Retaining Walls, Road Trips, and Other Dangerous Adventures

Does this look like a concrete crew to you?
Marta, Luke, Eliza, Dad, and Levi--Tess is photographer
Mom is probably somewhere eating bonbons with her feet up.

The last few weeks have gone by sooo fast.  I can't believe we're almost done with our fourth week back at school and work.  We have had some interesting new developments in the Houghton household.

See Eliza in the hard hat?  Doesn't she look like an industrious worker?

Eliza came home in December, and is here to stay for this semester at least.  She's preparing to serve an eighteen month mission for the LDS church, hopefully in the coming year.  In order to prepare, Eliza came home to work for the next few months.  Fortunately, she has been successful in finding a job--putting together boxes in a warehouse in Lathrop, CA.  Dad is happy to have a commuting buddy, and Eliza is happy to have a job!

 Yes, it is an "unsightly rock wall.
Tess, Eliza, and Levi slaving away

Mom and Dad concluded that after a year of doing almost no big projects on the house, it was time to start up again.  So, we began excavation, and moved our shed in the front of our house, in  order to pour concrete for the base of a retaining wall.  For those of you who haven't seen our house before, we are built on top of a volcanic-ly created ridge.  In order to build our house, we had to blast an "L" shaped portion of volcanic mud-rock out of the hill.  The vertical side of the "L" is rather unsightly ( in my opinion) and so, we are covering it up, and keeping the "mud-rock" from eroding into our driveway.  Anyway, over the course of two or three separate Saturdays, and vacation days, we set up forms and leveled areas in preparation for the concrete pour.
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we spent 12 hours finishing forms, and pouring concrete.  The funny part, is that it happened to be the first really cold day we've had in weeks, and so, of course, we had to worry about the concrete freezing.  Fortunately, the new portions of our driveway and retaining wall did not entirely freeze, and so they are not, "Ugly as sin" as Dad said they would have been, had they frozen.  We hope to finish by adding concrete blocks to the top, in the next couple of weeks.  We will post pictures, when we're done.  Right now, the bare rebar (impalers as we call them) and concrete look a little bit dull.

The first exit in Montana.
This is where we
chained up!

On the 19th, Mom received a call telling us that our Great Aunt Margaret had passed away that afternoon. Aunt Margaret was a pretty awesome woman, and Mom knew her better than most of her other aunts.  So, Mom decided to take Marta and Tess and go to the funeral and see all of our relatives who live in Canada, where the funeral was going to be.  ROAD TRIP!!!  Mom, Marta, and Tess left about 18 hours after the call was recieved.  Now, the first real storm of the year was finally headed into town and we were driving, so Mom was not completely sure that it would be safe to travel in the inclement weather, and if we couldn't go, there were two options.  1) Mom flies to Canada or 2) Everybody stays home and Mom misses the funeral services.  Both the girls were completely prepared for disappointment (being told that they were not going to go to Canada), and, so, they were VERY excited when Mom showed up during the school rally to take them to Canada!  After quick stops at Grocery Outlet and the Public Library, our journey began.  By the time we finally got out of town, it was about 1 o'clock, and we were supposed to get all the way to Utah (a twelve hour drive) in order to pick up Mom's sister.  Oh, and Dad told us not to drive at night and we were racing a storm across the Sierras.  Luckily, we got out of the mountains before the falling rain was able to turn into snow, and after that, it was smooth driving across Nevada and a little bit of Utah.  During this first leg of the journey, we read the book Ender's Game (by Orson Scott Card, whom we are VERY distantly related to) out loud.  After the prescribed twelve hours of driving and the added hour due to time change, we finally arrived in Utah in the very wee hours of the morning, and then managed about 3 hours of sleep before we left at 6:45 a.m.  Then we left to head north toward Great Falls, Montana to meet with Mom's parents and yet another sister.  We only had to put the chains on once!  We met Mom's group by 8 p.m. and then finally went for our final destination--Canada.  Which was pretty much AMAZING!!!

Other news:





Luke has finished his college and scholarship applications.  Now for the waiting game. . .and finishing up his senior project (putting on a freshman orientation program at the high school).

Besides basketball, Levi participates
in crazy hair day at school.

Levi has been playing basketball on two different teams and has discovered that he truly enjoys the sport!  The new driveway addition gives us almost a half court for practicing.  Levi's excited to be going to see "Jimmer" play with the Sacramento Kings this weekend.





 Dad's busily working to schedule and get reservations for his hike of the John Muir trail.  He plans to hike the entire 230 miles this summer to celebrate his 50th birthday.  This weekend he hopes to find some boots at REI to support the venture.

We still do manage to find some time to play--here is the crew on the Wii playing "Just Dance 3."

Anyway, lots of other stuff is happening here at the house!  Life's been CRAZY so hopefully when it slows down, we'll post more!!!

Marta, Tess and Mom