Mid-August Album

Assorted photos from August:

For most of the middle of August, we had hazardous air quality, due to raging wildfires to the north and south. Our valley scooped up the smoke and held onto it for ages, till we were about to go stir crazy from hanging out inside. I ordered the kids some N-99 smoke filtering masks and they made the cutest little ninjas, embarking out into the gray gloom.

NASTY air. The sun couldn’t even get through and the sky looked positively ill.

In spite of the smoky air, Grama Leslie took Rose on their traditional clothes shopping trip, where Rose got to pick an outfit to wear on the first day of school.

One day the kids and I braved the smoke in our masks and went for a bike ride/run. Those masks were so hard to breathe in that we kept needing breaks and we struggled to cover 2 miles slowly. But my throat didn’t get that scratchy raw smoky feeling when I used the mask.

My masked children, on the canal road.

Thankfully the smoky air didn’t affect the peach trees along our driveway. Our landlord told us to help ourselves to fresh peaches, and we picked about 100 peaches in 15 minutes one day. I made some toasted granola and enjoyed the most decadent breakfast of peaches on granola while our peaches lasted.

Family prayer is always an adventure with our wild card, Amber. If sitting on Jeff’s back keeps her relatively quiet and in the same room as the rest of us during the entire prayer, we’ll do it!

I came back from a run to find Rose’s cute girl with balloons sketched in chalk by our garage.

DEEP BREATH: the air cleared up after about 7-10 days and after so much time apart, it felt good to get reacquainted with my good friend, the sky.

Since Jeff went back to work a week before the kids started school, my exercise included them for the last week of summer.

Amber insisted on wearing her helmet even though she rode in the stroller.

Jay is to the left of the water along the canal road.

Crossing the canal on Cemetery Road.

Reflections are double the beauty!

It had rained for a solid, miraculous 15 minutes the night before, and the sky was still feeling slightly moody when we went out.

Jay, the mint, and the sky: such vibrant colors.

Grapes on the right, mint on the left, Sunnyside in the distance past the grapes on the right–it was a fragrant run. It was such a treat to be able to SEE that far!

Rose finally got her courage up to invite our neighbor girl over, and they were so cute playing together. Rose has always tagged along after Jay and his friends, and she feels so pleased to have a friend of her own to play with.

I adore the unaffected innocence of little girls holding hands.

Clear skies = stunning sunsets.

I got artistic with the barbed wire fence.

Looking south at dusk: Sunnyside bathed in the afterglow.

We put Rose’s hair in foam rollers one Saturday night, and the next morning she was pleased to be curly like Amby. She said “my hair is beautiful like Amber’s! I’m wearing my glasses so people will recognize me.”

I don’t know how to curl my hair.

Rose loves striking a pose.

The White girls in white, all ready for church. (our basement is…rustic)

This is SUCH an Amber expression.

The boys love my sporadic pre-church photo shoots so much.