I took little Bel for her first ride in my Subaru Penelope the other day! She meowed a lot for the first ten minutes. Then she was fine and cruised around the car checking things out. Then she camped out on my shoulders and neck as we drove out to the spit to meet my dad and help his Belgian hitchhiker friends. 

It’s work time now. Babysitting the girls last night was great. I love my nieces. Cheers. 

It’s just after midnight. I’m making cookies. Actually I decided to call them cookied chocolate chips, because there’s more chocolate than there is cookie. YUM! Just like it should be. :)

Humans of New York is inspiring. I love their posts @humansofny, that come up on my instagram feed. So humanizing and real, sometimes sad, sometimes happy, but real. I’m grateful for humans and all they do and all they are. Especially grateful to know and be with so many stellar humans. I’m also grateful to be with stellar animals! Like our new kitten! More on that later. :)

They’re building two duplexes right next to our house right now, and it cuts into our path to our magical forest and trail. We haven’t been too pleased with the construction and development, but we know that now there can be more great humans around! Still have mixed feelings about wanting to head for the hills and buy a few acres of trees and plants to surround a home for us, but it’ll be nice to meet the new peeps that move in here at Aprill Place. And we still have a gravel road here at our home, and there’s still lots of green around, so it’s quite nice.

Btw, this picture doesn’t have much to do with this post, other than it has my most beloved human in it next to me. This was taken camping across the bay. Summer has been grand. I have to go to work right now right meow though. I’ve been working a lot, and I’m ready to work less and bundle up in sweaters and beanies. It makes me excited for winter.

For winter, my plans currently consist of volunteering in my nieces’ kindergarten and second grade classes, sending out our wedding thank you cards, learning to play the harmonica, make plans for our Brasil trip, get sealed in December in Manti, maybe get an internship done and get my degree, and play Super Mario on super nintendo. I’m hope you can understand my excitement.

I’m grateful for Robin Williams and the goodness and great memories has has brought to my life through his acting and the characters he’s played. Genie from Aladdin is probably numero uno for me, and of course Mrs. Doubtfire! And being in Jumanji, Hook, Flubber, Jack, Patch Adams… pretty talented fellow who will be remembered and missed.

What a precious little cabbage patch boy he is! I love this little nephew and it has been delightful having him (and his parents) around. 

Chris is at Osh Kosh, in Wisconsin. Boy do I miss him. He left last night and I can’t wait for him to get home in a week and a half. I love my boy. 

We’ve had some great guests this past week. Chris’s brother, friend, and cousin have been here visiting and the four of them have been manning it up all week. 

I unfortunately wasn’t able to participate too much in the activities of the week, except for the eating part. But it’s been great for the for of these guys to be together in the great land of Alaska. 

We got ourselves about 80-90 lbs of salmon filets yesterday! It’s so great to have delicious, healthy fresh fish all year round. 

Btw, we saw a little black bear on the shore in the rocks on our way home from fishing! He had a salmon too!

Other than that, life is really really good and blessed.