New Dogs, Old Friends, and GWL.

It's been a month since my last update, which is maybe the longest I have ever skipped. (Picture is Finley's thoughts after a one mile run with Mom-- substantially similar to mine on being behind.)

But what a month it has been...! 

Somewhere in there, Ford appointed himself the Guy Who Backs in All Bass Boats. Mostly, this is  unsolicited.

This month 1/3 of the kids' NYC BFFs came to visit,

and we farewelled summer with an epic trip to Alaska. 

In addition to all the usual Alaska headliners,

we lucked out and got to piggyback on Missy and Brittany's lottery-winning long weekend in Halibut Cove

 

where we paddled past otters and porpoises to hike to glacial lakes 

and went tidepooling and roasted marshmallows with new friends. 

There are really no words for our epic getaway to the 49th state (or this incredible souvenir hat). More photos are here:

We came back to a world crumbling in the most heartbreaking way, and I worked around the clock on things I wished I had only seen in the news.
 
The kids started school, and it was adorable. They love it, even if the "back to school" adjustment period is a real and terrible thing for kids who have essentially been shoeless and feral for more than a year. 

Seth came back from California with a top 10 finish and a new dog, having detoured to pick up the long-awaited service animal in Utah.

Hunter is the largest and worst behaved service dog on the planet. He eats stuffed animals and any food on the counters, jumps on the kids and the beds, runs away at every opportunity, and greets me every morning on my way to the gym from his adopted perch on the couch he is forbidden to get near. He can't sit still on a kayak, so he cannot accompany Seth to fishing tournaments.

But Seth adores him, and the kids are coming around. I am assuming that at some point I will find his terrible behavior endearing. (A happy occasion which has not yet occurred.) 

We are insanely lucky to have Jayne here now, who runs herd on the dog and the new-to-routines school kids. 

She also pulled off the Olympics of grandparenting, and helped me navigate Great Wolf Lodge with kids, dog, and Ryan offspring. 

When I had to cancel our long-awaited plans to go to a bluegrass festival in Maine thanks to work demands, I was looking for something else with which to bribe the kids. Natalie told me she was taking Tommy and Mikayla- our kids' lifelong BFFs- to Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, and I almost immediately threw in the towel on 6 successful years of avoiding GWL. 

It was as wonderful/ terrible as one would imagine.

The kids were over the moon to see their friends, and an exhausting "back to school celebration" was had by all. 

Cheers to back-to-school and grandparents and booster shots and dogs who are currently sleeping on the couch. May we all navigate the new schoolyear with this kind of enthusiasm.

Blazing Baseball, Ana+Ata, and Sharkshooting.

We survived baseball camp.

And by "we," I mean that Seth Nieman, descendant of the sainted sportsMom Jayne, rather than dropping his children off and heading to the gym- or brunch- as yours truly would have done; spent half a day every day for a week handing out water and snacks in blazing heat, and shouting encouragement while F+F made lackadaisical attempts at running the bases before racing back to the dugout to hang out with their friends.

I showed up for the last day, in time to be truly flabbergasted by the searing sun, and to take these happy survivors to lunch. And for ice cream, because they more than deserved it.

Afterwards, we managed a little downtime for friends,

kid karaoke and sprinkler fun,

and trips to Home Depot

(before Ana & Ata arrived for a week of fun (and yard work) while Seth did his Global Residency.

The kids soaked up the snuggles,

Star Wars performance audiences,

and beach time

(not to mention one billion trips to the pool and kid sports while I was at work, of which I have no pictures but a lot of epic stories.)

We were very, very sad to see them go Saturday morning.

So we decamped to the Susquehanna River for some "glamping" and a Hobie BOS Tournament for Seth (he had a great one, minus a small capsizing incident),

and adventuring in one of my favorite River Towns for the kids and I.

Plus a stop at the ever-popular Little Round Top on the way home. We never forget how lucky we are to live somewhere we can just "swing by" spots of immense historic significance.

Side notes, 1) parents tell their kids some obscenely dumb things at Civil War sites ("it was just a misunderstanding about how to farm" ?!?!?!), and 2) Ford thinks the Confederate sharpshooters at Devil's Den were "sharkshooters" and I refuse to correct him.

If you thought to yourself, "it also appears that Ford is wearing a Disney princess sweatshirt and carrying a Dark Saber he is using as a rifle," you would be correct.

Believe it or not, it is officially August. Happy last month of summer!