys and girls club. hopefully lots of babysitting is in her future. to continue the theme, we immediately went over to my aunt cindy's in the afternoon to hang out with our little cousin gracie who is 11 months old. she's walking up a storm and such a fun age. we spent a couple hours there and even took her for a walk. 

in the evening, we decided to grill at the new house for the first time because thatcher got a propane tank that day. we invited my mom over. we made brats, hot dogs, baked beans, chips, and fruit. we have not had a grill at home for the past 5 years, so this is really something we are looking forward to! now we just need some more patio furniture. one step at a time. 

saturday morning thatcher and i went on a little date to northeast minneapolis to pick up a sign he bought on facebook marketplace. then we got coffee at a fun spot called 'up coffee' that i had never heard of it, but apparently it has existed since 1993. it was great! 

in the afternoon i took the kids shopping for school supplies (shout out to office depot for having everything we needed 3 days before school starts). we hung out at the new house for a bit and then my mom and i went to her friend linda's for dinner on the patio. we had bruschetta, salad, and key lime pie from 'turtle bread' for dessert. yum! thatcher took ashford to get his haircut at a sports barber near our house and they had a great experience. 

my mom, linda, and i headed to 'driftwood bar' to see my bosses chris and mark play in their band, 'the dissenters.' they have been together since 2022, but this was the first time i've been in town for one of their shows. it was seriously the best night ever. they are really good and i got such a kick out of it. 

my currrent/former co-workers mandi and bridget came, along with a friend of mandi's. and mark's whole family was there too, it was fun to see them. 

sunday morning the movers we hired arrived at the new house to move the rest of the stuff from the pod inside, especially the heavy furniture. they got it done in an hour and it was worth every penny. 

we spent the rest of the day in a sea of boxes. azalea and i also went out to buy her a bed.

we picked up pizza from 'hello pizza' for dinner and made sure our beds were ready for sleep. then we crashed! 

today was labor day and the last day of summer vacation for the kids. in the morning, ashford and i met up with some incoming 6th graders at the field next to his school. we did lots of unpacking, azalea and i went shopping, and we had thatcher's parents over for dinner. tomorrow the kids start high school and middle school. how is this happening?!