Quickpost: The week

Hi, all. I hope you're well. I don't have too much Alaska-related stuff this week. Except if it's very Alaskan to have wildly vacillating weather. Like rainy and cold one day, and really hot the next. But the weather is even more erratic in New England and Alabama, in my opinion.

I think Alaska people just freak out when we have temperature swings. We only have two seasons: winter and springy-summeresque-mildly-warm-always-light-time. So maybe we expect temperatures to remain relatively constant during certain times of year. And I think Alaskans struggle with heat. This week it has been in the high 70s during the day, and a gal at work has had the air conditioner turned up so high that it's creating a localized snow storm over her desk. Still, she says it feels great and insists that her aloha shirt is very comfortable in the churning vortex. I guess that's OK. I don't mind wearing a parka when I go to use the copier.

Work is good. Working full time a busy proposition. Two parents working, two kids to wake and dress before 7 a.m., two lunches to pack, two daily pick-ups and two armfuls of impressively dirty clothing to load into the car, two bedtime routines, two grubby little munchkins to bathe. It's a full life, but I'm loving it. It can be a hard thing, but it's not the hardest thing. Not by a long shot. I feel grateful to have a job where I'm being exposed to new and interesting things. My boss is very nice and gives me opportunities to learn a lot about business. I feel very blessed.

Alan, as always, enjoys his job. He works very hard, but his work is rewarding.

The kids are doing well. Meggie loves her school, and Laurel does well there. She gets a lot of attention, and the caregivers effuse about what "good baby" she is. She's just very contented, so she rarely cries. Several of the caregivers are part Filipino, so they were excited when they found out that the girls share their ethnicity. One Filipino caregiver winked at her Filipino compatriot and whispered confidentially, "Ah! That's why they're so good looking." I really had to laugh. Because both girls look A LOT like they're blond, blue-eyed dad. I think they look more like him than me, actually. But because they have dark hair and dark eyes, I'll always be told, "Oh, they look just like you!"

Pictures.

Daddy makes pig tails. This, for instance, is a picture in which Meggie looks so much like Alan.

Saturday mornings: Sister time and chocolate milk.

Singing in the rain: soggy company picnic.

Playing with toys while waiting to be dressed for school.

You may have noticed that the girls have red bumps on their faces. Mosquitoes. Giant, Sikorsky-skeeters. Now that is Alaskan.