Just before the big tour…

I have been back home for a while now, but before I left the blue house I shot this picture of Kalib before he left – to go to daycare and then on to a tour of his new kindergarten classroom. I remember how excited I was to start kindergarten.

Kalib! Kindergarten!

I don't know what day he goes to real school for the first time, but pretty soon. The next thing you know, he will be an old man like me and I won't know anything about it. 

Kalib's parents snatch him away from the lawn mower so he can learn how to go to Kindergarten

The boys' mom and dad showed up tonight to pick up Kalib and take him back to Anchorage with them. They are leaving Lynxston with us, because he is still too much for his mom to handle. She is much improved since I last saw her, but still she is very sore and on medication and Lynx is a rowdy guy. Kalib did not want to go. He wanted to stay here. He loves it here - I think in part because of our big, wild, yard which tonight he got to mow a bit of, but maybe he likes his grandma and grandpa, too. He had to go home, though, because tomorrow he starts a "Kindergarten Readiness" program.

He will learn how not to take a nap (I don't think that will be much of a challenge for Kalib. If he took any naps during this longer-than average stay with us, I was not aware of them), how to use a back pack and how to ride a school bus.

That ought to be pretty damned exciting.

They bought pizza for us all and I took a little break to help eat it. They just left. I need to get back to work. I don't want to, but if I work until midnight I can get in two more hours and 20 minutes - if I go until 1:00, three more hours and 20 minutes.

I feel lazy, though. I don't want to do anything, but visit Margie, Lynxton and Jim. But I've got to get this done, so back to work I go. Well, maybe I'll be lazy for a few minutes, anyway, go back into the house and say "hi" to Margie and Lynx. Jimmy can stay here to watch things. Or, he can follow me into the house, if he chooses.

On the day when a new heat record was set, Kalib caught his grandma in a bubble

As I sat sweltering and sweating – literally – in front of my computer, which only added to the Intense heat of late afternoon, a new heat record for Anchorage was anounced on KSKA. Now, keep in mind that during hot spells it is typically as much as 10° hotter out here in this part of the valley than in Anchorage. The record was not for the highest temperature for the date, but for the longest stretch of consecutive days with the temperature above 70. Fourteen days! Right after the announcement, I completed one of the major tasks I had to do today. I could hear Margie, Kalib and Lynxton playing in the backyard, so I went out to see what was going on. I found Kalib blowing bubbles again. I don't think I will post another picture today, I want to leave this one at the top of the stack for a while.

The boys in the backyard who were somewhere else, part 2

The second boy I found in the backyard who was not there was the one boating with his uncle: Kalib.

For the moment, I give up on the "real camera" post I have been working on for over an hour and put up this quick and dirty Instagram instead

Earlier this evening, I stated I would make a "real camera" post tonight, as a comparison of some of the same subjects I had shot with my iPhone and then Instagramed. The fact is, I have now been working on that post for well over an hour and it'll probably take me close to another hour to finish it! So I'm going to save it for later and just put this up from earlier in the day. It is Kalib and Jobe, playing with the airplanes in the swimming pool they had made in the old green canoe. It has taken me almost no time at all to make this post. And that's the big difference. I think I am on Instagram to stay. You will see though, when I finally put the other one up… oh hell I don't know what you will see…