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!