Night Shots

As the sun set it showed red through the smoky clouds. The fire was still raging pretty strong at sunset. I didn't use my tripod so the pictures that I took a few minutes ago in the dark are fuzzy, but they are the western edges of some of the fires, located in the same general place as where the smoke billows were showing from our porch earlier in the day. They've extended the red flag warning (high fire danger, ususally due to low humidity and strong winds) until at least tomorrow night.

Earthquakes and Fires

We were welcomed back to California by a pretty strong earthquake this summer; no real damage done, just some scared kids. We are also getting treated to what seems now to be an annual very active fire season. The Santa Ana's are back (strong winds, warm weather) and humidity is very low. Gusts up to 60-70 miles per hour race through the canyons and passes here. Our porch furniture relocates to the south side of our back yard, the kids plastic two level play structure fell down and we no longer wonder why the tree in the backyard tilts so severely to the south!

The biggest fire burning tonight can be seen from our front porch. There are actually 2 or 3 fires off in that direction and in the pictures below you can see some of the smoke billows. I don't remember ever hearing of so many houses being lost. The wind is moving those hot embers so quickly that the fire crews were overwhelmed earlier today. The winds have laid down a little tonight and the crews are furiously working to put down lines and defenses, but for the most part the fire is totally uncontained so if the winds pick up again, there will be very little to stop it from taking more houses.

When my mom and sisters were out in September we stayed at a hotel in Yorba Linda right off the 91 freeway. A strip mall a few hundred feet away from that hotel was on fire earlier this afternoon, and was completely destroyed. I'm sure there is other damage in the area, which is less than 20 miles from us. The wind is blowing the fire and smoke away from us so we don't have any side effects of poor air quality, ash snow or even a smoky smell in the air, but a few miles away it is a totally different story.

The big plume in the middle of this picture is the Yorba Linda fire, the one to the right is the Brea fire.

He's Here!

Kenny and Kathy welcomed their first baby, a beautiful (and handsome) little boy. Ethan James Johnson arrived yesterday, November 12th around 8:30 p.m.. He's a big bundle of joy (normal for our family, though) weighing in at 8lb 11oz and a long 21 inches. He has some long thin hair in places and it varies in shade from darker to light. He is absolutely adorable. Kathy is tired and sore, but on the way to recovery!

We were able to spend a little time with him today. I didn't see him open his eyes, but he did a little with some others. Luke adored him. From the beginning he wanted to hold him and love on him. I helped him hold Ethan and everytime I asked if he was all done, he'd say, 'No, more!'.

Congratulations, Kenny and Kathy!

After

I know, it is just dirt. But we love 'just dirt'. It is sooo much better than 'old sod filled with weeds' and it is also one step closer to 'green grass'! This is what our yard looks like now, after all of Derek's hard work. Next weekend = grass seeding!

The Front Yard

Our front yard is so much smaller than the back that we decided to take it on first. This weekend Derek broke up all the old sod and netting (making yet another pile of things in our back yard) and smoothed it out. I think we've decided to seed it ourselves and will probably get to it in the next week now that it is all ready to go. It was a lot of work to do this 750 square feet or so... the back yard is about 10 times as big and all needs to be dug up by hand because the sod they had down before (that died of course) has a plastic mesh backing. I'll post pictures of the front lawn as it is now (no sod or weeds) later. This is what it looked like before he got to that section.

An Easy Morning

Last week was a little odd for us schedule-wise. We went to Santa Clarita with Derek on Monday. He was there for the day for work and the kids and I hung out with Kenny and Kathy. And I had a dentist appointment! We've had such terrible dentists since we moved it Arizona that we decided that it was worth the drive to go back to our old dentist-- and it sooo was. We love them! Then on Tuesday Derek took the day off to do some more work around the house, including removing more of the dreaded Yucca plants. But there is good news... he's almost done! There are a few stragglers that need to be trimmed or removed, but for the most part the ones we want out for now are out. There are now huge piles of Yucca plants in our yard as we slowly remove them through our green trash bin every week. We also had a doctor appointment for Anna on Tuesday and everyone was so excited to get their annual flu shot, too! Wednesday was the normal PE, Piano and Awana. Thursday was catching our breath, barely. Friday there was something at a church in the morning that we went to and then off to IKEA, which I'd been waiting months to do. Did we do any school work? Ummmm... not much all week. But we're back in the saddle this week.

Here are some pictures from one of our slow mornings last week.


Luke loves Anna, and Anna is so sweet to him!

The endless supply of funny faces from Leah continues.

Hard at work on his dog picture.

More Country Fair - Did I mention the candy?

Here they are, all decked out in their dress-up of choice. Jack is the Knight, Anna is Snow White, Leah is a ballerina and Luke is a cowboy. Not sure I know any real cowboy that still sucks his finger.

Derek was amazed by the amount of candy they had there. He mentioned it several times and has told a couple people about it. It was quite a bit, I guess. The kids were each given a bag that they could fill up. Funny thing is that Leah left with her bag only half full... she didn't want anymore. Odd kid :)!

Choosing...

This is most of the display. There are a few more buckets to the left. Each basket was full of candy and there were bags and bags more stuffed under the tables and behind the volunteers.