Summer is in full swing!

Meaning nothing has slowed down at all for the busy Miller family. 

Zach has been playing tennis every day either at NAU or at the local country club. He is currently applying for summer jobs. Ashton has swim practice four days a week as well as summer band. However this week he is attending Lowell Astronomy Camp each evening from 4-10pm. Last night he had a blast making new friends, filling his brain with science (his words), and stargazing. Here he is already getting social as we dropped him off for the evening last night. 

Luckily his stargazing and camp experience has not been adversely impacted by the three big forest fires burning north and northeast of town. Our neighborhood is on the complete opposite side of Flagstaff and we are all safe! The biggest fire right on the mountain was likely started by an absolutely glorious individual in the woods who decided it was a good idea to light his used toilet paper on fire and put it under a rock even though all of Arizona is under a burn ban with stage 2 fire restrictions. We can’t even use our charcoal grill in our own backyard (luckily Grandma Dixie has a gas grill with an on-off switch which has not yet been restricted so grilling can continue-along with visits to Grandma’s house!!!). Sigh… unfortunately you can’t fix stupid and it often has deadly consequences. We are ever looking forward to monsoons arriving in the weather forecast. Everyone do a rain dance please!!

Views above and below are from south Flag. 

The pictures below were taken by others in the community and news organizations. 

A view from the south (our typical view). Those lights are fire—- not house lights. 

A view from Doney Park east of Flag. This is near the same area where the big fire that occurred almost two months ago. The fire traveled east from the mountainside straight through the pass due to the high winds over the past two days. Luckily those winds have calmed today. 

View from the east of Flagstaff 

In other news, Snickers had a dental vet visit yesterday and unfortunately had to have 10 teeth pulled including her two upper canines. Poor doggie! She was quite dopey yesterday with pains meds and post anesthesia. However she is  doing much better today- eating and wagging again- just with a very swollen muzzle. She has been getting all sorts of extra snuggles and peanut butter makes taking her medicine a treat. Haha!