Kids and Presidents Day

Me before kids:  "Wooh!  It's Presidents.  No school.  No work.  Sleep sleep sleep.  Law & Order Marathon.  Quick trip out of town? Sure why not."

Me with kids:  "I hate long weekends.  How am I going to survive?"

It's President's Day.  There is no school.

Friday was a half day.  It was all sorts of crazy making.  I started subbing Linus' first grade class.  I'll be there for a week and a half while his teacher is on vacation.  I also had the responsibility of teaching 6th grade.  Friday it poured down rain.  There was a fire drill.  There were lots of children, hopped up on sugar, counting down seconds until the Valentine's day celebration.  All this, and they want me to take my kids home 3 hours early!?!

I actually brought an additional two kids home with me. So I had 4 children, hopped up on sugar, and one sleeping toddler for the afternoon.  The kids played hard without me so that was good.  I did my part by taking lots of deep breaths and reading People magazine to decompress.  I slept easy Friday night.

Saturday I spent 5 hours grading and prepping for my math class.  There's a lot to figure out and I've now made a lot of headway.  Dave was kind enough to occupy the kids while I stayed holed up in my room working.

Dave and I hate crowds and fixed menus.  Being a recovering world's pickiest eater, fixed menus rarely have more than one thing I would consider eating and often none.  We thought we were being smart by going on the night before Valentine's day.  We were wrong.  The new McMenamins was booked in all the restaurants.  We headed to Scotts--all booked and they were already sporting the fixed menu. Grrr.  We threw our hands up and decided to head to Ballard.  With so many options there, someone had to have room.

Ballard was meant to be.  We found parking without trouble.  Root Table, our first choice had no wait, and fun new items to try.  OMG the chicken bruschettia is good.  We then noticed a fun new place across the street, Pie Bar.  It is exactly like it sounds.  It serves slices of pie a la mode along with a couple of savory pies, and drinks.  There were at least three pages full of choices.  Our tummies left satisfied.

Valentine's day.  I tried to make the dining table cute and festive.  Dave and I decided to finally join the rest of the world and buy an ipad for the family. Linus hasn't been so happy in a long time. Robin found the apps to be hysterical.

Aunt Sally came over to bake a cake with the kids to celebrate her birthday and Valentine's day.

Today I knew we needed to leave the house.  The kids furthered this notion by being up at 6 am. Luckily, I have found a kindred spirit at school (also a middle school math teacher).  We met up with Katie, Rylan, and Declan at the zoo.  It was wet and we didn't see much of the zoo.  However, we did successfully exhaust the children.

Sometimes I think Katie and I share a brain.

The weekend thus far has been a combination of sugar, tears, fights, quiet play,  poop explosions, and a little adventure.  There has been zero binge tv watching. Extra sleep has been missing too.  I still have one more day to go of the long weekend.  Is it wrong that I'm looking forward to getting a blood draw tomorrow because it means I get to be by myself and run a few errands?