We're still here.

*Yes, this post is a year old.Yes it has typos. I don't care-I enjoyed re-reading it and thought it unfair to condemn it to a lifetime of being a "draft".*

I think of things to post here all the time. I think about how I'd like to write them, what pictures to attach, who might read them, and then I think about how long it would take.....and I wander away to do something else. Hopefully I'll be able to convince myself to do more spontaeous posting, and remind myself that no one really cares how polished my posts are (right?).

We've been having a very active summer, as usual, though not necessarily in the ways we'd like. Thus far we've crested the 80 degree mark maybe, um, twice? Not cool. Well, actually, too cool. We haven't been able to get much of a garden planted, and haven't started working on the playhouse we're going to build out of the scrap wood from the front porch. We DID tear down our old front porch (don't worry, we replaced it with a new one). Thanks mostly to my father, we now have a lovely, slightly larger, lovely, not tottering, lovely, nobody has to worry about putting their foot through a step porch. It's lovely. It's not stained yet, which is a problem, but we're getting there-we bought the stain and everything. I took lots of progess shots, but I can't find them. Imagine a rotten, falling apart porch. Then imagine a fresly built not falling apart porch.

Kier turned two in June, and wants to make sure everyone knows it-if she survives to be three we should all be awarded medals. She's fantastic, and incredibley smart, but I'm convinced she is going to kill one of us with her antics. Yesterday she dissappeared from the blanket next to me at the park (she can teleport)-we went on full alert, many grownups and children scouring the area for her. We found her, shoes off, nonshallantly climbing into Lake Washington. She was going to visit the duck-ducks. She can also walk into the kitchen at any given time and return with a bag of raisins. Even if we don't have any.

Morgan and Garrett just completed their season for track and field (the Renton city team), and have so many ribbons we could reshingle the house with them. They get ribbons for every event, not matter what. At their last meet Morgan won the covetted pink ribbon-she has not a care for the number on it. She hadn't won a pink one yet.

Last week my neice came and stayed with us for the first time independent of her family. She's twelve, and wants badly to be 7 and 17 simultaneously. We thorougly enjoyed having her-and now I have a stronger case as I try to persuade Troy to adopt a teenager. A responsible one. With a driver's license.

Last week we also had our 2nd annual camping trip to Moran State Park with dear friends. And deer friends. Moran is on Orcas Island, in the San Juans. It's a magical place. Seriously, the minute I get off the ferry, I feel better--even if I wasn't feeling bad to begin with. Maybe it just resonates with the island girl trapped inside me, yearning for the laid-back friendly life of those surrounded by the ocean.