Fire, Rain and Earthquakes!

 It was a birthday weekend here and we celebrated even though the smoke from the fires was everywhere.  

On Friday afternoon David, Julie and Ben were on their way here from Missoula and as they drove through Paradise, Montana a forest fire had just broken out and was burning very close the Highway 200.  It would turn out to be the East River Road Fire which blew up from a few acres to 13,414 in 24 hours.

We were very happy to see them safe and sound, here in Hope.

Lady was very excited to see Ben.

The birthday cake that Julie baked and decorated for Jon. 

 It is an "Earthquake Cake".  

As we sang the birthday song, Julie and Dave pulled on the cake platter...

It turns out that there was a fault in the cake. There was a 7.8 earthquake!  Right here in Hope, Idaho!

The sedimentary layers were revealed. 

There were also some fossils in the layers, but I didn't get a photo of them.

The rocks and the boulders looked real, but they were actually different flavors of chocolate and some of them around the bottom of the cake were licorice flavor (a bit of the shock to the taste buds).

Later in the evening we played a lot of poker and we let the birthday boy win on his birthday, but Julie cleaned our clocks the next night.

While we were playing poker Ben was working on his own secret project in the basement.  There were a LOT of really tiny pieces.

He was creating a jazz band.  A bass player, trumpet player, pianist and drummer.

He was very good at his work!

It is very cool and now sits on my piano.  

Julie took some great photos of the flowers in the garden.

A photo in the grape arbor in the same spot where some of their wedding photos were taken sixteen years ago.

The corn is as high as an elephant's eye...

Julie's best photos were these...

It's a perfect sequence of the game played between the squirrel and Lady, which happens multiple times throughout the day.  The squirrel runs across the deck rail to the bird feeder to get some sunflower seeds.

SQUIRREL!

Lady tries her best to run and catch the sunflower seed thief.  

Finally, here's some photos of the East River Road Fire that Julie took on their way home to Missoula on Sunday.

Thompson Falls

The same area in the photos above from Friday.    Near Paradise.

 

The fire near Arlee, Montana.

We're all hoping for some rain from the remnants of Hurricane Hilary.