August Recap--Rim Fire, Utah Trip, & More!

Hopefully, one of the kids will take pity on me, and fill in the gaps on this blog.  I already keep up the blogs for Eliza and Luke, so I don't do so well on this one.  But a number of events have occurred that should be recorded, so I'll give it at least a bit of an effort!

August for the Houghtons included:

Levi dong the breast stroke (I think)

The annual Tuolumne Aquatics Swim Meet, where Levi, Tess, and Marta swam, and Mom helped.  What can we say. . .it would probably be better if we swam more, but we were there to support the effort!

The newlyweds

My niece Caroline Kemper married Tarl ReedReynoso in the Oakland CA LDS temple on my birthday!  Along with their wedding came the welcome presents of my parents and Caroline's family (my brother) spending some time with us too!

Marta is the first of the Houghton children to totally voluntarily and independently pack up for college!  This is the girls' relatively empty closet after Tess and Marta went through and got rid of the things they would not be wearing.  Also, most of Marta's clothes were packed at this point.

In the changing room

Of course, with the closet cleaned out, school shopping needed to happen.  Marta and Tess requested my presence, but they paid their own bills.  I was just required to hang up the many many many items they tried on!

Thinking of Luke while shopping!

What we could see sometimes from our ridge.

Soulsbyville (not quite big enough to show up on the map)
is just west of Tuolumne city.  Yes, we were close.

In the midst of the shopping and Marta departure preparation, a small fire turned into one of the biggest in California.  And it was in our backyard!  We had much smoke--enough that we had/have to quit using our swamp cooler and whole house fan for temperature management.  We were on "evacuation advisory" for a week, which means we were supposed to have the important stuff packed and ready to go in case of mandatory evacuation order.  We could see flames two ridges from ours at night.  Because of the fire and Mark's responsibilities as Bishop of our ward, we decided we probably should not head off on the Tahoe weekend we'd planned for Marta's sendoff.  So we stayed home and watched movies and checked on people in the ward.  Marta and I finally departed to deliver her to school in Utah on Sunday morning after making a peach cobbler for Mark's birthday.  And about six hours after Marta we left, school in Sonora was cancelled. . .for what turned out to be a week!

View of the fire from Yosemite

The smoke didn't seem to bother Belle the Cat much though.










Even though the fire was raging, we picked 11 boxes of fruit off peach and apple and pear trees in the yard!  (Now I need to get to processing the fruit we did not already consume or distribute, along with the tomatoes and zucchini the garden continues to produce!)





Marta and I arrived in Utah to enjoy a visit with the Woodwards.  We went with my sister Geniel to the top of Snowbird.

Denise and Geniel enjoying the view and being together!

Marta, always good at directions

We got Marta checked into BYU on Tuesday, and then discovered that school in Sonora was cancelled for the rest of the week due to smoke!  In true Houghton fashion, we decided we should celebrate with an impromptu trip to Utah.  So Mark drove through the night, with some assistance from Tess, and arrived in Utah on Thursday to participate in parent orientation and other falderall!

Some of the falderall included a hike to the "Y" on the mountain
above BYU.  We also met up with Tim, Noel, Madison, and Grandma
Houghton, and Cory Heizenrade and Jacob Chain for a fine day of
"wake surfing" and tin foil dinners.  

And then we drove home. . .back into the smoke still. . .to catch up on the things we need to get in place before Labor Day weekend is over--laundry, seminary lessons, lawn mowing, fruit picking, and packing, calculus, etc., etc., etc.

It was truly a memorable August 2013.  

Denise

P.S.  Our missionaries are doing great.  For their updates, check out their blogs.