Quick update

I'm posting right now from Meggie's room, where the girls are playing with a doll house and Meggie is getting ready to play "beach" by donning her bathing suit. I think she likes her beach game almost as much as the real thing.

And as I type, the girls are hanging on me and draping me with blankets "to make (me) nice and comfy." And we're listening to "The Little Mermaid" in audio book form. And my Meggie is poking my face, saying, "Mommy, I love you. You're my favorite lady." Poke. Poke. Poke. I feel the love! :o)

So don't expect any elegant prose. I'm a little ... distracted by my laptop bouncing now as the girls let themselves fall over onto the bed in a realistic impression of trees being felled.

Alan had a little obstacle when he took Lucy out for her morning constitutional today. He was met by this:

There are two interesting things about this video: 1) This is the part of our yard the moose always munch. Some of the trees in this area have been damaged to such a degree that the plant has retreated to its root and sent out a new baby tree at the base of the old one. I wish I knew why the moose like this area so much. 2) This video was taken at 5 a.m. See how light it is already? It's dawning at our house around 4:30.

We had a nice holiday weekend. Meggie expressed a desire to see a "waterfall made of melting snow that goes all the way down a mountain and isn't frozen but moving all the way down." Quite demanding, eh? We were able to oblige, however, when we took a drive up to Hatcher Pass and the Independence Mine. There's still snow up there, and Lucy liked it. A lot. What a goofy pooch.

In case you're wondering why it's so blue, it wasn't darkness. It was because the camera was still on its tungsten setting.

Also had lunch at the Mother Lode Lodge.

We tried very hard to get an all-the-girls shot, but two of us were really wiggly. Bet you can't guess which ones.

We hope all is well where you are.

-h
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P.S. Today was Meggie's last day of the year at her preschool. It warms my heart to see how the teachers at her school genuinely enjoy the kids. And the kids can tell. It's a great place, and she'll be attending the same half-day preschool four days a week next year. We have the option of adding a fifth day. We decided against the full-day, all-week program, because she doesn't do well in a full-day environment. Whenever we pass the building that houses the all-day 4K program Meggie says, "I don't ever want to go to that school. Because I don't want to wait that long to go home again."

Someday she'll have teachers, subjects and classmates she doesn't like. And she'll balk at going to school. And we'll have to give her the "Now, what would happen if everyone just decided not to do the things they have to do because it's unpleasant?" speech, which I memorized during the many times it was delivered to me. But preschool is not that time. :o)
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Addition (11:59 p.m.): The moose came back for another helping. Poor trees.

Alan says the third interesting thing about the moose video is how interested the puppy is in the moose (yes, that's Lucy barking in the background) and how uninterested the moose is in the puppy. But, as Alan told Meggie today, that moose weighs more than the four of us and Lucy combined. So I guess the moose wins.