Fire Watch

Friday night Aimee had her softball teammates from her Monday night championship team come over to the house to celebrate their big win. It was a warm night and everyone had a good time on the deck.

We also had a view of a wildfire that erupted earlier that day in the Santa Clarita Valley.

This first picture shows our first glimpse of the smoke late Friday afternoon.

Later that evening is when we first started seeing flames on the ridge of those mountains.

Here is a shot from the same angle taken around midnight Friday night.

Here is a shot of the smoke-filled sky on Saturday afternoon that Aimee took while I was at work.

This was my view of the sky on Saturday from West L.A.

Sunday afternoon and the wind has shifted to give us some blue sky but the fire is still going strong.

More flames on the ridge visible Sunday evening.

Late Sunday night and here is the same ridge.

 This fire is 15-20 miles away and poses no danger to us other than unhealthful air. Unfortunately, some did lose their homes and we know some people who had to evacuate. It's been dry as a bone around here for years and hopefully we don't get anything like this coming too close to us. Last month's Calabasas fire was much smaller but only a mile or two away.

Aimee's Trip

Here is a picture of Aimee's Monday night softball team taken right after they won the league championship. It was a great achievement because they are a co-ed team that got moved into a mens league and they managed to beat the guys and win the title!

Aimee wanted to make sure she didn't miss out on the two playoff games before her trip to Minnesota. The next morning after this win she took off for a week to visit the rest of the Propes family. I wasn't able to make it this time.

She just returned from her trip a few days ago and she had a great time getting to spend time with everybody. One little guy who already misses having Aunt Aimee around is Liam. Here he is leaving the airport after dropping off Aimee and learning that she was leaving to go back home.

Hopefully it won't be long before we are both able to visit again.

On the Move

Aimee is busy celebrating the holiday this week with her own personal Independence Day.

Tuesday was her last day with AECOM. She started that job nearly six years ago (with URS) as a way to gain some experience with construction management. That turned out to be a very valuable and fulfilling learning experience and allowed her to work on some diverse and challenging projects.

Now she's ready to move back over to the architectural side of things. An opportunity came up to work with some former colleagues at a firm down the street from her current office and she has accepted a position there.

Naturally her employers were very sad to be losing her but this was a move she'd been considering for a while.

The new place is excited to bring Aimee aboard but it won't be right away. She pushed her start date there to August 1st so she can have a few weeks off to enjoy her summer and get a few things done that she didn't have time for before. A trip is planned to Minnesota to visit family. The last time we were in Minnesota was 2011 for Lars' wedding. This will be the first meeting with new nephew Liam.

Part of Aimee's training with her new job will include a couple of trips to the home office - in Minneapolis! This should mean more opportunities to check in on the family and get out on Lars' and Nils' new fishing boat.

Of course, we are very proud of Aimee and happy for her as she starts the next chapter in her career.