Well, I suppose in some ways this is officially the last day of summer. It's funny, but as fall came, suddenly it just felt like fall. It was as if September on the calendar sent a message to the weather saying, "Get a little cooler, and drop one leaf to let us know that this won't last forever." And so it did. And as always, as with so many things in life, it's hard to say when the 'last time' was for some things. The pool--I have a feeling we went for the last time...whenever it was we last went.... The outdoor pools close after Labor Day, and since we are going to be out of town over the weekend, it's doubtful we'll go back. And with a busy day and evenings getting toward the 60s, maybe people don't want to swim outside right now. Lucky for us, we have a beautiful indoor pool right down the street and an aquatic sport and lifestyle to keep us using it. But still, there's something about parting ways with those lazy days at the pool (or the not so lazy swim team days...) that just says a change is happening.

And would you believe it, but we've been doing "school" for 10 days now and are 5 days behind in grammar? But that's more of summer for you and a hazard of starting before public schoolers go back. I hate to make the kids miss out on playing baseball at the playing fields with their new friends, to say no when someone from swim team calls and wants to come over. Summer is short, and friendships are important, especially developing new ones while the new friends are still wild and free.

This also marks the final day of our Learning RX program. Well, not quite. Walter's new trainer had a family emergency, so he wasn't able to do his last training day yesterday, but today we set up his end of program testing anyway. He's in there right now, and I'm trying to stay calm and unworried. It is what it is, and I'm glad that we gave it all we had. I can't say for sure right now what effects it has had (hard to say anything when your life is made up mostly of swimming, throwing baseballs, playing video games, and camping), but I know that I'm happy that we aren't wondering What If this was something that would help his memory and concentration. So I guess the results are still unfolding.

In the meantime, Walter has finished all but 2 of the 168 levels of Brainware Safari, a program that is designed to take 12 weeks and where you aren't necessarily supposed to finish the levels, but to progress. Walter had gone thruogh 120 in the first week, and even though there are some others that have been challenging, he has come up with innovative and smart ways to work on the tough ones, things I might not have thought of. He's only been at it about 5 weeks, and one of those weeks we were out of town and he didn't have any time to work on it, and other weeks he has been below the recommended 5 hours a week because we've put his time and energy into LearningRX instead. So I'm really proud of him!

In midst of this good, we've also had some icky stuff going on. Our saltwater tank is on a dying spree. This week alone we have lost first our beautiful yellow tang, then our royal gramma, and now the new orange-eyed angel fish. I had been blaming the new fish for the other deaths, but when we found him on the bottom, being taken apart by hermit crabs, we figured he might not have been an aggressor but perhaps a disease vector. Or just the latest victim of whatever is wrong with the tank in general. I took the corpse in for a credit this morning and also took in some water to be tested, but everything is coming out fine for now. I don't know what to make of it. The fish aren't showing any obvious signs of illness--no spots or parts falling apart, so we can't make a diagnosis. For now, we're vaguely chalking it up to stress from the tank move and lowered immune systems and an illness. I just hope that Nemo and the cardinal, Edward, don't succumb. It's worrisome to say the least. A hobby is no fun when everything is dead.