Looking at my little yellow write-in-the-rain notebook, I've noticed that the summer to-do list is still quite long.

It's a habit I learned as a child, perhaps as a result of the ambitious New Year's resolutions lists I would make each year, vowing to conquer such goals as making my bed each morning, getting straight A's in math and finally mastering the jump-serve despite my 5-foot-4 deficit.

So it is that each summer, I make a similar list, this one full of hopes and dreams for the days ahead. I promise myself that this time, our family will do it all. As the school year winds down and the prospect of a summer filled with camping, biking and hiking trips looms large and inviting, I'm sure that THIS will be the summer that it gets done.

And once again, I'm so, so wrong.

While there are still a few more weeks left to Summer Alaska 2008, I doubt I'll find an available day to hike Crow Pass. That Prince William Sound boat trip never came to pass, either. Nor did the weekend in Homer, the Bear Mountain hike or the public-use cabin trip to Nancy Lakes.

Alaska is just so huge, and there is so much to do. Everyday life has a habit of getting in the way, too. If it weren't for the writing deadlines, the dog chores, the kid activities and the slight obsession with road biking, well, things might just get done in our household.

Yet, there is another side to this so-called summer that marks it, still, as a success. Despite the low temperatures, the cloudy days and the constant interruptions by rain, the summer has offered its rewards.

There was the campout in Eagle River that included a hike along the river with friends, the Hatcher Pass visits that seemed to always conjure sunshine, and the bike-team barbecue with inner tube rides on Rocky Lake for the most adventurous.

The list is only half completed, but it's shorter than it was in May. Surely next year's list will be even longer, adding those "still-to-do's" to new goals.

Because in the end, a partially completed list is better than none at all.