What a week last week was! We were on pins and needles for much of the week and happily eased up Saturday morning once we found out the results of the election had been called. We enjoyed sharing in some historic moments with our kids, explaining the presidential election to them and having the news on the Sonos quite a bit throughout the week.
One of the big highlights for me was when the kids watched Kamala Harris speak on Saturday. I put my little girl to bed that night after showing her that women are still breaking barriers. It gives me hope for her and our future to see Kamala Harris as our Vice President-elect.
Alex and I celebrated the news of the election results with an incredible bottle of wine that arrived just in time. Our wine club winemaker didn’t bottle new wine this fall, due to the cost and Covid, so instead, he sent us wine from his library collection. Normally our wine club wine needs to hang out for a few years before it’s good and ready to drink. This particular wine we chose had been hanging out since 2006.
Aside from the election stress, we really enjoyed our week. Daylight savings time is a doozy when you have kids, so that was our biggest challenge. Poor Ben was all sorts of screwed up. Almost every day last week he asked for us to put him to bed around 6 or 6:30 at night {his regular bedtime is 7}. Miraculously, though, Hannah turned a corner and took a few naps last week!
It was quite a rainy week, and we try not to let that slow us down too much. We had a few park outings and a very, very rainy run one morning.
Ben had Monday off of school due to conferences. It was extra fun to have him tag along in our weekday adventures.
The kids helped me put together a few bags of non-perishables to donate to Hannah’s co-op’s “Coats & Cans Drive.” It provided a tremendous opportunity to teach them about giving, and also open their eyes to the fact that not all kids have food in their cupboards when they come home from school.
We had an almost normal-feeling experience that morning. I ordered coffee and steamed milk and some scones from my favorite cafe in Madison Park and the kids and I picked it up quickly and popped over to the park across the street. Of course extra precautions were taken and we had to sit mask-less away from other folks, but it felt almost normal. The icing on the cake was bumping into my good friend, Ashley, who happens to have a daughter who went to school with Ben for two years. It was fun to catch up with her and let Ben and Nora run around a little bit.
Speaking of that, I want to throw a quick disclaimer that my kids are extremely proficient at mask-wearing. We all wear our masks when out and about, walking the neighborhood, going to the park, riding scooters, etc. We’re grateful most of our neighbors join us in this. The research supporting the effectiveness in masks to reduce the spread of Covid helps me sleep at night.
Now with the rainy season and the darkness upon us we’re really feeling the constraints of the pandemic in Seattle. I’m fine going out in the rain, don’t get me wrong, but my threshold for tolerance in needing to take my kids to play in an off-the-beaten-path parking lot in a downpour at dusk is definitely waning.
It felt so good to get back out to the mountains and simply be able to open up our sliding doors and let the kids run outside and play in our yard. Especially amidst the pandemic, we’re feeling extra grateful for the space we have out there.
We had a very relaxing, low-key weekend. The weather was gorgeous and cold.
We really didn’t do much, aside from go on a family hike on Sunday.
And now we resume the countdown until we’re back in the mountains again…. We’re so excited the holidays are coming so quickly so we can spend some extra time out there. A weekend is not enough time. It goes by way too fast.
Have a great week!
