Symphony Date 2

Shostakovich Concerto No. 2  and Symphony No.10.
Italian dinner and a concert date with my sweet love.
Doesn't get better than this.

Symphony Date




Our Anniversary present was the membership for the
Palm Springs friend of the Philharmonics, which includes 6 symphonies.
We are ready for the first one. 

 

Mark is always ready for a little Brahms concerto, and he is also crazy about Ludwig.  


The Duchess will not miss a Beethoven symphony,
especially the one that was written for Napoleon

 


The fountain is similar to the one in Lincoln Center,




Beautiful evening in Palm Desert.

What would the world do without Beethoven? It would not be a nice world. We were happy to see so many people
still attending symphonies and listening to the best compositions ever written.



Our Happy Anniversary!

Today is our 5th anniversary on paper, but it really marks our 13 year together.
I found this in the dining room this morning.
My sweetest husband always knows where to shop.

Rainy Days

Make a happy garden. My bulbs along the sidewalk are planted for next spring.

Jenna is Married!



With Mom Houghton in Manti, Utah



The bosses of the Houghton Family

The Fox Family.
Atlas, Kendra and Cyrus

Keep my dress out of the water, please.

Jenna and Clayton are hiding from the rain

Penny and Tatum with Grandma and Grandpa Houghton

Our Family.
The "turn in and show off those beefy arms everyone" pose

Daddy with his little Jenna

The Saturday hikers

Come on Anabel, Spitz will show the way.

Buck the water doggie

Silver Fire




The neighbor's dozer, ouside of our gate, didn't make it.

  



Fire line stopped at the north edge of our ranch

 



The shed (top right) is untouched;
only the wind blew ashes inside it.

 



The barn is JUST FINE!
Looking out to the neighbors bunt land.

 




This ol' house (in our view) was burnt many times before. The fire loves this spot.

  

Fire men drove right up, cut the chain off the gate and were busy dozing in fire brakes to keep the fire from traveling to the south. They moved around our yard furniture and found the hidden pick-nick spots, they made themselves right at home. If it were not for them, we would have a big mess on our hand. Our wood piles and the big white roof of the barn is a landmark for the forest service and fire crew, said the fireman we talked with while the mop-up crew was still out there looking for hot spots. 




Looking south to the ranch. All is well.

 

My Keep Out signs on each side of the gate were bunt, but the flames kept out. Huh!



I'm going home!

We had a solar field assignment yesterday in Rosemond. Left home pretty confident that the valley is in good shape, because the fire is not traveling toward us.

6:00pm, in Hemet, starving, tired and just want to get back home....looking forward to have a big burger at the local cafe...... Checkpoint creep official dummy at the bottom of the hill says we cannot go up. Roads are all closed. But Garner Valley is clear and we need to go home. He says: NO! Don't even try any of the other roads, they are all closed.

Oooooooohh reeeeeaaaally?

Well..... we are going home and you are NOT going to stop us!

Into the woods!



This is the side of Thomas Mountain, which is the range dividing the Anza Valley from Garner Valley.
We found a dirt road from Hemet to get to this mountain road.




Up and up we go, climbing the truck on the dirt road. Beautiful country side!
Missed the traffic anyway.....




Made it up to the top and looking down to Garner Valley, we have a nice view of the fire that's raging near Idyllwild.




This is the same spot on the fire we are looking at from our house back in the hills north of our valley.






Almost looks like Idyllwild is in big trouble.

3 hours later we made it home because one thing no-one should try to do is to stop Mark & Bea from a mission. We regret not having our chainsaws. We could have dropped a lot of trees behind us and gathered lots and lots of fire wood this weekend as the forest service people are too busy right now to worry about ticketing loggers.