Craziness!

Over the last couple of weeks, we Houghtons have been up to a lot of mischief!  They say that a picture can tell a thousand words, so here are some pictures/videos of our latest achievements and activities.

Home Alone No More

Luke, Tess, Marta, and Levi "waiting up" for Mom and Dad to come home.

This was the state of Mom and Dad's room when they returned at 1 a.m. 

from a week in Chicago and Wisconsin.


Sweet Halloween

The bag of candy bars purchased in mid-October for school lunches was still around in mid-November--a puzzle until this picture of Levi's Halloween "take" surfaced!  No wonder there were significant quantities of candy wrappers in the laundry every time Levi's jeans were washed.  

Tess is 14!

Marta, birthday girl Tess, and Luke

Did Tess mention Mom and Dad were gone for her fourteenth birthday?  A travesty!  

In efforts at penance, a birthday dinner and cake and more presents were offered a week late.  

Fall Formal

Luke and Marta both attended Fall Formal--not together.  Luke went with a date, and Marta (still shy of sixteen) went with some girlfriends.  They looked good though, despite Luke's fashion sense!

Dad donned his fancy duds to chauffeur Marta and
friends for the event (in "Babe," the 15-passenger van).

Bob

 "Kitchen still life" reminds us that the calm of Sunday afternoon was disturbed by Marta's shouts of "Bob, bob, bob!" from her upstairs vantage point.  Indeed, a (new and larger) bobcat (than the one last summer) was circling the chicken coop (from which a chicken had recently "gone missing.")  Dad leapt from his slumber on the couch and dashed to the garage for the 22.  By the time he emerged into the back yard, our feline friend had already cleared the 8' fence, nabbed "Chloe the chicken" and effortlessly escaped the coop.  Dad got off two shots, causing "Bob" to drop the chicken (still alive and laying eggs now).  Too bad the sight wasn't in place for the shots.  At least, that's what Dad says.  The 22 is now back atop the corner shelf in the kitchen.  The chickens are under house arrest unless we determine we'll be around for the day and on "Bob alert!"

Von Houghton Trio

In addition, the Water Polo season ended, including sections and the awards banquet.  The high school football team made it to sections.  And the soon-to-be-famous “Von Houghton Family Trio” (Luke, Marta, and Tess) sang the national anthem for the game on Veteran’s Day.  They also played in the Golden Regiment band—a scraggly-looking lot given the holiday and cold weather.  (Mom and Dad's brag:  Listeners proclaimed the three-part harmony anthem as “the best all season!”)  We won the game.

Marta Celebrates #16

Marta, sweet sixteen, finally!

 To celebrate Marta's big day, Tess invited a friend of Marta's over and provided fun activities on Friday.  On Saturday, we got up, cleaned the church (and of course, celebrated with donuts).  Then we enjoyed reading aloud one of Marta's birthday presents, the recently-published "Inheritance" book, as we headed down to meet up with Levi (who was on a scout campout).  We picnicked at a river park and looked for spawning Salmon.  None to be seen this weekend.  We did find this crowd of kids horsing around though!

Levi (in scout uniform with bedhead), Luke, Tess, and Marta

Then we drove into "The City" (Modesto) to see "Riverdance."  We did love the dancing and the music--almost as mesmerizing now as it was to Luke when he was entranced by a video of the group when he was a little boy.  It was a fun family venture--we wish Eliza could have joined us!  At the end of the day, Marta proclaimed her favorite part of the occasion was everyone being happy together (e.g. not fighting, enjoying reading the book together, and doing something memorable).

How we Survived!?!

As previously posted, our parents abandoned us for a little while.  They are returning late tonight.  I am still wondering how we made it through this last week, so I will go over it with/for you.

Thursday: Go to school, water polo party, come home and try not to kill each other during dinner dishes.
That wasn't too bad.

Friday: Go to Seminary (at 5:55 a.m.), go to school, try to get everyone to and from sports and friends' houses, watch Tangled.  Ok, still not bad.

Saturday: My 14th birthday.  I felt extremely abandoned on this day.  First Marta wouldn't let me out of bed for breakfast preparations.  Then I went downstairs and had Cinnamon Toast Crunch, opened presents, and hurried to get ready for the Memorial Service for our friends that passed away (see previous posts).  While there, Marta and I performed four times and Luke performed thrice.  Do you know how hard it is to sing when you are crying?  Overall, the service was beautiful.  It was at our local LDS (Mormon) Chapel and we had the gym and overflow behind it open and there were still people standing.  Whoa!  Then we went home and Marta went to an old friend's birthday party (on my birthday!).  Later we went to our ward Trunk'r'Treat.  No pictures, sorry, our costumes were not very exciting in any way though, so you aren't missing much.  When we finally went home, we were undecided on what to do, so we played Wii Sports.  Extremely tiring. ;)

Sunday: Church and dinner at the Richardson's.  Pumpkin Waffles with some special sort of sauce.  It was amazing!

Monday: Seminary, school (Marta wasn't feeling well and stayed home that day), Levi went trick-or-treating with the Richardsons, and Luke and I went to the Deardens' for dinner and party.  There is too much candy at our house!  Still not awful...

Tuesday: Seminary, school, water polo for Marta, and homework (???).  Ok, that sounds easy...

Wednesday: Late Seminary and school, take Levi to swimming, get Marta's water polo bag to her so she will have it after practice (she forgot it), pick up Little Ceaser's, and go to the Mutual activity which was broom hockey.  I guess today was the only truly crazy one.

We are so glad that Mom and Dad are coming back and have several surprises for them for when they finally get home.

It was a great learning experience, but I like it better when Mom and Dad are here.

Love, Tess