Boys' Camping Trip

Every year our church schedules a fishing trip for the men and often their sons as well. So C and P went this year (E is still just a bit too much for a trip like this- maybe next year). Every year they've gone to Groundhog Lake in Colorado. Peter is now thoroughly convinced he wants to live in CO when he grows up. He tried to convince Christian that we should actually move up there as soon as possible, moving all our extended family up with us of course. :) The rest of us went and spent the weekend with Grace and Ransom, which I have no pictures of, but we enjoyed nevertheless. Oh yes! Peter caught four fish, all on his own this year, as well as reeling in a few for a very kind and patient man.

The camp



Peter holding a crawdad (bait)

Christian also spent an extra day in CO helping a friend install some cabinets that he had made for them last month and these pictures he took on his way to their house.

A beaver dam

The Rockies

Steps and Stuff

Well, I'll post the funnest first- Berea taking a few steps. Tirzah is starting to stand a little, but mostly thinks it's a game and enjoys falling back into my arms. Berea's just Little Miss Adventure (I can foresee Tirzah getting in trouble a lot for Berea's ideas...).


The fire is well over 14,000 acres now, but is 25% contained (which is good). Here's our new view- blackened and smoky. :(


Yesterday the kids and I painted Peter's loft bed and the wall underneath (to hide all the drawings and dried boogers on the wall mostly). I survived when Elijah started painting the wrong wall and I survived when I discovered paint all over the bathroom and kitchen from cleaning up. I even survived when I discovered that paint had leaked through the drop cloths onto the carpet. Tips for survival: Comet powder works wonders for removing paint from walls, toilets, cabinets, etc. Scissors work great for removing dried paint from carpet (shh- don't tell Christian). Fingernails and shower puff things work decently for removing dried paint from children. Conditioner actually works great for removing dried paint from hair.



Related to painting yesterday...while moving the computer desk we found Elijah's water bottle that's been missing for well over 2 months! It was really driving me crazy, as I KNEW it was in the house somewhere and had even looked under the desk several times. I even dreamed about finding it. So we are all (at least Elijah and I) rejoicing.


Yesterday one of our petunias bloomed! This is a matter of great pride as C started these indoors back in March. We didn't have much luck with any other flowers we tried starting indoors, so we're excited that this one made it!


And that's all for now!

10,000 acres or more

If you go to http://www.knau.org/ and click on the map, you'll see the perimeter of the fire, as of yesterday. This morning they have been flying around and getting new perimeters, so it will probably change today. If you zoom in a little to see the words, our house is close to Neptune Drive, on the East side of Hwy 89, Northeast of Silver Saddle. The news reports are saying the fire actually reached some back yards in Timberline but the fire fighters were able to ward them off! They seem to be doing an astounding job. http://www.azdailysun.com/ has a couple great articles. Today there isn't supposed to be much wind, so hopefully they'll be able to get it more under control before the winds start up again. Anyway, sorry, no new pictures- last night the flames were all over the hill that had just a line of flames the night before last. It would be beautiful if it wasn't so sad.

Fire Update

The fire's up to almost 9,000 acres now, though the view looks a lot better to me. Maybe they've stopped the fire in the tree tops and it's mostly on the ground now? I don't know. Here are a couple pictures from this morning from our vantage point...

 

 

Big Fire

This fire just started this morning and is over 3,000 acres already! Neighborhoods around us are being evacuated due to smoke, but so far we are smoke-free. If the wind died down I'm sure we'd get a lot of smoke, but that's really what needs to happen to slow down the fire. Anyway, here are some pictures taken from our back yard...

 

These flames were in the tree tops and were actually extinguished pretty quickly by helicopter or plane. 

 

A silhouette of a helicopter in the orange smoke- at about 5:00pm.

 

7:30pm- you can see it's come down a ways in the last couple of hours. 

  

8:00- now we can see the flames

 

And about 8:30 (taken with a telephoto lens- it's not that close, nevertheless I think we'll pack a bag in case the smoke gets bad in the middle of the night...)