Summertime!

Hi! Can you believe it's August already?  We've been having such a great summer! 

These past few mornings there's been a chill to the air that reminds us that Fall is right around the corner.  This is what happens when you live in Alaska.  Summer is short!

The garden has been loving all of this nice weather we're having.  I don't have pictures, but my veggie garden is totally exploding! We also have a ton of raspberries right now.  Olive used to dislike them, but now she can't eat enough.

This is her doing her "all done" sign after eating approximately two pints of raspberries.  She is in a bit of a food coma.

The flowers love it, too.

The weatherman said this morning that we had 66 straight days of highs over 60 degrees (until Sunday when the high was only 58).  So nice!

We've taken a bunch of trips to the botanical gardens this summer now that we're members.  It's been fun to see everything change throughout the season.  Olive LOVES the flowers, too.

She refused to look at me while I took her picture!

We have been trying to spend a lot of time outside just enjoying this amazing weather.  I know that the snow will be here before we know it.  Ripley especially has enjoyed all the sunshine!

Happy dog!

Olive loves the water table we got her for her birthday.  We try to keep it empty most of the time to discourage the mosquitoes (which have also been notably absent this summer since our winter was so dry.  I'll take it!).

Isn't her hair a riot?  The ladies at daycare did that to her.

We also have "picnics" in the yard!

Lately we've been going to the pool at our gym every weekend day.  Olive cannot get enough of the pool.  Someone takes after her papa!

She really likes walking with the kickboard.  She could spend hours cruising around the shallow end!

Here's a video of her "walking" in the pool!

Olive's other favorite summertime activity is reading!

She's looking in the mirror like Judy does!

She loves reading so much (and we love that it's a quiet activity that she enjoys) that we set up a little reading area in her bedroom.

She loves the giant beanbag chair.  She has a hard time getting into it, but we put her in there and she will sit for awhile and "read" some books.  I am hoping she'll turn into a reader like Andy and me!

This summer has been an exciting time of development for Olive, too.  She's growing so fast - it's hard to believe that a year ago she was a tiny newborn (that cried all the time).  She is saying more words - including dada, mama, dog, cat, kitty, no, yeah, all done, bye, and hi (and I think some others I can't think of off the top of my head).  In addition to reading, she absolutely loves music, and dances anytime she hears it.  We are already trying to think of the least horrible instrument we could get her to learn, and I may need to bring my clarinet out of storage to serenade her :)  She is also just as active as ever and in the past week has hit another major milestone - she's WALKING!

Now we're really in trouble.  Happy Summer everyone!

Grandma's visit wrap-up...and a parade!

Did you think I died?  We've been running in fifteen directions up here, enjoying the most spectacular summer weather ever (it's August now...and it was sunny and in the 70s all weekend!).  Since she turned one, Olivia's daycare is transitioning her to one nap per day, so it's really cut down on my free time during the weekends.  Anyway, enough with the excuses...I still have some good pictures to share from when Andy's parents visited last month! 

Andy's dad left after a way too short visit...but his mom stuck around and Olive really enjoyed having some extra grandma time! We did all sorts of fun things while she was here.  One day we went to Westchester Lagoon and watched Ripley swim.  Check out the stick Andy found to throw for him!

Ripley didn't care that it was enormous, he's a water dog through and through!

Good boy!

We played on the playground at Westchester, too.  Olive is really starting to enjoy going to playgrounds, so we've scoped out some really fun ones around Anchorage.  This one has some really fun toys that they never had when we were little!

Maybe a little safer if mom rides with you on the swing, kiddo...

Andy took her down the slide, and she wasn't a huge fan...it was kind of tall.

On July 1 (Olive's actual birthday!) we took a day trip to Seward to check out the SeaLife Center again.  As usual, it was a great trip!

I love the sea birds so much.

This one came right up on the railing.  It's always so tempting to reach out and touch them, but I feel like that's a good way to lose a finger.

Olive, a little more mobile than on our first visit, LOVED the salmon tanks (they have a series of tanks to take you through the life cycle of the salmon).  Since these tanks went right down to the ground, she had a great time standing (leaning) and saying hi to the fish.

And look!! WE caught Seward on a sunny day! It was so beautiful!

The pictures just can't do it justice.  The SeaLife Center is right on Resurrection Bay and the view is just breathtaking.  It's hard to believe this is just about two hours from Anchorage...it's totally different scenery!

Back inside, Olive had fun showing grandma the seal and sea lion viewing tanks.

They were really energetic when we went for our visit.  So fun to watch!

Back home in Anchorage, we had some other special visitors while Andy's mom was in town.  Look!

We were wondering why the tall grass was so flattened down behind the garden.  Looks like we found the culprits!

Obviously, they don't feel threatened by us being around.  Mama barely bothered to look at us while they spent DAYS in our yard.

I will never get tired of seeing this in my own backyard.

On the 4th, we headed downtown to watch the parade.  Unlike two years ago when we took my parents, the weather was pretty good.  There were so many people there!

Unfortunately we made the mistake of setting up by the end of the parade.  It takes a marching band a LONG time to walk several blocks.  I don't think the parade made it to us until 30 minutes after it started (literally across the park right in front of us...which was a huge tease) Next time we'll be near the start.

Waiting for the parade to come.  Ripley is bored out of his mind and Andy and his mom look a little punch drunk.  Olive has goldfish crackers, so she could care less about the parade.

Eventually the parade made its way to us, and we took Olive out of her stroller to watch.  She LOVED IT! I've never seen her focus her attention on something for so long.  I demand a weekly parade to entertain my toddler!

We saw Star, of course.  She's looking a little worn out with her summer coat.  Poor Star.

We saw an odd super-religious float about America, complete with a fist-shaking Patrick Henry.

Someone handed out flags and Olive thought it was just about the best thing ever.  Also, this picture is about as American as apple pie.  Love it.

She loved all the fun old trucks, cars, and horses.  It was so cool to watch the parade through her eyes!

This old truck had an organ on the back that played music.  It might be the single best thing Olive has ever seen in her life.

Not all of us loved the parade, though.  I wish I could say that I just happened to catch him doing this, but he was in this pose for a solid hour.  Poor Ripley.

So that was the visit...sorry it took me so long to post these pictures.  I've got some fun pics of a quick 26 hour trip I took to Portland and about a billion pictures of Olive just being cute to post, so look forward to those.  Hopefully I'll get them up before 2016.  Can you believe it's August already?!