Alaska summer

I feel like I've had the true Alaska summer experience now. I spent most of my week at my friends' Michelle and Matt's house. Matt's family was up which gave us the perfect excuse for a barbecue. Actually, two barbecues in a week. The highlight was playing croquet in the yard until one in the morning. We really have no dark now. The sun sets for two hours, technically, but it just sits below the horizon as I've been describing. Anyway, back to the story. I haven't played croquet in years. We had a set when we were kids, though. It really is fun. Especially when you have a bevy of kids aiming to take you down. Matt's nephews (Doug, Brandon, Matthew and Nathan) and niece (Heather) were all after me and... yes, I got beat by a 12-year-old ; ) We had a lot of fun, though. Otherwise, things have been pretty much back to normal. The big news this week was the BRAC commission coming to down to hear the city's defense for keeping Eielson Air Force Base open. It's pretty much all we've talked about for two weeks. My mom, Laura, is coming up next Friday. Looking forward to that. May have an unscheduled visit from some of my NAVY buddies, too. Doc, Pete, and Jonesey - my old production team- are trying to get themselves up here on a project mid-July. I'm praying it works out. Would be great to have more company to keep me moving through the summer. The days are long but they sure are flying by!