Well, I survived!  Nathan was a very good boy while Mike was gone, so I am grateful.  I was very happy to pick Mike up from the airport on Saturday, though!  I think everyone was happy that day in this family!  So, anyway, Mike had to go to work today, but tomorrow starts ten days off for him, so I am excited about that.  We are planning a trip down to Seward which should be fun!  Hopefully we will finally get to see a bear..though I would prefer not to see one too close up.  I can't believe we haven't seen one yet!  I'm so mad because everyone keeps saying how many bears they have seen and we've been to Denali and down to the Kenai Peninsula already and haven't seen more than some bear scat and a few tracks. 

Last Thursday I went to an FRG cookout.  I was a little worried at first because it was the first time I tried taking the kids out by myself other than to the store.  It turned out fine, though, and I got to meet some people.  I think Nathan had fun, too.  I took a big bowl of potato salad, and when I got there I saw that someone else had already brought a big bowl of potato salad, too.  I thought, oh no, now I'm going to be bringing most of this huge bowl home with me, but when I went to leave there wasn't even a spoonful left!  Most of the other bowl was intact, so I guess people really must have liked my potato salad (actually mom's potato salad)! 

I met some neighbors down the road from Pennsylvania the other week!  It's surprising how many people we've met from Pennsylvania up here.  Anyway, I was out for a walk with the kids and they wanted to meet the baby so that's how we started talking.  Unfortunately, they are planning to move soon to be near their grandkids back in the lower 48.  It seems like a lot of the nice people I meet up here are getting ready to move away.  It kind of sucks, but I should be used to that by now.  They offered to help out with the kids while Mike was gone if I needed it, and I thought that was very nice!  A lot of people in my neighborhood seem to be much more friendly and neighborly than I have ever seen elsewhere.  It's really nice because it seems like a lot of places I have been, people tend to keep to themselves.  Up here people wave to you and say "hi" instead of looking the other way.  That must be an eastern thing or something.  

Our garden is doing great!  We picked like 12 zucchinis yesterday!  The beans need to be picked again, and I have been freezing veggies because we can't keep up with eating them!  It's really wonderful to be able to go outside and pick a fresh zucchini and turn around and cook it up for dinner!  We bought an upright freezer to put in the garage, so I can actually freeze things now and have a place to put them!  I have seen a lot of canning kits at stores, and I've been contemplating getting started out on that, too.  I've wanted to for some time now, but I never really had anything to can before.  Well, I better go get lunch ready for Nathan