August

 Upper lake Clementine with friends

 Pretty much from the end of July until about a week ago the sky has been filled with smoke (here and at the cabin).  Yuck!

 Orientations for the newest middle schoolers.  Oh man, where has the time gone and why do they still act like 6 year olds? :)

 I took the kids to 6 flags (nice photo bombers).  They went on almost every ride.  Fun to have kids old enough to do some of the fast rides.  

 Butterfly house at 6 flags.

 End of summer party at our house with some other friends.  All these outings were within a weeks span.  It was a fun filled, tiring, busy week. 

 School started early this year, because we are getting out in May this year!!  Made for a short summer, but it will be nice to be done earlier.   Grant 3rd grade. 

 Noah 6th grade

 Ava 4th grade

 These hooligans wanted to walk to school together on the first day.  We timed it a few days before school started and it took us about 8 minutes, so we said around 10 minutes to be safe.  They left almost 30 minutes before school started and only made it with a few minutes to spare. ;/  Good thing I went with them to remind the that they can't stop at the creek or pick things up along the way.  Seriously boys!!

 My garden this year has been a great producer.  

 Our poor cabin has been in fire danger for so long this summer.  First the Carr fire, which wasn't really that close until the very end (still a ways away, but closer than we thought it was going to travel).  Then on August 9th we got a frantic call from our neighbors saying there was a fire near the boat ramp.  They were heading to our house to grab anything we wanted out.  Hard to think of all your belongings in a split second and decide what is worth saving.  In the end we realized it's all just stuff and replaceable.  They did grab the furs my brother gave me and an ugly ceramic dog my dad painted when he was a little boy (my neighbors probably thought I was crazy when I asked them to grab that).  It was a really sickening day, especially since we couldn't be up there.  Our neighbors are great and kept us in the loop.  For about 10 days we were on edge as the fire was moving over the ridge toward us.  We were able to go up one weekend and grab a few more things (we wanted to get out any gas cans or propane tanks that we could move).  While we were there we watched the fire slowly moving down the mountain.  Cool to see, but so scary. 

 Hard to get a good picture with all the smoke in the air and night time.  This was from our deck. 

 From our deck around 9 am.  The smoke was so thick you couldn't see much past the deck.  It was terrible.  We had to leave because it was making us sick.  The fire got within 1/4 mile from our house, but they were able to contain it at the road.  We had fire crews stationed on our street for a few weeks while it was creeping closer.  I learned way more than I thought I would ever learn about wildfires.  It really is fascinating how they put these fires out and all the technicalities that go into them.  Sadly, as the Hirz fire was just getting contained another big fire started just up the road.  This fire, the Delta fire, is still burning and connected the Carr and Hirz fire together.  This new fire was a hot and quick fire, so it was a little scary for a few days as it was reaching the Hirz fire containment lines.  Man, ready for some much needed rain around here!!

 Nothing like a bright red juicy garden tomato.  I had a tomato plant producing these mammoth tomatoes (no joke, the size of Ava's head) and they were amazing. 

 Adam spent most of the summer with his young men, and I didn't want to miss out on a friends camping trip, so I took the kids by myself.  The boys did a good job of setting up the tent. 

 The kids LOVE camping, so they had a blast. 

 We camped at a lake called Fallen Leaf Lake (across the street from Tahoe).  It was gorgeous.  There was a big teeter-totter someone made out of a log and crystal clear water.  

 Noah saw some bears and we went to the Little Rangers presentation where the kids got to make plastered animal foot prints.  

 Grant had his first rain water regatta.  He won a few races. 

 My breakfast eating squatter. Looks so uncomfortable, but this is how he eats every morning. :)

We had some fun visitors a few weeks ago.  Kyle and Em and their boys came to visit and go to the cabin.  We love visitors.  The dads killed 3 rattlesnakes by the hot tub!! 

 

Poor Ava got sick at the cabin and was pretty much quarantined to my room the whole time.  Sad because she was so excited to play with the boys.  She was playing on my phone and obviously playing with the camera settings. 

 We took Kyle, Gus and Ollie to Sims to our favorite cliff jumping spot.  Kyle put some coins on the track and when we came back we found them all smashed.  The boys thought it was awesome. 

  

Got to snuggle this cute little boy.  He's quite a momma's boy though, so not as much as I would have liked. ;)  The fires were dying down, so we thought it wouldn't be too bad up there, but it was pretty smoky (except on Sunday, of course), so we came home a little early and swam at home.  So happy they made the trek up to see us!