Odd Jobs

Not typical of our normal work, lately we have been installing hardwood flooring-solid jatoba to be exact. It has been quite a painstaking adventure. We had to prepare the subfloor which took a while, then install the flooring, then sanding, then finishing. More involved than we had originally planned. Six full rooms plus a hallway and the stairs. Below are a few pictures of the process. We still have a few more things to do to finish up, but we expect to be done this week.

YEAH!
Unfinished

Finally, some finish is applied and the beauty of the wood shows through

California Fires

In our recent posts we have mentioned about the local fires near us. I have finally uploaded only a few pictures for those of you who have never seen our California fires. We get fires most every year, but some are worse than others.

I took the first picture only a few miles from where the fires were located. The flames were pretty tall- taller than the trees in some areas. With so much dry brush as fuel, it didn't take long for a small fire to become a BIG fire! We were also fortunate that no homes were burned this time around. Last year's San Diego county fires were very destructive, with 2000+ homes damaged! We were fortunate to have not only ground coverage by the fire departments, but also air coverage from planes like the one below. I think I heard it takes only 12 seconds for some of these planes to refuel by scooping in the nearby ocean or local lakes. Amazing! We watched these planes flying nearly all day.

Great job, pilots!! And thanks for your hard work!
A smoke-filled skyline for an otherwise beautiful sunset.

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea;"
Psalm 46: 1-2

Random thoughts

A strange and sobering thought occurred to me recently ...

When I was the same age as my oldest son, Ben, is right now (22),

I was already married for one year and was about two months pregnant with HIM!

I don't know why that idea popped into my head,

I just thought it was an interesting tidbit of trivia!

More Food for thought

More food for thought!

Seating Arrangements
Where will you be seated in eternity? Smoking or non-smoking?

Which Way?
Man's way leads to a hopeless end -- God's way leads to an endless hope.

Two Ears
Since God gave us two ears and one mouth, He must have wanted us to do twice as much listening as talking.

Stand
If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.

Praying
When you pray, don't give God instructions. Just report for duty!

Forbidden Fruit
A forbidden fruit will create many jams.

Best Formula
1 cross + 3 nails = 4 given.

The Lord is My Shepherd

I heard a cute joke today...

The Lord is My Shepherd

A Sunday School teacher decided to have her 2 nd grade class memorize Psalm 23, one of the most quoted passages in the Bible. She gave the children a month to learn the chapter.
One little boy was excited about the task, but he just couldn't memorize the Psalm. Although he practiced and practiced, he could hardly get past the first line. The day came for the children to recite Psalm 23 before the congregation. The little boy was nervous. When his turn came, he stepped up to the microphone and proudly said,

"The Lord is my Shepherd and that's all I need to know!"

Another local event

Today's local event,( and I do mean LOCAL!) is that the area where we live is getting a new valve installed on the water lines, which means we'll have our water turned off all day. Now, normally that could be disastrous (OK, well, incovenient anyways!), but it just so happens that God knew this and has graciously made it that we will be away from home for the day on a jobsite where THEY have running water!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! Now that's providence!

Our bathtub and kitchen sink are both filled with water right now for "just in case", but I expect that by tonight when we return home, it'll be all fixed and showers as usual. And we didn't have to do a thing!!

Another reason to say "Thanks, God!!"

A local day in southern California

While there's always something to talk about, today, and this whole week, we have a full schedule!! So, I haven't been at the blog to post much of anything lately. Just not enough hours in a day, it seems. Hopefully, we'll be back in the very near future to let you know what we've been doing.

An interesting thing did happen around here (locally) today. I had planned on posting the pictures I took, but that could take days, so I'll just tell you about it instead:
We started a new project today which is located across town. From the view at the house, we could see all across the valley here- quite a nice view! Earlier today we noticed a fire on Camp Pendleton, which is not so special for southern California 'cause we get fires out here a lot! It didn't seem like much of a big deal at first, and it was small at the time. However, as the day progressed, we started noticing the sky was getting all smokey, and the winds were carrying the smoke for a very long ways- perhaps even as far as Palm Springs area. We saw news helicopters flying around the sky, and before you knew it, that fire had grown pretty large. What seemed like it should have been out relatively quickly has turned into an all day and all night BIG fire! We watched as roughly eight airplanes were flying around the sky dropping fire retardant and water. It was amazing to see those guys in action!! The daylight clouds have given way to nightime glowing orangey sky! This has been going on for at least 8 hours now!
Being a typical Californian, I drove by closer to the action on the way home! (Needless to say, I wasn't the only one doing that either! I ran into a crowd of onlookers!) The fire flames were easily as tall as a two-story home! Fortunately so far, this has only been wild brush fires burning on Camp Pendleton area and not houses burning, like earlier this year! We can only now just begin to see from our house the flames cross over another crest on the nearby mountains.
We'll have to wait until morning to see how things progressed throughout the night.

TaTa for Now!