Monday, July 27, 2009

a month


I know it's been a month since I did a post. Actually, over a month. And if you asked me to tell you what happened in the last month, I don't know that I could. But I'll do my best.

The most amazing thing that happened this year is that we had a summer. Days and days of sunshine and warmth. Some days were so hot, it almost took my breath away, especially when I got up on the hill, away from the daybreeze of Kachemak Bay. Many days, the house would be 78 degrees when I got home, and it felt like it was easily 85 outside. Simply put, in 15 years in Alaska, I have never, ever seen anything like it.

The kids spent most of their time outside. I worked on new gardens, and one weekend, when Matt happened to have a day off during the glorious stretch of beautifulness, we actually painted our 6-year-old addition. Awesome.

Liam has had a charmed summer. First, his best buddy Oskar came back from Oregon and spent the summer playing with him at Kachemak Kids, as well as many play dates. Fabulousness. And he has been loving soccer, and biking, and lots of outdoor fun with Kachemak Kids, which has specialized in field trips to the nearby museum, parks, and even to the library many times.

Liam has also had some big firsts this summer. He lost his first tooth a couple weeks ago, and was totally fine about it. The tooth fairy celebrated the big first with Star Wars guys. Huge. Tonight, he is on his first friend-not-family sleepover with Oskar. I was supposed to go to Anchorage this week, but a class I was going to take got postponed, so I didn't have to go. But the overnights had been planned, and by golly, they were going to happen. So this week, Liam will sleep away from home not once but twice.

Now here is an interesting thing. Thea came home today all by herself, and would you believe she was an angel? Had a snack, then played happily while I made dinner? What does that say? She is feeding off her brother's energy or the competition between the two of them? She needs some quiet time when she comes home? I don't give her enough attention generally and the only way she can catch my eye is to throw a fit? I don't know, but I was shocked by her demeanor. It was sooo calm.

Thea has been focused on perfecting her physical skills, which now include running hell-bent-for leather in the opposite direction of whatever way you want her to go and scaling anything that will get her closer to her object of greatest affection - Liam.

Though Matt has been working a lot this summer, he has managed to be home for some great moments - including a walk down Diamond Creek Trail that was so warm Liam took off all his clothes except his underwear. That just doesn't happen in Alaska.

So the sunshine finally did come to a close a couple weeks ago - although we have had brief moments since that were glorious. It has been a bit of a shock - we got spoiled. Morning after morning, I had coffee on the deck. Now it's back to low 60s and stormy, and racing to mow the lawn between rainy days.

But on Saturday, we head to Victoria for two weeks in a more southerly locale. It's predicted to be 80s all week there. Bring it on.

It's been so busy this summer - the list of things to do never seems to ebb. We bought a new car while Matt was working in Soldotna (read: lots of logistical challenges.) It's a 2006 Subaru Outback, and has lots of features I love, like heated seats and autostart (is there anything more beneficial in Alaska?) It has been a shock, though, to go from a high SUV to a low car, not to mention a standard to an automatic. But I'm adjusting. Had a funny moment the first day when I put my computer bag on the front seat and it started dinging at me. Didn't figure out till I made it into town that it thought my computer bag was a person without its seat belt on. Sigh. I'm not smart enough for these new-fangled inventions.

And yesterday, I had to move our current tenant out of our rental cabin since he was in Fairbanks fighting fire and wouldn't be back until after we left. But I finally found a tenant for the cabin, and so it was moving day. I managed by luck to get in touch with Matt via his satellite phone in the interior and got Josiah's number to make sure it was OK to move his stuff. Luckily, he was a very tidy guy. Then, the new tenant moved in, and I checked that off the list and went off to mow the lawn.

I'm going to try to get back into blogging more - it's tough to realize that we had a month of awesome memories, and all I can remember are little spurts. That's why I blog.