Well, for national respect for chickens day we put our young chickens in the big girl coop.
We had a Johnson reunion up at the ranch and had a great time...
... Riding Horses... (Cameron and Tucker)...
...Making fun hair bows and clips...
...Riding motor bikes...
...enjoying shooting BB guns...
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| ...Blowing bubbles, lip syncs and swimming in the river. |
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| Macey and Madalyn went to Sandy and Provo, Utah for EFY and both had a great time |
Of course, I had to take their picture at the COUG at the Y.
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| BY-THE-WAY... you will never guess who spoke at Madalyn's EFY session.... |
Maren and her friend wanted to dress up McKenna and give her a makeover, but it took a while...
...But, she was all smiles when it was finnaly finished!
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| We celebrated Cameron's 7th Birthday... |
...with a pizza and pool party, at Grandma J's...
He wanted a cake like a pool...
(Oops! I have trouble with the rotation thing...)
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| We had a lot of fun making the pool party cake. |
We even had pizza on the table and someone diving into the pool!
McKenna giving me a wink and an "I Love You" sign.
I wonder where McKenna learns to do some of these funny things.....
Oh, well, I should have known!
Madalyn came down one Family Night and said we're playing baseball for our activity...She dressed the part and we followed suit and had a great time playing out in the back yard.
On the morining of July 28, 2010, I got a call from my friend to go down Homer Road and help her catch 6 horses running free down the road. By the time a arrived someone else had come along and used their car to block their path and corral them in someone's driveway. I couldn't help but notice the huge plumms of smoke coming from the end of Homer about five miles from our home. Lightening had struck at 9:30 that morning and the fire in the foothills spread quickly. The man was losing his barn to the fire and had opened up his pasture to let the horses free.
After watching the retardant tankers, the water helocopters, and talking to a BLM fire ranger, we went home confident it was far enough away and contained enough to not be worried at all. In fact, by about 12:30 it was mostly contained and almost out.
Tucker, Macey, Madalyn and I were getting ready to leave for the Stake Trek the next moring and we continued to pack and prepare. At 2:45 Macey, Madalyn and I needed to run up to Target to get an item for Trek. Maren was left at home to babysit Braden, Cameron, McKenna and their cousin Rafael.
At 3:35 Maren called me, a little worried and told me it was really smokey. I told her I was checking out and I will be there in a little bit. We walked out of Target and got into the car and started down Eagle Road. I couldn't believe it. Within a half an hour the wind had picked up and the fire had almost reached the other end of Homer where our house is. Becca came up and took the kids to her house and by the time I got home they weren't letting anymore people through. Becca came racing back and told the police in no uncertain terms she was coming back up the street. She was a great help in grabbing pictures from the walls and packing them out to her car. They almost didn't let Tucker up our road. We were told to evacuate and the sherriff came up and asked if they could help us with anything like load the horses. Once the kids were gone and the cars loaded, Tucker and I felt at peace and that it was going to be safe.
We had a dear and longtime friend not be stopped by the police from helping us out by driving to the subdivision behind us and walking through a pasture that backed up to our pasture. It was pretty sureal to see his figure walking towards us in the smokey atmosphere. I smiled and laugh in disbelief and in relief. There wasn't a whole lot that could really be done, but to have that emotional and physical support there with us was extremely comforting.
This is the fire at the west end of Homer Rd. about 11am.
This was a shot taken from our north pasture
about 4:30. You can barely see the tanker.
Here is a better shot of the retardant plane, just north of our pasture.
These are some pictures of the aftermath. 5000 acres burned.
Four houses and seven outbuildings burned to the ground.
You can see the blackened hills just beyond our north pasture.
The road you see is the 90 degree corner by the Tuscan house on my street.
That is the tuscan house in my neighborhood.
Looking at it makes you realize it was really too close for comfort.
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| It was a really fast and hot, hot fire. This used to be a vynil fence. |
We are grateful and thank our Heavenly Father that we were all safe
and that our home and property were not damaged.
So on to the other events of our summer....
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| McKenna learned how to ride a big bike...I'm not sure if the helmet is a protection or a danger... |
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| If you look close you can see two deer out by the pasture, we've had an increase since the fire. |
Here are two more in the pasture on the other side of the house, on a different morning.
We held a end of summer family dance in our cul-de-sac with our neighbors, the Kofeods. We had about 150 people show up and have a great time. We'd love to make it a tradition.
The kids called me up to Macey's room and all I saw was Madalyn's head until....
...they threw off the covers and there they all were, having a great time all piled up on each other.
The boys not only laid out their first day of school clothes, they set them up with backpack on, socks tucked into shoes and everything.
But, they didn't just stop with the first day of school outfit....
They decided to do the first three days of school!!! I think they were pretty excited about school starting again.
It wouldn't be the first day of school, without the first day of school by the front door picture either.
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| So here is Maren... |
And Cameron and Braden...but the older two said, "Just take it when we get home!" and we all forgot. So next year will be back to normal...
The youth in our ward had a mud volleyball activity that turned into a mud fight...big surprize there...(why so serious Madalyn?...)
...It also happened to be Maren's first YW activity. I can't believe she's in YW let alone that I now have a daughter in each age group!
McKenna is loving, absolutely loving, having the "kitties." She hauls them all over the place and they are so patient with how she just flops them over her arm or shoulder and carries them both piled ontop of one another. (I love that they actually do catch mice!)
Well, this eternally long blog entry has even me worn out. I just wanted to catch you up on a few of our summer activities, before any more time passed. (Because it seems to pass by faster and faster.)
