We are sorry.

We are sorry for not having posted lately, but our lives have just been a little bit crazy.  You see, sometimes, we just don't get on the computator at all, because we are so busy.  Haha.  If that ever really happened, Luke might die.  However, I do not have very much time right now, so I am going to give you a brief rundown of all the things that have happened since we last posted.

First, we sighted a new bobcat getting in our chicken coup and we almost got him for it.  Sadly, he has been too smart to come back, so we don't have any cool hats yet.  Or any princess stools, which is what I want.  Anywho, we have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting for the bobcat to come back, and every day she is home, Marta is placed in a position where she can see out the window and spot him, because she has always been the one to spot "Bob" before.

After that, we had normal lives for a little while before we went to Utah for Thanksgiving Break.  Marta, Luke, and Mom all went to tour BYU and pick up Eliza and then rejoined us in farther south where our grandmother lives.  Meanwhile, Levi, Dad, Grandma and Tess played tennis (Grandma included) and went to the Grand Canyon.  We had Thanksgiving at our grandmother's and enjoyed dressing up for the feast.  Then we spent all night Black Friday shopping and sleeping.  Sadly, misfortune was bound to strike, and that night, Marta broke Dad's nose when it got in the way of her head while playing keep-away in the pool.

When at last we returned home, we resumed our normal schedules.  One of those things that is in our "normal schedules" is swimming.  Since Marta and Tess started back after Water Polo, they have had the joy of swimming miles upon miles.  One day, they swam at least a mile of the breaststroke (as part of the set that day), and just this week, they swam they swam freestyle for thirty minutes without stopping to complete more than a mile (as part of the set that day), and then, just yesterday, they each swam a mile of butterfly (with nothing in between).  Tess thinks that she needs only to do a mile of backstroke before she can say she has accomplished everything she set out to do in life.

Another thing that happened recently was a HUGE windstorm.  Across the county, schools were closed due to power outages and at least 21,000 people were without power for at least a day, and as long as three.  Now, during this windstorm, Tess and Mom were two of the main contributors to our Church Christmas Gathering's food.  They spent seven hours on Friday (during the power outage)  buying the food in the valley, and all day Saturday preparing the food for that night.  Tess thinks it was a worthwhile thing to run around Costco with enough food for 200 people.  Mom isn't quite sure about how she feels about that though.  Despite the power outages they got a lot of support and are quite glad that it is done.

That is all I have time for now because we are going to one of the many Christmas concerts that the Houghton children are performing in, so I will say goodbye.

Goodbye,
The 4th Child