The Busy Season

Summer is always the busy season for us. It just is. This year, Justin even decided not to play baseball this summer, but somehow it still feels insane. Right now, a lot of that insanity is due to Justin's crazy work schedule where he's been getting up anywhere between 3am and 5am to head to work, and then working until 5 or 6pm (or later). He's tired, and has asked me to help make sure that he gets up and doesn't sleep through his alarm in the mornings, and so then I'm finding myself waking up almost every hour in a "CRAP! Did we sleep through the alarm?!" panic. Work for Justin is crazy, but at least there *is* construction work for the first time in many years. Still, we are both very tired.

Southern Oregon is experiencing some crazy forest fires right now. It's really scary. On Monday night, lightning struck and started a fire near my sister-in-law's house, and we headed over to help them evacuate. At the end of that night, there were 5 homes in danger and the fire was 50 acres. As of this morning, just three days later, the fire is 600+ acres with 130 homes in danger, and the governor has declared a state of emergency. The firefighters have been absolutely incredible, both on land and from the air, and so far have saved every home. But, the fire is not contained at all, and many, many families that we know personally are displaced, and/or have damage to their property. It's a terrifying thing, and we would all appreciate your prayers.

 {Smoke in the valley over the past few days. Bottom left is a photo of one of the many helicopters doing drops from the Rogue River. Bottom right is stolen from my friend Amanda, and shows the smoke from the fire near my sister-in-law's house}

Other than that, I'm still working out consistently, though I've switched from P90x to P90x3, because hello...30 minutes. It's just easier to make that happen. I'm currently in week 4, which is sort of like the rest week before moving to block 2. I haven't seen any crazy dramatic differences in month one--about half an inch lost each from my waist, hips, and thighs--but I wasn't expecting a lot of difference either. I've heard that with P90x3, most of the change comes in blocks 2 and 3, so I'm trying to keep eating well, keep trucking, and not get discouraged.

{Week 1 on the left, Week 4 on the right}

Our garden is doing well, the kiddos are as crazy (but fun) as ever, I've made some really, really delicious food (thank you Pinterest). Life is good.