It was a busy summer and I totally lost track of my blog in the midst of working nights to do programs at work, chatting online with Neil my fiance, wedding planning, and attending two family weddings.

Programs ended Labor Day Weekend and things are slowing down now. Many of our seasonals left last month and fall weather is in full force now. We had our first fall ranger meeting on Friday which I always like. This is the time that we get together to plan our winter schedules and projects.

We each take a turn being the ranger on duty for a month on weekends, and I was very pleased to get the month I wanted so as to avoid working weekends in December, when I plan to go to England for the holidays, and the month of our wedding in February.

We also spent time talking about the ideal placment of the new trash compactor we are getting and the recycling center (sorely needed) that will go with it. I'm excited that we also get to go on our annual ranger field trip, where we go out to visit another park and learn more about it. It's always fun to get to go play tourist for a day and be able to tell visitors later about it. It also is sort of a teambuilding thing, as all the rangers go together and leave the seasonals in charge of the park for a day.

As for projects for the winter I volunteered to help another ranger with new locks and to be in charge of a landscaping project to fix up an area near our registration booth that got dug up to repair a water line. I think it will be fun

It seems I've neglected my Blog for awhile. In May I went for a visit with my fiance Neil in the UK, and I've been really busy at work since getting back. I started out my programming for the season on Memorial Day Weekend and had a good turnout for my new raccoon program and my native american program, but I ended up cancelling my erosion program due to rain.

I'm gradually increasing my number of Evening and Junior Ranger programs now that my ranger aides are back from interpretive training. One of them will be doing Junior Ranger two days a week and the other will be doing Junior Ranger programs three days a week and evening programs two days a week. I will be doing five evening programs and two junior ranger.

This evening we had the local fire and rescue come out to do a program about beach safety. They had a good message and I really was glad to have them come, but their program was too long and a bit preachy. It's only the first time they are doing it though, so I think it will get better. There's nothing quite like hearing about a rescue from someone who actually does the rescuing! If it doesn't rain I have my local guy that is going to tell his local tall tales tomorrow, which is always fun.

On a more personal side, I've been keeping busy tracking down details for the wedding in February. I finally found out that Neil's Visa paperwork has been entered into the system. Now I just hope that we can get through the whole process in time for the wedding! Their web site says they are processing applications from six months ago. I'm freaked about the possibility of it not going through in time. A wedding doesn't go through well without a groom!

I also have my grandparents moving into a retirement home to distract me. It seems I am the main person to be helping sort all of their stuff, and they have over fifty years worth in their house! Thank goodness my aunt is out from Boston to help out for a few days.

Today I finished a two day chainsaw training. I was really nervous about it. I learned about all the parts and safety equipment and even took a chainsaw apart. Yesterday was mostly in the classroom, but today we were out cutting. I did great with my practice face cut on a stump, but when it got to cutting down a tree, the wedge I cut out was kind of a mess. In the end I got the tree to fall in the right direction though. All in all, it turned out okay, but I'm still not excited about using a chainsaw. I'm looking forward to going back to my interpretive program planning tomorrow.

I've been glad this month to have my weekend off again. Since most of my friends have weekends off, it's nice to be able to catch up with them as well as doing some wedding planning stuff.

I'm only running the campground 2 days a week now, so I finally have some time to work on other projects. I started to get some ideas together for an evening program on raccoons today.

I went to a full day meeting yesterday to learn about internal controls. Although learning more about things like credit card security and proper tracking of park property are important, they aren't exactly an enthralling listen, especially if you got up at five to make the two hour drive to get to the meeting. On the plus side, at least I get overtime for all the drive time.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to have my reallocation interview, as all the positions are being re-named and getting new job descriptions. It's hard to know yet what this will actually mean to me personally. Having my job redefined could be a good thing and lead to a pay raise, or it might mean including more duties that I don't really want to do.