August days

It gets so dark at night now, the trees in the backyard are no longer in silhouette at midnight. Soon we won't need to put up the blackout curtains in the kids' rooms at bedtime. The sugar snap pea plants in our Rookie Garden finally popped out white blossoms, but the fallen yellow birch leaves between garden rows are sad reminders that fall is upon us. At least we'll have some radishes to toss with some tiny lettuce leaves.
K's been gone since August 1st. His time is 17 hours ahead of ours. R asked me this morning when we woke up, "Where's Daddy?" I've been doing fun stuff with the girls, and they've only given me that "Can't we trade you for Dad?"-look once or twice this time around. We've been making cookies, bread, quills (yep,Harry Potter), sit-upon covers (Girl Scout thing); we've brought home about 4,000 library books, played at Olly&Wilson's, driven to Seward with cousins to see the SeaLife Center, hung out at the park, and figured out Club Penguin missions together.
I just haven't been ScaryStrictMama about bedtime and wake-up time, though, and we haven't done more than three math worksheets. There's only one more week until the First Day of SCHOOOOOOLLLL! I got BossLady to count by twos with me, and fives and tens. She started reading Captain Underpants books... We've all been into geography with map puzzles (R lost Alabama) and looking up countries we hear about while watching the Olympics. Next Monday's gonna be rough.

My brother Willy and his bride Bridie will be married next Sunday, at a lake near Palmer! We're all looking forward to it, weddings are so happy, they remind you of the goodness in life.