We took advantage of the first beautiful sunny weekend of the summer this past week; saddest part being it didn’t happen until almost the end of July. On Saturday we went the easy route, going to a local park with lake beach front, and the kids played in the sand and dove right into the kiddie swimming area. The water was “warm” in Alaska standards and I was surprised how quickly they played in it; last year it was received much less enthusiastically. Friends brought floats to play on, teenie-tiny fish were a hot topic for kid conversation and collection- with parents trying to keep them alive and well in water buckets and kids more interested in checking them out- and the ice cream truck stopped by for a nice, midday treat. We played outside for the rest of the day, washed the cars in the driveway and the girls wore dress up and played with their sun umbrellas. We ended the evening picking up the trailer at cousins for the real adventure the following day.

Day two of the weekend continued the beautiful sunshine and 70 degree temperatures so we loaded up two kid and one adult four-wheelers and headed out to Eklutna Lake, about an hour’s drive from our house. When I was a kid the ten-mile road was full of potholes, scary overlooks and absolutely no pavement; these days it’s much easier vehicle access with two lane, freshly painted asphalt. The girls fought over marker selection on their coloring for most of the drive there, and if you exclude the whining, the day went pretty well.

All the kids abandoned shoes and climbed on logs and played in the water a bit. The driftwood teepee on the beachfront was also quite a hit and they happily played in it and tried to build it bigger. Craig became an unofficial four-wheeler mechanic not too long after we were out and about and by the end of the day, he was manually hauling them back to the car due to a variety of issues. The boys in the group, meaning cousins and Kaden, are all pretty good drivers when they pay attention, so parking lot loops and some basic trail riding was a hit. The girls aren’t quite there yet and probably need another summer before we can trust they will go straight by intention; we will get there. We had several kid crashes off-trail, but none that caused any bleeding or too many tears. At one point five kids and an adult were riding the adult four-wheeler- that’s impressive in itself! Craig installing the back bench was the best decision ever and let’s us easily cart four kiddos on the back safely, all strapped in with seat belts.

It was a fun day and we all returned home with new sunburn lines. Now I just hope we can have at least one more weekend with warm temperatures before we head into fall. Harper keeps telling me summer hasn’t started yet. You said summer was warm and it’s not warm. She makes an excellent point and I don’t have a good argument against that!

Emerie Eye Update

Emerie’s eye specialist checkup this week went great after no visit for six whole months! This is the longest stint without an appointment since cataracts were diagnosed at twelve months in her left eye, and the outcome is looking better. Emerie was on her best behavior; I kid you not, it was the smoothest appointment we’ve ever had! She sat all by herself on the patient chair (past demands involved a parent underneath) and told the nurse all the letters she put onscreen across the room. In January she was seeing 20/40 out of her weaker eye, even with glasses on, and this time she was able to see a few of the letters in 20/25! After a couple in that size she declared they are too small to read!

This visit she also listened to Dr. Winkle’s requests obediently and maintained eye contact while holding still. For the first time he looked in her eyes with the fancier equipment typically used for adults- she is getting so grown up. And she did great! Dr. Winkle said patching must continue for several more years. The nurse did a quick light test before the doctor came in, a test that informs whether her eyes are working together or operating separately in conjunction with her brain. She couldn’t see both red and green, which tells us her brain is still fighting the connection between the eyes and patching will continue to help remedy that. He also praised our efforts to patch daily are paying off and her eye alignment is staying straight and not drifting out; if anything she is slightly inward on alignment. This is largely encouraging and means we don’t need another checkup for six months and no surgery on the docket. Very exciting!!

The plan is to continue patching in the mornings like we do now, and giving her a break on the weekends so she isn’t operating with one eye while we go on fun adventures. I’m not entirely sure how well this will go for kindergarten so I plan to see how she does with school while patched, and reassess if we need to start doing evenings or afternoons instead so she has less hardships during school activities. All in all, she does everything her sisters do while patched and it’s really impressive, knowing that eye is weaker and still trying to get stronger. She’s a rock star.

Lastly, in case you were curious, Dr. Winkle’s favorite color is green. This is not to be confused with teal or blue. He and Emerie had a deep conversation about favorite colors, and she loves to talk to him when we go. She also went off on a My Little Pony tangent and discussed the princesses and different ponies; it was pretty funny. His favorite color was quite the topic of conversation later in the day as well, and I could hear her telling Reagan and Harper, Dr. Winkle told me his favorite color is green! It’s not teal like Reagan’s color, it’s green like the color of Mom’s pants today. He loves green. So, very cute.

❤