Computer trouble. My mac is in the shop and before it got there it had been acting badly for quite a while. That and the trouble I've had with my massive-feeling July "roundup" (I was working forever on a draft that got lost in the computer crash -- plus the accidental publishing of the first portion ... ) has created a paralysis on the blogging front. Just wanted to explain myself. I hope to be back online with pics and posts soon. If I can, I'll go back to blogging before I get the mac back, but photos will be more of a challenge without it. Each day there are precious and wonderful little things that slip by. Capturing just one would be nice and restore my blogging equilibrium.

I can't believe summer is almost over.

Here is one of only three photos on Chris's computer (the one I'm borrowing until my Mac is back). It must have been taken over a year ago. I can't find a date for it.

Hmm, it was taken via the computer with Photo Booth, and that reminds me that I can take photos that way for now.

Today Chris is working on the yard and I am working on turning this current ransacked-looking basement room ...

into a play space for the kids. My goal is to get a rug and toy bins in there this week. But first I need to clear a space for those things.

I cleared up the laundry room yesterday. It's not actually organized, but at least I picked up and vacuumed. It's an improvement.

The kids are exploring and playing inside and out and moving between the work spaces. Halina reports that they're pretending they don't have parents; Chris and I are just supposed to be nice helper adults who are vaguely employing them.

I had planned to take them to the park but it's nice to be home and exploring and tending to things around here. Having Chris around this year (vs. last year when he was gone so much, including many weekends) makes a difference in re-inhabiting our house and property again. I feel like I spent much of last year escaping it. Now it's time for a re-Occupy movement of our own.

Update: This afternoon, Chris took Halina ice skating (with some sidewalk roller skating on the way). This random-seeming daddy-daughter outing was 100% her idea. She started campaigning about a week ago. She tells me she's been skating "for years" although she just got her roller skates at Christmas and hasn't worn them more than a dozen times, not so much rolling as picking along slowly. I'm touched by this photo that Chris just emailed from the rink.

And here she is en route in downtown Oakland.

Updated version: It's August now. Time for a roundup of fun things from July that I didn't capture in earlier posts.

(Update on the update: This ambitious roundup never got finished. Now I know about attempting roundups.)

On Fourth of July I insisted that we see both the morning parade in Alameda ...

... and evening fireworks in Moraga (no pics of that, but it featured lots of dancing).

The next day Amila hung out for a few hours. She was a neighbor who went to our preschool. Now her family lives in Costa Rica (where we hope to visit them!).

The way the girls fell back into playing, it didn't seem like they hadn't seen each other for a year.

Later in the month we went to a BBQ for Amila and her family, where we got to say goodbye and visit mutual friends.

July also brought Sophia's birthday party at Little Farm. (I love this collection of sunkissed heads.)

Jasper and Halina fed the animals together and held hands.

Halina enjoyed a morning of working alone with Daddy at his office. Luke and I picked her up afterward.

At the office, she made a sleeping bag for Ramona.

I like this picture of Luke (he's so in love with the garbage truck but also a little scared of it). If he were to write a book now, this would be the cover.

And this would be his author photo.

I took that photo at the wonderful Bay Area Children's Discovery Museum in Sausalito, where we met up with Jasper. In July, of course.

Another person who likes to take photos with her cute (and unfortunately not so functional) pink camera.