Sept 2- Sept 10

September isn't cooling off any, and the air has been horrible from the smoke settling in the valley.  The last few days a good wind came through and cleared out some of the smoke.  It is sort of depressing thinking of all the craziness happening in our country-- hurricanes, floods, fires.  The kids were so sad when they learned of the fires up in the Columbia River Gorge, sadly caused by dumb kids with fireworks.  They had to shut down 30 miles of I-84, right were we drove through, and they had to protect the lodge at Multonomah Falls.  It was sad to think all the beautiful forest was being burned.  It is sad to think of all the people who have lost homes from the hurricanes, too.  We have a missionary from our ward who is serving in Florida, and has been moved to a more central part of the state for safety.  Idaho had a few more earthquakes in the same area (Soda Springs) last night!  Yikes!   

The boys keep building their cardboard creations.  It's a good outlet for them.  They will spend hours up here in the craft room.  My home is being overrun with boats, planes, helicopters, and tanks.  

Laura Lee had another cross country meet against Bear River this week.  It was a much smaller meet, and she did better than she did the first meet.  She continues to improve her time.  She shaved off a minute from her previous time.  Can you see the smoke? You can only see the hills, the mountains are completely covered in the background by the smoke.  

Cousins Matt and Sadie Boyer came over to the meet since it was on USU campus.  Matt is so tall that I couldn't reach my arm up and get us both the picture, so he had to hold the camera up for me. 

Sadie and LL.  There is no question these two are related!  

In Webelos, we are earning the engineering pin.  I asked my neighbor, Dell Vance who is a chemical engineer, to come and give a little lesson on what he did when he worked for Chevron.  He made them all a little device to teach them about Brounelli's Principal.  They would blow into the copper tube that was attached to a spool, then the little piece of paper below would actually get sucked up onto it-- opposite of what you would think would happen by blowing.  Don't ask me to explain it-- I have no clue.  

Friday night, the girls and I drove up to Pocatello to hang out with the cousins.  We had a great time.  Pocatello puts on great fun runs all the time, and the Stubbs gang from Pocatello are wonderful hosts! It was fun to visit and run together! 

Warming up before the race-- aren't they all so cute?!

After the race, we walked over to spy on the cougars in the zoo.  

We zipped over to watch Eliza play soccer after her run.  That kid has lots of energy! Her team lost by only one point. 

And here is LL-Cool-J.  She played the keyboard while we chatted.  I wish sometimes I could plug headphones into our piano! 

Missy and the girls came to our house Saturday night and we chilled for a bit.  They came to church with us Sunday morning, and then had to take off for home.  The Tyler girls are so dang adorable!  

Rich drove himself to the Instacare this morning.  He had not been feeling well all weekend, and last night he couldn't sleep very well he was in so much pain on his right side.  He cancelled his meetings and then drove in.  They took x-rays and drew blood, and found his white count very high and the x-rays showed he has pneumonia.  They had to take three x-rays each for each of his lungs-- the nurse said he has huge lungs.  She told him that was why he was feeling pain in his clavicle and his stomach-- his lungs are that long.  He rarely gets ill, but when he does it is almost always pneumonia.  It seems to hit him every few years.  He has been sleeping all day and dosing up on his antibiotics.