I've started smoking

actually I just smell like smoke because we have spent every nice evening by our new fire pit-it is awesome! We talk and have s'mores and Alan plays his guitar, we have had friends over to enjoy it with us, it is our new favorite thing. The only down fall is as Layla says "after this we always smell so campy!" that about sums it up. For some reason, sleeping in your sleeping bag smelling like a camp fire is really great, but cuddling up in your own bed smelling like it, is well, not exactly as nice. It feels a little grimy. Um, I guess it doesn't help when the fire circle ends your day of running in the yard and digging in the mud and planting seeds and gathering fire wood, I'm pretty sure it's not just the smell, summer is just a little, well, dirty around here.
Alan finished building my raised garden beds today and we got them all planted but the 2 that are outside of my kitchen window. So far we have planted a cucumber patch, spaghetti squash, tomatoes, crook neck squash, lettuce patch (mesculin mix), an herb garden, purple bush beans, a climbing miniature kiwi vine, and a strawberry patch. We plan to plant flowers for the butterflies in one of the kitchen beds and also a children's garden of flowers to cut in the other. Then it's on to the front yard!! Woohoo, I'm tired just telling you about it. I bought a lily and a red hot poker today, and we got a weepy maple and bunch grass and some bush honeysuckle, and some perennial herbs to plant around my kitchen bay. A few more giant pots of herbs and we'll be done (planting). There are still river rocks, wood chips and landscape fabric in my not so distant future--these things aren't quite as exciting to think about, so I keep going back to the flowers.
We went to kindergarten pre-assessment this week. They make everything sound so overwhelming when you are signing up. I honestly didn't know what to expect and was a little nervous--Alan teased me and said that you would think it was my first day of school, I was walking around all nervous and troubled. As always, it was all for not: Layla blew the teacher away and had her laughing by the time they called me back to go over what Layla had done. I got accolades for spending so much time working with her (huh?) and she was so impressed by how mature Layla was (me too) and said that she is more than ready to start kindergarten in the fall.
This was a busy week (even though we hardly left the house!) I had a medium sized nervous break down when I found a bunch of reproductive carpenter ants (of course I know what they are--don't ask) which is one of the reasons we had the previous house treated and then removed, just kind of a big deal. The green bug killers are headed out next week to take care of it, let's hope they get it under control, our guarantee runs out soon, and it's kind of an expensive procedure--not as expensive as what we previously went through to remove them, but whatever. And, of course there was the summer solstice celebration. This year it included a lot of running around saying "happy solstice!!" no less than 200 times, and playing in the pool and sprinkler and having Popsicles and finishing off with a campfire and s'mores. Just about the best party ever in my book. I have to go lay down, I'm exhausted, and my back up heads back to work tomorrow-ciao!