We're Not So Good At Pictures, BUT. . .

This morning as I thought about what to include on our blog update, it occurred to me that I went to a water polo tournament this weekend (that's two days, four games, and much much warm sunshine. . .okay, hot sunshine) with a camera in my purse, and didn't remove it once.  Mark bemoans my tendency to forget photos.  

HOWEVER, thanks to the internet and other people who do remember to take pictures, we can capture (and share) a bit of our lives over the past few weeks!  

So here are our updates, in no particular order:

Marta says she is in the best shape and the most tan she has ever been.  

This can be attributed to the 8 sessions of water polo practice scheduled each week.  

She does look buff, doesn't she?  

Tess has become a leader on her Frosh/Soph polo team.  

Not only is she a defensive force to be reckoned with, 

but she has learned to shoot.  Woohoo!  

When not playing polo she is doing homework for her AP European History class.  

As you may remember from our last post, we just replaced the kitchen floor. 

(And it does look fine.  Very fine.)

In fact, just before I left for one of the three water polo tournaments 

I've driven teams to this month, I finished up the trim on the project.  

(And my major house project in August was installing a new dishwasher).  

So when I received a call at the tournament from. . .a-child-who-will-not-be-named 

. . .that he had accidentally filled the dishwaSHER with dishwaSHING soap, 

and that the rubbermaid bin of rag towels was not sufficient to wipe up the suds, 

I was somewhat concerned.  

Fortunately, the mess was cleaned up and no permanent damage evident 

when I returned!

This is Luke and his roommate Tyler, 

demonstrating their away-at-college domesticity in the kitchen.  

This may be more representative of the real cooking that goes on there.  

But Luke's texts, calls, and occasional video chats are evidence 

that he is managing to survive on his cooking.

And he's become the dishwashing instructor in his apartment.  

"Yes, you need to start with HOT water.  Oh, and put some soap in it.  

And then you rub the dish with the cloth til all the food is off.  

And when you put the clean dish down, it can't be on a dirty counter.  

So this is how you wipe down the counter."  

Don't we all appreciate that we don't live with five guys in a college apartment?  

And speaking of kitchens. . .

Eliza will be wrapping up her job as school lunch lady in the next week or so.  

We will miss the leftovers we have learned to use in creative ways.  

She won't miss the sore feet and crazy schedule

 of juggling full-time work with two additional (part-time) jobs.  

But she may just miss the adoring middle-school boys and cute kindergarteners!  

She has started teaching music at a tiny local school--just a few hours a week.  

Thank goodness for years of singing Primary songs!

Eliza continues to prepare for her 

December 19 departure to the

Florida Fort Lauderdale Mission.  

We're excited about company 
coming to join her as she goes 
here next week-->

Mark and Levi have been learning more about fly fishing in scouting.  
Last night they took advantage of a full moon to go on 
their second fishing outing of the day.  
Levi caught a fish and learned to remove the hook and release it.  
Good thing since he doesn't really like eating fish!
Levi has also been enjoying a two week break from swimming, 
riding his bike to school, and his friend Jake, 
who moved into the neighborhood last week!  
They're quickly becoming inseparable.




And Mark has been reminding me lately that the odometer on his red "zippy" commuter car is approaching 200,000 miles.  This is his new dream car.  

Fortunately, he can't quite stomach

the salesmen at the car lot, 

so he won't be dipping into the car savings account.  

Yet!

Levi, Tess, and Marta auditioned for the Sonora Bach Festival two weeks ago.

They will all be playing on Sunday, October 7 at 3pm 

at the Church of the 49ers in Columbia.  

Pretty cool, don't you think!

That's the fun we've been up to!

Denise

Operation "Replace the Floor"

Labor Day at the Houghtons is frequently interpreted a little differently than in most other places.  Old habits die hard, and when Denise thinks of labor she likes to have a project. And a couple of weeks ago this one jumped into our awareness, so there was no escaping.  It seems that some smallish pests had crept from their subterranean lairs to feast upon the fine Birch floor in the kitchen.  So labor day weekend finds Tess and Levi seeking revenge, tearing up the hollow floor boards that had squashed when sat upon.

 Of course to make the project go a little faster required the introduction of power tools.  

Six or seven cuts and the floor was history.

 In head to head competition, Levi's slam and stomp on the small pry bar beat out the team of Mom and Tess with a large wrecking bar, and Dad working alone with the other pry bar.  Kind of scary to discover that we have so many tools for demolition.  But the result of the application of blood, sweat and power tools was total removal of kitchen floor in one day.

 Here's is where we store the world's most expensive fire wood.  

Yes that would be the wood shed!

 Wood all removed, we decided to take out the slate entry left at the end of Saturday.

Sunday was a painful recovery day, but Labor Day morning we were back at it, pulling out the french doors in the entry to check for any more little snacking spots.  Found some, but nothing damaging so we started with the rebuilding phase.  New slate finish laminate was the flooring of choice and chief installer, Denise, went to work.  By 4:45, with much assistance from the faithful Tess, she had half of the kitchen floor covered.  (Did we mention Eliza and Marta worked guarding the lake on Saturday and Monday?  

Smart girls!)

Denise would have finished the floor on Monday but we were saved 

by an invitation to the Spangler's big Labor Day bash.  

So we were forced to take a break and let Denise finish up over the next few days....

(the healing of sore muscles and knees, and picking 10 boxes of peaches, 

along with keeping up with the weekly activities slowed progress just a bit).

.

By Thursday the floor was complete sans the missing trim

(which will go back in next week)  

So with substantial completion, Mark, Eliza and Levi decided to take a couple of days off for a road trip to Tahoe. They left at 4:30 on Friday afternoon and drove to Tahoe where they camped for the night.  Saturday morning, and after a leisurely breakfast of fresh peach scones, hot chocolate and omelette they headed for the trail-head.  The goal was the summit of Mount Houghton (named after the famous--or infamous--Houghtons of the Donner party).  Unfortunately, the combination of altitude stricken stomachs, sleeping in, and Saturday night party commitments, precluded a successful summit celebration.  However, the trip did provide Dad with a much clearer vision for what will be required to climb the mountain next time.

 Yes, and while we were tripping around Tahoe, Denise was tripping around Modesto with Tess and her water Polo team.  Unfortunately for Tess, Mom didn't take any pictures, so the picture of Marta's team will have to suffice.  Tess did score goals, make great steals, get sunburnt, and be a great defender on her "Frosh/Soph" team!

 And after some soul searching and shuffling of classes, Marta found herself playing in the Golden Regiment band for the opening home game of the Sonora Wildcat football season.  She did get home in time on Friday night to get a good night's sleep before travelling to Modesto for her ACT test Saturday morning!

Sunday evening we had our weekly video chat with Luke, who still hasn't learned to close his closet before he turns on the camera.....He's surviving at school, although his "care package" requests indicate he believes he is living in Siberia.

Overall a busy week, which kept everyone running, but left us all in good spirits, ready to take on the next one (sort of...)!

Mark (at the behest of Marta, with editing by Tess)

Florida

Hello, world! I (Eliza) have pretty much been offline for the past six months or so, and that isn't about to end. However, I thought I would lend my fabulous blogging talents to writing a post on the family blog for the first time in, well, forever.

The exciting news for this week is my mission call!

I've been called to serve in the Florida Fort Lauderdale Mission, speaking Spanish. I report to the Provo MTC on December 19.

A few fun things about the mission:
-In July there were 140 baptisms (for about the same number of missionaries)
-The mission includes Miami and the Florida Keys
-There are a lot of Cuban and Puerto Rican immigrants in Florida... and a lot of rich white retirees
-Manatees live in Florida!
-Alligators and cockroaches do too, darn
-The climate is semi-tropical
-Hurricanes hit Florida
-It is humid in Florida
-All the missions in Florida are bicycle-riding missions (this is hearsay from a guy at my YSA branch who served in Tampa)
-My mission president will be Donald E. Anderson. His wife is Janet Anderson. They are from El Paso, Texas.

There are a lot of rules that I'll have to follow in the mission, and some friends and co-workers have thought they weren't fair, or they were too strict. But let it be known that I am willingly giving up the chance to swim, wade at the beach, watch TV, surf the web, read fiction, listen to non-LDS music, do my laundry whenever I choose, stay up past 10 pm, and go to Harry Potter world while I'm in Florida.

I am going on a mission simply because the gospel is true. Jesus Christ is our Redeemer and the Plan of Salvation is real. Through the Atonement, we will all have the chance to become all that we can be. I have found no greater joy than in feeling the Holy Ghost and knowing that I'm doing what is right. I believe that a knowledge and understanding of the gospel is the greatest gift that I can give to anybody, and so I am choosing to go teach the gospel to the people of Southern Florida. I can hardly wait!





I wasn't here yesterday when the rest of the family was tearing apart the floor - instead, Marta and I were working as lifeguards at Twain Harte Lake. Tomorrow is my last day, and I find myself surprisingly nostalgic after six summers there. I never even dreamed I would be working at my high school job, but in this economy a job that gives me 40 hours a week with a raise every year is hard to find. Especially one where only about 5% of the time at work is actually *work*.... Okay, sitting on stand is fairly high-pressure sometimes, but most days you're sitting in the guardhouse, waiting for something to happen for at least 50% of your day. Mostly we're insurance and a morale boost for all the worried parents out there. It's awesome.

The lake is also beautiful, as you can see.

I will miss it! But hopefully next year we'll have a new crop of Houghtons at Twain Harte Lake...

These pictures were taken at 10:40 this morning. The girls are going to school (with many hard classes), going to water polo, going to seminary, and doing homework every day. They're tired out enough at the end of the week that they will sleep for a good eleven hours!

These pictures are from our trip to Six Flags Discover Kingdom earlier this year. I thought they were appropriate as Luke is starting his second official week of school at "the Zoo" tomorrow. He's one of the smarter mammals at the zoo, and he's even learning to feed himself! We hope he's not eating insects, though...



Well, that's another week at the Houghton house! Upcoming we have:
-Eliza starting to work as a music teacher at Belleview Elementary
-Marta and Tess beginning the official water polo game season
-Luke passing the add/drop deadline - scary!
-Levi walking up the hill from the bus stop for the first time this year (this may just be a dream...)
-New flooring in the kitchen
-More cake and ice cream!
-The peach tree being harvested - yumyumyum

<3
Eliza

Guess What!!??

For Dad's birthday, he got a CAMERA!!! 

 

I am SOOO excited because I get to steal Dad's camera and can take pictures again!!! Now the last post didn't have any pictures of Hoghtons in it anywhere, so I decided it's time to make up for that.  I have re-done the post, with (almost) all Houghtons, and this is what it REALLY looks like.

In case you forgot:

+

Marta's Eye

Tess' Eye

Levi's Eye

=

 We all have TONS of homework.  Here is the stack of text books that currently reside in our home 

 After a long day of school and swim/water polo practice, a young 12 year old boy was doing his 7th grade homework, working away studiously and...

then he rubbed his eyes, and he was like

OUCH, that hurt. 

 (Note:  This is not our cat.  Our cat is Belle, and she is gray and white, and would never be caught in this ridiculous pose.)

   So then she thought, "I'll just close my eyes for a second"...

 And then BAM.  She was asleep!!

And then everyone else joined in the sleeping fest, because it was happening in the kitchen, where everything exciting happens (mainly food).

 And a few hours later, she woke from her deep slumber...

 And he said "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!  I have SO MUCH homework to do!!!!!!!!!

Other Notes:

• There really is WAY too much homework to do, but all the kids are growing accustomed to the load.
• Everyone misses our dear brother/son Luke a TON, but he is having a grandios time at college without us (he also has a TON of homework, or so we hear)
• Marta and Tess had their first water polo games this week, starting out the season by playing Pitman- Tess was a strong player and important part of her team's offense and defense; Marta was sluggish, but did score 1 goal.
• Eliza got her mission call, but I'm going to dedicate the next post to all of that, so you will have to wait a couple of days...
• Levi has started 7th grade and is attending school, swimming, and piano lessons faithfully
• Twain Harte Lake closes on Monday, so Marta and Eliza will be done life guarding for the rest of the summer.
• We are tearing out and re-doing our kitchen floor- pictures of that will also come in the next blog post
• ummm... yeah, I'll get to work on the next blog post now...

Love,

Marta