September Grandparents, Teacher Strike, Wolfley Migration

Oh wait, you thought I had finished August? Me too. Turns out I forgot about the last visitors of the month, Steph and Teague. Teague was here to interview with Amazon. We did our best to make them want to move here.

Pike Place treats -- roasted corn cobs, Ellenos yogurt, fresh sugar donuts

Snoqualmie Falls and a little peek at the suburbs

We tired them out pretty good. 

The end of August was spent unpacking a billion boxes, forcing the kids outside, squeezing in the last summer play dates, and finishing up homework books.

By September, we were settling into our new home and neighborhood. The kids love to walk to this park, four blocks away. Every playground in Seattle seems to have my favorite (dangerous) merry-go-round. I get all nostalgic watching my kids almost fling themselves off it. Adele is a flipping dare devil on it, and I like to scare the other moms by letting her go wild. I'll catch a video someday.

My parents came to visit that first weekend to see the new house. My dad and I zipped over to Kerry Park one day to take pictures. I hope I can get at least one of my kids excited about photography so we can start a three-generation photography club.

The weather was beautiful that weekend. We met up with our Clive cousins at the Ballard Locks to watch the boats comes through. All the kids had fun ditching the parents in the crowd.

After that, we drove out to Snoqualmie Falls. We tried to hike all the way down to the bottom of the falls with the kids, but the trail was muddy and steep, and once we got halfway down, we realized it would not be worth carrying them all back up.

We celebrated my mom's birthday with chocolate cake, obviously.

My dad took me to a colleague's house on Lake Washington to play pickle ball. It was a gorgeous house right on the water, and actually a really fun game to learn. My mom stayed home and painted the boys' bedroom while watching all the kids, because she is amazing.

Their last day here, we took Adele to her first Sunday in nursery at church, and she would not let me or Grandma out of her sight.

The next week, we should have been getting ready for school to start, but there was a teacher strike that delayed the start of school for (I think) six days. That meant there were a bunch of working parents in need of childcare, so I took a couple of Josh's friends for a no-school party.

Then his friends took him to the park the next day. Thank goodness for play dates to keep kids entertained!

Meanwhile, Adele is cute and psycho as ever, learning how to get into things, make huge messes, and be more independent.

I carved out some time for my girlfriends. Alexe and I had a jam session after book group at her place, and Courtney and I had another night of shopping, followed by our happy discovery of Zippy's burgers.

We started destroying our house a little bit. We had to open up this doorway sooner than planned, because in order for the asbestos guys to remove our popcorn ceiling, we had to move everything out of the great room. That meant rolling the piano and dining table into the kitchen. This was easier, cheaper, and more fun than hiring piano movers to take it apart again.

Aaaaaand that's pretty much what our house looked like for months. We're just barely starting to get this front room in decent shape. Soon.

I took the boys to the beach for a break after all that hard work. Alexe and friends met us there, and we had the messiest popsicle experience ever.

Adele helped us destroy the house in her own special way.

My Aunt April came to visit her sons, and stopped in to see us. They helped us out by taking the boys to play at Fox Island one evening.

Here we are camping out in the basement while the asbestos guys did their thing upstairs ALL DAY.

 Here's how it looked after that.  Jude is my good helper. He loves to take wipes and clean the constant dust off all surfaces. Ceiling has still not been smoothed, textured, and painted.

Finally when school started, I took Josh on a date to Fred Meyer to buy supplies. These are some pictures we texted back and forth with Matt and Jude. It's fun to take kids individually to do their own thing. I don't do that enough.

Here is a small part of the enormous rubble pile that lived in our backyard for a whole month after some guys knocked out our fireplace. They took our money and never finished their job of hauling away the rubble, until we called like twenty times and threatened them. There was a similar pile in the front, covering our entire lawn, making us look like the new trashy neighbors. Fun times.

I guess we are kind of disgusting though. I don't know how many times our neighbors have looked into our windows to see this.

Josh's first day of school was a success! He sat next to this girl Emily the first day, and by the next morning, they were best friends running into each other's arms. They discovered they ride the same bus and that she lives just two blocks away, so we had a play date that week. I'm sorry to say that the relationship fizzled out soon afterward, but I just had to explain to Josh that girls are CRAZY.

This picture is from Josh's second day, and Jude's first day in pre-k. Jude goes three mornings a week.

Jude has unintentionally continued the first-day-of-school Garth face tradition that Josh started last year.

Adele and I were just tickled to have a morning all to ourselves!

I picked Josh up after school a few times until he was comfortable on the bus. The kids loved climbing on this truly excellent and unique playground equipment.

We started a little routine going to the gym on Jude's days off school. Adele had a REALLY hard time with the child care place for a while, but having Jude there seemed to help.

Here we are at their favorite park, Ella Bailey. Because sometimes I'm a fun mom.

Here is our extremely ladylike lady scarfing cheese and waffles on her way to church.

Messy children making messes.

We had a lot of good walks taking Josh to the bus stop, until he assured me he could take himself. Adele liked to carry a sword and hi-ya the bushes on the way. It made for a very slow walk.

Grandma Cheri came for a quick visit. We met Matt for tamales at the farmer's market near Amazon, snuggled a lot at home, and experimented with donut recipes.

Cheri watched the kids for me while I took Jude on a Costco date, and she even let us go on a real date with our friends Courtney and Pete. This was a fancy new little restaurant that served us pig brains in what they called a "pig's head candy bar". It kind of horrified Pete.

While Cheri was visiting, Steph and Teague ended up moving here! They stayed with us for a few weeks until they found their own apartment. So we all hung out together for a couple days. Here are some pictures from when I forced everyone to walk around Green Lake because I think it's so beautiful.

Phew, that post took a long time! Here's to less busy, or at least less photo-filled, months ahead so my blogging catch-up is easier!