Night time.

I would like to quickly dedicate this post to the late-night adventures that, as a Houghton, I have come to love and cherish.  Now, I know that in D&C 88:124, we are told that we're supposed to be in bed early, and that we'll be blessed by doing this, and by rising early.  Well, we've got half of that.  During the school year, Tess, Marta, Luke, Mom, and Dad all rise at 5:00 a.m.!  Seminary starts at 5:55, so we actually leave the house while it's still dark outside, every morning.  We usually get home after dark too, around 7-8 o'clock.  Do you have any idea how depressing it is to only see one's house in daylight for 2 days a week?  Enough about the teenagers though.  The rest of the house is bustling as soon as the sun goes down.

Homework is a popular occupation for the evenings these days, and Mom and Dad know that between Facebook and online course-work, the kids will demand priority on the computers from about 8-11.  Usually, the house is quiet by about 11, but occasionally the homework festivities continue past midnight.  It's surprising how much sleep you can live without!  Mom shows us all up by making breakfast and lunches every morning, with a smile on her face (although the bags under her eyes give away her tiredness).  Most of us kids are a bit grouchy by the end of the week, and it takes all of Mom's peace-making skills to keep us from biting each other's heads off at the breakfast table.  Of course, the morning is the hardest part of the day.

One of the traditions that I hope will always remain in the Houghton family, is that of Sunday family games and activities!  Usually, we convene for Family Council on Sundays at about 8.  All of the kids complain, and we all wind up sitting around the living room discussing the week ahead.  Every week, Dad starts the meeting off with "alright, we've got another really busy week ahead of us..." the kids respond "yes Dad, every week is really busy."  After much discussion (about who's giving who rides, and where so-and-so needs to be on which day, and who's got what meetings and where, and who's going to be too busy to help with dinner on one night, etc) we usually beg some dessert from Mom and Dad.  They give in, and then we're all wound up, so we have family games!!!!  In the past we have had family ping-pong tournaments, rounds of The Great Dalmuti, hide-and-go-seek in the dark, star gazing/family wrestling time, run-up-and-down-the-stairs-chasing-each-other-around-the-house-time, family chat time, etc.  It's pretty much amazing.  All of it.  I think some of my favorite memories with the whole family have been these times when it's dark outside, and we are inside talking and laughing and singing and tackling and just having a really good time.

So basically the "after-hours" at the Houghton house are the best.  I love my family, and whether we're helping do dishes, or frantically doing homework, or grouching at each other in the morning, we have a blast when it's dark outside.

Love, Marta

P.S. it's 11:00

Pears, Computers, Swimsuits, and Cats

Pears

"Family Home Evening" pears

The last can of pears, with all
 colors added together, ended
up "camouflage" green.

 The two boxes of pears Mark brought home were green on Sunday and ready to eat on Monday.  And ripe pears don't pack well in school lunches.  While the kids were at school, one box became 14 quarts of ordinary canned pears, 10 quarts of Pear-Pineapple Syrup, and two batches (with some garden berries added), of PearBerry jam.  By 5:00, Denise was exhausted!  So when everyone returned home and had finished up dinner, it was time for our "Family Home Evening" activity.  Of course, with Mark thinking he was in charge, production moved to the back porch (even though it was dark) and the food dyes came out.  In no time at all (okay, over the course of "many" "exhausting" hours--descriptors added by Luke), we had 30+ more quarts packed and ready to process.   Beautiful, yes?  (By the way, photos taken the next a.m.)

Computers

The new computer arrived on Thursday and Luke set it up.  This picture does not quite show that the monitor is HUGE--the better for watching Netflix movies, my dear!

Swimsuits

Marta had a water polo tournament this weekend, and is shown here sneaking in her "day of rest" before another crazy week of seminary, water polo, and school.  (Those things on her lap are swimsuits.  I count seven.  Why does one girl need seven swimsuits?)

Cats!

You can see the bottom of the bed here on our sleeping deck.  Last night at about 10:45, Mark had just settled in that bed to enjoy the stars and half-moon when he heard a noise and looked up to see, between the fence and the tree pictured here, a mountain lion strolling along the ridge.  There is a gap between the ridge and the deck, but it's easily "leapable" for a large, limber predator.  Belle, our domestic cat leaps it all the time!  Mark didn't call through the window to me to let me in on the sight, imagine that!  Belle stayed curled  up at Mark's feet all night long, but while we think the chickens were locked up, there was one missing this morning.  Hmmmm. . .   (Our large feline visitor could well be the one whose photograph was in this week's paper, linked  here).

The One That Didn't Get Away!

Mark and Levi went camping at Dead Man's Creek last night, and this morning, Levi caught this beauty! Fifteen inches, at least.  And Levi's "hooked" on fishing.  Trout for dinner tonight!

Denise

Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter...

As you may know, we Houghtons are hard-core Harry Potter fans, so here's a Harry Potter post:

I apologize for the irreverence, by the way.

After I read these, it took me about an hour to stop laughing. 

Love, Marta

Labor Day Weekend: Love, Marta

You'd think that since our family has such a great work ethic (ahem... cough, cough...) we would spend LABOR day working in the yard or something right?  Nope.  For the first time in their lives, Mom and Dad spent Saturday of labor day weekend sitting on the couch and watching the tennis and the world track competition on T.V.  Needless to say, all of us kids were shocked, and so we  took advantage of the once-in-a-life-time-opportunity to sleep (for hours), read, play on the computer, and do regular teenager/tween stuff.  It was great fun, I assure you, although Mom and Dad are still horrified every time they remember that they had a whole entire day and all they did was fix the leaky sink and clean the church!  It's a shame we didn't get some photographic evidence.

On Sunday, church was attended, and our numbers were more than doubled by the number of guests we had.  The primary was huge for a day!  After church everyone took naps (again), and later we had a lovely dinner of steak, pealoffe, veggies, etc with our Auntie Julie and her good friend Loyd.  It was fun, and Mom and Dad enjoyed the adult company.  There followed many stirring rounds of "Pajamas", a card game Dad had allegedly played many times as a boy.  There was much cheating involved, and let it be said that easy cheese and card games should not mix, as Dad reminded us repeatedly.  When midnight began to loom, Mom and Dad finally began to stop partying and there ensued a battle over Tess's comforter which did NOT end in tears.

Monday morning came, bright and early, and we enjoyed Labor Day pancakes, and Mom, Dad, Levi, and Tess headed up to the Eagle Meadows area to hike and enjoy the day.  Luke went to work, and Marta stayed home to do homework and post on this blog (shh).  It is important to note that today is Luke's last day of work for the season, because the Twain Harte lake will be closing.

 The conquering life savers shall retire for the season

Luke will be free to return to his school endeavors.

Meanwhile, Eliza has (FINALLY) announced her new public health: epic-demiology major  (epidemiology for those of you who didn't get that)  Luke is happy that he will soon have a fellow germ-a-phobe in the house.

I would now like to add a few pictures to elaborate on former blog posts that I believe were inadequate.  You know what they say, a picture can say a thousand words:

 This is a picture of our HP 7.2 costumes.  the two extra non-Houghtons are Camilla and Logan Richardson, dressed as the Gray Lady and Gelert Grindelwald.

 Here we see Luke, Dad, Bishop Dearden, Eric, Brother Evans, Ian, and Brother ...Evans' son-in-law on top of Mount. Whitney

I wanted to say hello to anyone reading this who doesn't know me.  My good friend Willard is eating me in this picture (Willard is our guard-crocodile)

Sorry for any bad grammar, punctuation, etc.