A Long Weekend of Nothing in Particular

The kids and I had a four day weekend.  Thank you to the brave men and women who gave their lives in service of our country.  We had an additional day off for meeting our school fundraising goal.  In anticipation of the long weekend, I made exactly zero plans.

Friday

I slept in past 7 am.  We had screen time.  Kids played.  Robin could not be convinced to put on clothes.  Linus even started to teach Eileen how to play chess. 

Later in the day the kids and I ran errands and visited our baby friend, Arielle.  Linus has been longing to hold Arielle.  She hasn't been the strongest baby, but now she is almost two months old and doing awesome.  We went ahead and let Linus hold her.  He was in heaven.

Linus played baby/brain development games with her like Itsy Bitsy Spider, rubbing "peanut butter and jelly" on her feet, and playing "shoe a little horse."  We brought over some of our old board books for Arielle. Linus read her the book, "Little Pea."  Robin decided he needed to read to her as well and grabbed "Owl Babies."  Robin was so sweet, trying to show Arielle the pictures at the same time.  Eileen preferred to look at Arielle from a distance.  Arielle loved it when Linus sang her "Golden Slumbers" by the Beatles.  It was such a sweet moment.

We finished out Friday buying birthday presents for all the upcoming birthdays and soccer practice.  Linus tried out for Seattle United the other week and didn't make the cut.  I was really impressed with how he handled the disappointment, especially when his friend made it.  Instead, Linus resolved to get better at soccer and try out again next year.  In the meantime, Linus joined a different soccer club, Shoreline Sports Club.  It's no Seattle United, but Linus is already significantly improved.

Before practice in front of giant fallen tree roots.

Saturday
We went to a birthday party at Elevated Sportz.  Then I spent the rest of the day doing school work.

Sunday
Linus and Dave were gifted free tickets to the new Han Solo movie (thanks Sally).  Robin, Eileen, and I had a playdate with baby Arielle and her uncle, Sid.  Sid is in between Robin and Eileen age-wise.  We discovered the other week that the three of them play very well together.  The kids cheered when I told them we were going to visit Sid.

It was a banner day for Buy Nothing,  I scored an awesome trundle daybed for Eileen.  In the span of two hours, we had been gifted the bed, picked it up, given away Eileen's old loft bed on buy nothing, and had it picked up.  I hated Eileen's loft bed.  It was impossible to make and she hid stuff in every crevice.  When we pulled the bed away from the well, tissue paper rained down upon the floor.  We also found some homework she had hidden....

Monday
I had removed all of Eileen's toys/belongings from her room.  She and I then spent part of the morning reorganizing all of her stuff.  I convinced her to get rid of some garbage and I snuck some additional garbage away.  While she didn't get rid of anything (grrr), it's all organized now which is an improvement.

I spent a lot of time with Eileen this morning.  She got to first do the homework she had hidden behind her bed.  Then she and I worked on her Social Studies project on Argentina.

After a morning of bleh, I needed to leave the house.  It took some cajoling, but I got everyone to leave with me.  We went to Meadowdale Beach Park.  We'd never been.  I had heard about the mile hike down to the beach and had been too intimidated to do it with small children.  The only thing intimidating this time was the prospect of whining.  We mitigated the whining by promising Dairy Queen to those who did the trip without whining.  It actually worked really well.  Even Linus, who had been the most resistant to going, admitted it had been a good idea to go there.

It was nice to have four days where I didn't have to set the alarm.  I slept better than I have in weeks.  I watched movies, read, and knocked things off the to-do list.  I love how Eileen's room looks (even if she still has too much stuff).  It's just what I needed before heading into the mad dash that is the end of the school year.