What a week! Wow! It started out with a birthday bang. I turned 32 on Wednesday. Jared surprised me by taking the day off so we could do something fun together. What I really wanted to do was spend an afternoon thrifting in some new areas, but I knew that would be more fun as a solo activity so I did that the afternoon before. This was SUCH a great idea that I want to make a yearly pre-birthday tradition. It's nice to spend my actual birthday with my family, but with the kids being so young there's a high chance that any family outing will go awry, so it was nice to know that I already got to do what I wanted to do and it was wonderful and peaceful. This made me more patient during the more meltdowny portions of my actual birthday.
My birthday morning went smoother than anticipated. After Jack was on his bus to school, Jared and I loaded up Alice and the inflatable paddle board I got for Christmas into the car. We drove nearly an hour to a new lake we'd never been to before: Lake Cavanaugh. We had to drive up a quiet mountain road for some time to get there (so pretty) and then the road opened to a big lake surrounded by cute lake houses (probably mostly vacation homes). The weather was nice, but not warm enough to want to get wet. The purpose behind this excursion was to visit a new lake, but also to see if Alice would sit still on a paddle board. I've been wanting to take her out while Jack is at school, but knew I should probably bring Jared with us this first time in case Alice wouldn't sit still. It was a good choice. Alice was very wiggly for our first 5 minutes on the board. I really needed to sit and hold her in my arms while Jared stood on the back and paddled us around. This worked wonderfully, and eventually she understood what was going on and sat still and enjoyed the ride. A huge bald eagle flew up above us and perched in a tree to look for a fish, so we spent most of our time watching that, until Jared's back started to hurt so we headed back. Alice is FINALLY at an age where she can be occupied with a baby show in the car, and I think I wrote this last week but it has made car rides so much more enjoyable (for the most part). We made it home in time for a late nap for Alice, and she napped really hard. Her best nap yet.
After Jack got home from school (he gets home early on Wednesdays), the goal was to load everyone back into the car and drive to nearby Camano Island to play at a really neat kids' park in the middle of a sculpture garden, and then walk along the beach and get seafood for my birthday dinner. This is the part that went awry. Alice woke up from her nap pretty angry, ands she was NOT happy to be immediately strapped back into the car for her third long car ride of the day. She screamed and screamed, and then Jack started to put up a stink, and about 25 minutes into the hour-long drive to Camano, I wised up and called the whole thing off. It was just going to be pushing Alice too far for one day. So we pulled into the nearest park, let the kids play for half an hour, and then drove back to Granite Falls for Jack to catch the last half of his football practice while I sat in the car and did some birthday reflecting and journaling. We considered going out to dinner at our local Mexican restaurant, but again, I knew this would be pushing Alice too far and it wouldn't be enjoyable. So instead we went home, microwaved some chicken nuggets for the kids, got Alice to bed, and then had cake and opened presents with Jack. I got a beautiful large book from my parents (AD 100--I've wanted it for a long time and it's gorgeous) and an at-home laser hair removal device from Jared haha (yes, this is what I asked for for my big gift this year). I have very coarse hair and always get lots of painful ingrown hairs in the summer from shaving. But I'm not willing to go through the hassle and upkeep of going somewhere to get 10 separate sessions of professional laser hair removal and then go back regularly for upkeep. So I'm gonna try this at-home thing and I'll let you know if it's a success at the end of the summer. Pritty kool.
After we got Jack to bed we ordered in some food from the local Mexican restaurant to eat while we watched a movie of my choosing: the new Little Women. We hadn't seen it yet and the interiors were incredible. It was a lovely evening.
Late Friday evening we got to see the Northern Lights from our house! Such a cool opportunity. I wasn't sure we'd ever get to see them unless we took a trip to Iceland in the winter or something. Jared was giddy. He loves a celestial event (if this counts as "celestial"). The conditions were just right with a level 5 solar storm, clear skies in Washington, and a crescent moon. One of our neighbors texted Jared with a picture of the sky bright with colors at around 11:00 at night. Normally we don't stay up that late, but we knew the Northern Lights were a possibility so Jared was painting and I was moving some picture frames around. We rushed outside and tons of our neighbors were standing in the streets staring up at the sky. Like something you'd see in a movie. We looked up and at first thought we were looking at wispy clouds, but the more we stared and let our eyes adjust, the more we noticed them changing from blue to pink, getting darker and brighter, and moving around. They were more visible from the darker areas of the street, and from the tiny park in the corner of our neighborhood, where we watched them for quite a while before going to wake Jack and watch them in our backyard. Jack was glad we woke him up but only lasted a couple minutes before he wanted to go back to bed. We got some pictures. The aurora definitely didn't look this vibrant in real life, but our cameras picked it up really well. Come to think of it, I'm kicking myself for not bringing out my DSLR to try to capture it there. The phone cameras did the job of documenting though.
On Saturday morning, Jack ran his first 5k. He was probably a little young, but he's always had an abundance of energy and loves to race. We've been wanting to sign him up for a race for a while to see if he loves it and wants to join a youth track team. Jared signed up to run with him in our town's Granite Falls 5k. This felt like the easy choice, but in hindsight I wish we'd signed up for a bigger/more fun 5k with water stations, hundreds or thousands of racers, and maybe some attractions at the end. That type of race day energy would have made it more fun. It was a bit of a let-down to show up and realize there were only maybe 20 people running the race, and no water stations or anything. Nonetheless, Jack did really well. There were a handful of other kids running and Jack beat all of them, which was his goal. He finished 4th overall and finished in 32 minutes, which is pretty impressive for a 6-year-old. He was glad he did it, but he got pretty worn out toward the end and said he's not sure he wants to run another 5k for a while. I think a 1-mile fun run would be more his speed next time. Nonetheless, we immediately hopped back into the car at the finish line to drive 30 minutes to Jack's football game. He played as aggressively as always and immediately scored a touchdown for his team. Jack's more of a "game" type of guy than a "long run" type of guy, so we'll skip the youth track team and keep with flag football. After the game Jared's parents treated us to a seafood lunch in Snohomish for my birthday, and some presents from them. It was another wonderful day.
Sunday was of course Mother's Day. It was a busy but beautiful day. I woke up to German pancakes and some sweet presents Jack made for me. Jared gave a nice talk in church, then Alice refused to take a nap after church and it was a rough few hours. Finally we drove to Jared's parents' house after church, and I thanked the stars once again that Alice will watch a show in the car now. That drive was pretty miserable for the first 18 months of her life, but it went great this time. At Jared's parents' home we had a nice dinner and some lemon bars Jared and I made for dessert, and went for a leisurely kayak rid and sat on the lawn at their neighborhood lake. Now that I know it isn't realistic to take Alice out on a paddle board on my own, I've been wanting to see if it would be possible to take her out on my own on a kayak. I was grateful to have the opportunity to test it out, and it went really well! Much better than the paddle board. She was still wiggly, but I could keep her pretty contained in my lap and with a free hand to pull her back closer when needed between paddling. Jack loved going for a ride with me too. I'm not sure I'd take them both out at the same time, but it would be nice to have a kayak and a paddle board this summer so our whole family can go out on the water at the same time. There are so many gorgeous lakes within a 20-minute drive of our house. We're looking forward to enjoying them this summer. Whew, that was a big post. Now, pictures:
