house repairs, minnehaha falls, seattle friends arrive in town

well, last week was a harsh dose of back-to-reality in more ways than one. life seems to be testing us right now just when i felt like our summer was feeling so easy breezy. but there were some really fun moments mixed in last week as well. 

 last monday azalea started her final week of work for the summer (how?!) and winnie went to doggy daycare because we were gonna have a house full of workers dealing with the leaking pipes. they had to cut two big holes in the kitchen ceiling and our bathroom off our bedroom is completely un-usable. siiiigh. thatcher, ashford, and i spent a lot of time hanging out in the living room. i ran some errands got caught up on laundry, etc. on the bright side, i was very excited about the new shades thatcher put up in our dining room while i was gone:

i love the texture and coziness they bring to the room.

but then you look to the left and see this: 

those fans were so loud when they were running.

tuesday was much of the same. work for azalea, doggy daycare for winnie (i joked "i could get used to this"), lots of workers in our house making even more holes in our ceiling and taking down the hood. 

in the afternoon ashford and i went to minnehaha falls with anders, moss, and jack. it was a beautiful day, the coolest it's been here all summer. but that would change later in the week.

the boys had fun watching sticks go under the bridge and down the falls.

there is a sebastian joe's at the falls, so of course we had to get our weekly fix. ha!

in the evening, i had planned to go to my former neighbor ladies book club. i was finishing getting ready when thatcher yelled upstairs to me that we all needed to get out of the house because it smelled like gas. i came through the kitchen and i could definitely smell it. he said he thought someone bumped one of the knobs on the stove while trying to get by the huge fans and it was letting gas into the room without the flame. yikes. he had already turned it off, but it was still super strong. after no noticeable improvement in the next 15 mins of us being outside and smelling through the window, he decided to call the gas company just to make sure there wasn't something worse going on with the work that's being done. they sent someone out and after inspecting all of our gas appliances in the house, determined that it was just the stove getting bumped and no more gas was leaking. i was feeling drained after that hour-long ordeal, so i decided to just skip book club. boo. thatcher took winnie for a walk and sent me this picture. she does a lot of laying down and protesting these days. even early into our walks and on cooler days. what a nut. 

wednesday thatcher went into the office and i was put in charge of working with the contractors. yay! my aunt cindy stopped by in the morning, which was fun and then shortly after that, the contractor came for a "quick check" which in actuality took two hours. we were scolded for not running the fans enough and told that the kitchen moisture has only come down 5%. ughhhh. i guess now we know. we were so ready to get those fans out of here, so it was not welcomed news. not only are the fans loud, but they fling around all sorts of dust and debris. we grilled dinner again to minimize our time in the kitchen. we ate outside and i even needed to put a sweatshirt on, which was shocking after how hot it has been this summer. it was kind of cozy.

ice cream was needed to up the morale in our house ;) 

thursday was azalea's last day of work for the summer! i'm so glad she had the opportunity to work where thatcher and i met and worked, a place that is so special to us. it was another loud day with the fans. in the morning, a plumber came and evaluated the full scope of what work needs to be done. oof. we could be dealing with this for a couple of months since insurance claims can be slow. in the afternoon we had a (pre-scheduled) dog trainer out to help us with some behaviors from winnie (mostly resource guarding and jumping and biting us during walks). the trainer was super helpful, and we learned some great tips! though there is still laying down and refusing to move on our walks. ha! 

in the evening we ordered pizza from 'hello pizza' and ate on the deck again. 

friday was the start of a very special weekend we had been looking forward to for months! our friends kay and fritz were in town from seattle and we planned to spend the day with them. kay's brother lives in the twin cities and they were staying with him before driving to her in-law's lake cabin in wisconsin on saturday. her brother dropped them off at our house in the late morning. my mom stopped over to say hi, too. i had been so excited to show kay my house for the past year, so having to show it with the kitchen and a bathroom all ripped up was a huge bummer :( but she still loved it. my mom took our picture before she left. 

the boys played wiffle ball at the park for a while and then we walked over to 'bread and pickle' at lake harriet for lunch. it was my first time eating a meal there (i think?). it was really good. and it's such a pretty spot to bring out-of-towners. then we went home and got ready to go to the edina pool. my kids have been wanting to try it since seeing it from the highway. with the exception of taking the kids there once when they were little, i hadn't really been there since i was a teenager. i have such fond memories of that place and they all came rushing back. the kids had a blast swimming for a couple of hours and kay and i parked ourselves on lounge chairs and caught up. it was a really fun afternoon. the kids tried out the surf simulator.

afterwards we dropped them off at kay's brother's. it was sad to say goodbye knowing we may not see them again until next spring or summer. we came back home and scrounged up dinner with thatcher. 

saturday we were anticipating our second round of seattle visitors: azalea's best friend simone, mom louise, and brother thelonious. thankfully only simone was planning to stay with us, considering our house issues (only one working toilet/shower!). the others got an airbnb with louise's brother who drove in from wisconsin. they didn't get in until the evening, so we had a whole day to fill. we walked winnie, cleaned the house, went to the grocery store, etc. in the mid-afternoon the kids and i had planned to go to my cousin austin's pool for the first time this summer. shortly before we were gonna leave, thatcher was trying to work on some of winnie's matts in her hair. he was trying to cut some hair off her ear and accidentally cut some of the skin making a pretty big wound. thankfully it wasn't bleeding much, but it was clear she needed stitches :( he took her to the vet hospital with azalea (which meant scrapping the pool) where they told him it could be 2-3 hours before winnie would be seen (after triage). they were able to crate her there so thatcher and azalea came home. our friends arrived at our house at 7pm and we had dinner reservations at a japanese restaurant at 7:30. thankfully they were able to fit all of us in their car because thatcher had to go back to the hospital to get winnie. they scolded him for not keeping her hair in check. apparently matts are a bigger deal than we realized. live and learn. we had a nice dinner together at "nakamori bistro". we came back to our house after to give them a little tour and then sisi stayed for the first night of the girl's 5-night sleepover :)

sunday was forecasted to be the hottest day of the summer so far. it was soooo humid too. our windows were half fogged up when we woke up. 

in the afternoon, we picked up azalea's friend sylvia and we went to a claw machine arcade in eagan called 'duck!'. this was their request and i was happy to oblige because it was air conditioned. these types of arcades started in asia and have made their way here. it's fairly easy to win prizes from the machines, so that's why people love them. 

even ashford had fun! i got them all bubble teas/smoothies too before we headed home. 

ashford and i had planned to watch brandon's baseball game that night before we knew how hot it would be. a lot of his games are far away, so we really wanted to go to this one because it was close by. it was 97 degrees at game time (oof). we found a small amount of shade and set up our chairs. i couldn't believe they were playing in that level of heat, but it's all adults and pretty casually run so they don't care enough to cancel, i guess. ha! we picked up sandwiches on the way and only stayed for the first hour. that was all we could handle. but it was fun. :) 

azalea and sisi spent the evening at 'can can wonderland' with sisi's family. we ended the day/weekend with a soupy walk with winnie. we still have a couple more super hot days before things cool down (a little).