SMOKIN'!!!!

I'm not. But I always loved that line (word? very SHORT line) from The Mask. Which some of my children are too good to watch, and others, as bad as I am, occasionally enjoy. I especially like the dance sequences...is that really Jim Carey dancing?

Anyway, I digress....a lot.
It is really smoky here in the foothills of Northern California. One of our ward members believes that when the CA Supreme Court confirmed the legality of Gay Marriage (a few weeks ago), we were given a gigantic warning in the form of a dry lightning storm that started a thousand fires up and down the state.

I'm not in position to confirm or deny that this was divine retribution, but we definitely had/have a lot of fires. All of a sudden, all at the same time. And they're not stopping. Nothing is going on right in my neighborhood, but we had two fires within twenty miles of us right after the big Lightning Storm, and now that those are contained, more or less, we have three more within fifty miles. The firefighters have decided to just let one fire (the Government Fire in Blue Canyon) just burn on, since it's not threatening any structures. It has consumed thousands of acres.

We have been just BURIED in smoke for almost three weeks. It's bad enough that we've been advised not to go outdoors unless we have to. And it's summer vacation! This could go on all the way up til the beginning of the rainy season in October.... Looking outdoors, you can't see more than 50 yards, and everything is a yellow/gray haze.

We're accustomed to wildfires here. Fires are our regional natural disaster of choice...no earthquakes or floods or anything. But usually the truly awful fire season doesn't hit in our area until August or Septemeber, when we can count on a few scares each year, and a real bad fire close to home every ten years or so. We've never had to evacuate, but we've come close. Life is an exciting adventure. I guess I prefer fires to say.....street crime, or.....living in a subdivision.

On the adoption front, I contacted the National Service Center for the US immigration service yesterday (USCIS...don't know what all the letters stand for....US central immigration service, maybe?) and found that our 1-800 A was received on June 16. They told me that the adjuticator (official person who will probably tell us to redo our homestuy) will contact us by letter in about two weeks. So, things are happening, if slowly.

Lou Juan's best friend from the orphanage was adopted this week. Lou Ming's family will be back home in Texas in a few days. I'm excited to hear how things are going, and about their China experience. They already have an adopted daughter from China, and they took her with them. She's six now, and they were a bit anxious about how the trip would affect her, emotionally. Some kids are excited about going back to see their homeland. Others NEVER want to go back. We sent a package off to Lou Juan with Lou Ming's family...candy and stuff. The most important gift was a disposable camera. We hope that she'll take pictures of her friends, her teachers, her room...anything important to her. She's lived ten years there, and the pictures may be the only part of her old life that comes home with her.