Fifteen

New flowers! There are twelve beautiful red roses in a vase on the kitchen table... It's our fifteenth anniversary today. Thank you to my husband for love and support, strength and tolerance, three happy kids and some laughs now and then. Fifteen years went by so quickly!

The weather this week has been beautiful. I won't be wasting the rest of today inside, but I'll be filling in the blanks of the past two weeks.

The girls went to Camp Togowoods, a Girl Scout camp about six miles down the road from our house. The weather wasn't so great for the six days they were camping, but they still had fun hiking, kayaking, canoeing, making crafts, singing songs and all of the typical camp stuff. I know I complain about their noise and mess and attitudes sometimes, but having them gone for so long was just unnatural. Misterguy learned how to be the center of the universe.

It turns out that this entire month, T has had pneumonia, though she's seemed fine, except for the cough. BossLady picked up strep at camp. I think by next week we could possibly all be healthy at the same time.

The garden is doing pretty well, though we're obviously not old pros at gardening. My dream of having a lawn for the kids to play on has crumbled to little bits of hope that one might be planted in the fall... and the planned addition/garage has been put on the 2010 burner. I told someone a few days ago that living in Wasilla is a lot like living in Nome, with dirt roads and odd people - but with a WalMart within driving distance. So, growing up in Nome at least gave me a pretty high tolerance for zero curb appeal.

With the girls back in full force and BORED, we put together a new chore chart with math and reading boxes to check. We also have about a dozen Girl Scout badges for T & K to earn this summer, including some Susitna Council badges specific to Alaska's native cultures. We're trying to keep up with the library's summer reading program. Soccer happens for us 3 or 4 nights a week, so that's our most consistent thing going on.

We're excited about flying down to Bemidji this month! The girls love it there and LittleDude is soooooo ready to hang out with his BOY cousins... In August we'll get to make up for the pneumonia-cancelled trip to Nome, so we're hoping for lots of berries.

Time to head back to the clinic for more antibiotics! And I'll be picking up ingredients for my latest obsession, fresh spring rolls.