April

Well, Tom is back to work.. yay! He is really enjoying the new job, so we're all happy.
I'm going to be very busy the next month and a half or so.. One of our neighbors has to go out of state for a while to help her parents with some medical issues. She didn't want to take her kids with her as that wouldn't be helpful for her parents as they recover, so I will be watching them during the day while dad is at work.
So I'm gonna be busy keeping them busy and on task with their home schooling (a simplified version anyway...)
So not sure how much time I will have for blog updates for a bit.. but I will try...
We're also getting ready for the end of the school year. M will be going back down to her mom's and then a few weeks later B2 will be coming up for the summer and then will be headed to Fairbanks for school. And it looks like B1 and her little family will be moving. They've found a place a bit more remote, which is what they want, so they will be moving out there and renting out the house they have now. And who knows when our next foster placement will happen or when we might get an adoption option.. so who knows what will be going on. :)
This is also going to put a wee bit of a damper on some of my family history research and post pone some of the training I'm taking for my calling as a ward family history consultant, but.. I'll be doing what I can there as well.

4th of July

Ok, it has been a crazy month so far. Girls are here, and Tom is home, yay! Bree's boyfriend came up from Washington to visit us for a week and was here for the 4th. Most of his week here was spent with Bree dragging him all over the state, but for the 4th, we had a relatively quiet day at home. Bailey, Caleb and Gaia came over, as did our defacto substitute son Chris, so the whole gang was pretty much over. Tons of food was had (I made the BEST slow cooker boneless short ribs, and we grilled chicken and moose steaks and burgers for the younger ones who wanted burgers, plus there was pickled potato salad, baked potatoes, baked sweet potatoes, quinoa salad, several kinds of mini pies and a cake. Then Bailey brought masked potatoes and biscuits. Everything except the biscuits and the burger buns was Gluten Free and so yummy. We still have tons of left overs and they are still so very, very good....) and we followed it up with a game of Risk. I actually won, which was a first. I haven't played it too often, but everyone was surprised, especially since I started with basically just basing myself in Europe. Apparently that's not usually successful.. worked for me though, so, yay!
No fireworks for us this year, apparently all the big shows had been the night before and outside of the shows, fireworks are illegal in most of the state due to risk of fire. Not to mention it really doesn't get dark enough in the summer in the part of the state we're in. It would be like most of the lower 48 wanting to set them off at 4 to 5 PM, so we just never bother with them. The big shows up here are for New Year's.
Our guest seemed to enjoy his time up here, and seems a decent sort of fellow. He certainly fits right in with our variety of insanity.

In other news, my garden is doing very well. I've pulled a few squash out already, and the pumpkins are just started blooming. My bell peppers are going like crazy, and I've got a fair number of little tomatoes started, and the jalapenos are starting to go crazy as well. We've pulled the first carrot, which wound up being a LOT shorter then we expected, but was still very good. And the peas.. oh those were good, so sweet.. it will be hard letting them all sit out there while we wait for enough to do anything with to get ready. I could so easily just go eat them right out of the pods..

And my brother has announced that, at long last, they are expecting a boy. He's got 3 girls out of nearly 10 years of marriage and they are finally having a boy. They've been trying for a boy forever and have had several miscarriages, so this is exciting news for them. My new little nephew will be due later this fall.

Crazy week

Well this last week has been a crazy one. Fun, but crazy...
My in-laws were up for the week, both sister-in-laws, a niece and grand nephew. They rented a house for a week, so we didn't have to cram everyone in here, but it was still a very crazy time. We had a lot of fun though, and so did they. They went on a glacier cruise and drove up to Denali National Park, though they didn't see any wild moose or bears, which they were disappointed by. Not sure where all the wildlife was, but they didn't get to see much of it, just some smaller animals or those at the reindeer farm.
I didn't get to go up to Denali with everyone (Well, hubby didn't get to do either, he was at Drill..) because after a little over a year of super high doses of Iron, I started showing signs of iron toxicity. Was not a fun weekend for me, and things cleared up as soon as I stopped taking the iron. I will need to go see my doctor here soon and get everything evaluated to make sure nothing has gone screwy with my liver function now (I asked them about the high dosage several times and they kept telling me not to worry... ) but first I need to get everything settled back down here at home :) and I still have a ton of blueberries and watermelon that I need to make jam and syrup with...