Montana is on Fire

It is an eerie feeling to live in a fairly narrow valley, to be surrounded by mountains, and yet not be able to see them. They are becoming harder and harder to see as smoke from the many fires around our state gathers in the valley. There is an enormous one west of us in the Bob Marshall Wilderness that is too big and too hot for firefighters to even approach yet. There are a couple of them north of us in Wolf Creek, I think. And there are some to the south, as well. I believe most of these were started by lightning. There are many thunderstorms in Montana during the summer but a lot of the time the humidity is so low that the rain is evaporated before it gets to the ground. The lightning, however, does make it to the ground where everything is as dry as tinder and the wind is usually whipping down a mountain range and across a valley. These are dangerous conditions indeed and there are many fires in other parts of our state, as well. Please pray for the safety and wisdom of our firefighters, for rain, and for the safety of people and property.

Pathetic

Have I mentioned that it's HOT up here? Have I mentioned that no one has air conditioning? I thought I had. Well, Michael is suffering more intensely than I am, as can be demonstrated by the following anticdote. I came home from work the other day and said "Hello!" I follow the weak reply to the bathroom where I found my husband languishing in a bathtub full of cold water!! He rolled his head out from behind the shower curtain to greet me :) It was so, so sad :) Here's hoping you're finding ways to beat the heat wherever you are.

Happy Fourth of July!

Hope everyone had a happy and safe Fourth of July. We went to Manhattan, MT and played a couple of games of softball with our friends William and Teresa and the mission team that was working with them this week. After the softball we all ate hamburgers, hotdogs, potato salad, etc... until we were stuffed. Then Christina and I took advantage of being near Bozeman and went and did a little shopping. Christina had a couple of gift cards from her birthday and I went to the new Sportsmen's Warehouse that just opened... happily (from my wife's perspective, anyways :) ) we were able to get out of there with just a couple of new bumpers (retrieving dummies) for Haddie.

We came home about 4:00 PM and rested for an hour, then we went to a barbeque with some friends in East Helena. When we pulled into their driveway, we noticed that the neighbors had a pair of sawhorses out with a board securely fastened to them. On the board were fastened several (about 10) firework launching tubes of various sizes. Thinking it a little strange, we asked our friends about it and found out that it was perfectly legal to shoot fireworks off in the city of E. Helena...and what a show it was!! I don't know exactly how much money people spent on fireworks there, but it was the most that I have ever seen. It seemed like everyone in E. Helena had spent thousands of dollars on fireworks. We sat there for over an hour watching as fireworks went off all over the town, including the actual city firework show. And when we left, there was no signs of it slowing down. It was truly amazing.

If any of you ever wonder where we'll be for the Fourth of July, East Helena is the place!