Last day of vacation

Sunday morning, Jeff's last day of home vacation. It's been so nice to have him around!!! I love just waking up with him still in the bed - usually he gets up at 4am! And even though he was working on the bathroom project a lot of the week, we still had lots and lots of family time too.

The bathroom project: We are putting in a new sink and cabinet, a new dual flush toilet, new plumbing for both of those, a new floor, new silicone sealant all around the shower, and Jeff surprised me with a new medicine cabinet and a new light PLUS he put in an outlet. During the week he did the last three things and the plumbing for the new fixtures. We are waiting for our linoleum to arrive and so the new sink and toilet will go in after we put in the new floor. First we have to remove the old rubber baseboard and clean off the glue, then we have to make a template of the floor, take out the old fixtures, pull up the old floor and start putting everything new in. We still have a lot of work to do! House projects are definitely slower when you have to be quiet 4 hours each day for Stella's naps!
On Friday we went to Tacoma to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. It was great to GO someplace! The zoo was fun, but not as good as our own Woodland Park Zoo. On our way home we went across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge and over to Bremerton and we took the ferry home.

So we are now back to normal - but I decided to host the PEPS2 group today - I haven't seen them in ages and ages for a variety of reasons, so I thought it would be fun, and the one mom I feel the most connection to isn't coming AGAIN. Everytime I host she doesn't come. I know it's nothing personal, but it's hard to remember that sometimes. I think one of the unspoken downsides of SAHM-ing is how hard it is to have friends. If your pre-children friends don't also have kids at the same time as you do, you have to start all over again trying to make friends from the random moms you meet. But add in that your attention is totally focused on the kids and it becomes really hard. Throw in the fact that your kids and any potential friend's kids might not like eachother, or nap at different times... or whatever, and, well, you become like me - lonely. It will get easier as the kids get older simply because it's so hard to have playdates when kids don't actually play together. 2 year olds do parallel play, which can often mean wanting to play with whatever the other one has, and they just don't know how to share yet. I did learn that there are more little kids in our neighborhood than I knew of - I should try to organize a neighborhood play group!

Shout-out:
YEA LUCY!!!!! I am so proud of you for making so many excellent paintings in such a short period of time AND with little kids AND after just having moved. You are amazing. I am so proud of you!