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).