Busy Labor Day

We had a wonderful Labor Day weekend in Michigan, visiting Dustin's aunt, uncle, and grandmother. Sabine has now met both of her living great-grandmothers!




Sabine loved spending time with Great-Grandma Pat. Sabine read her bunny book to Grandma Pat multiple times. Mommy's little girl. That was one of my favorites as a kid, too.




We stayed with Aunt Vicki and Uncle Pat, and Sabine seems to have charmed everyone.




Thank you all for a really lovely weekend. We miss you guys already.

We flew home on Monday, only to see a large smoke cloud build and build and build as we drove closer to our house. It turned out to be the Fourmile Canyon Fire, which you may have heard about on the news. (Here's a link, if you haven't: http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=151803&catid=339 )

This isn't Sabine-related, but it is major news out here. We're guessing we're about 15 miles southeast or so from the fire. The air has been a bit smokey, so we've just been staying inside, but it's definitely not as bad out here as it is in Boulder. I took some pictures on Monday from just outside of our house.



This was around 4:30 PM




This was around 7:30 PM.




And this very squiggly picture was from around 9:00 PM. I turned the F-stop on my camera way down so that you could see the flames, but I didn't happen to bring a tripod outside, and I was trying not to wake Sabine up by opening and closing the front door a bunch of times, so that's why this picture is so blurry. It's taken from the same spot as the previous picture, so you can still make out the van in the foreground and see the orange flames in the foothills behind.

I went out to take a picture on Tuesday morning, but the foothills were completely covered in smoke. Happily, the air is clearer here today, and the hills are back in view with no smoke. But I think that must just be for this corner of the fire, it sounds like it's still out of control further north.