Standing tall!

Ugh. Still trying to get pictures to post on here...sorry, I realize it is horribly dull without pictures of the cute one.
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In Beatrice news - she is standing! I blame Grandma Elizabeth - I found them last week (innocently) "practicing balancing." Right. Well, now she can stand up with her little arms out for balance for a good 10 seconds in a row and then plop down on her bottom. And then boy does she grin afterwards...so proud of herself. It probably helps that Zack and I break into loud applause too.
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In other very good news - we don't have to evacuate! The Zaca fire, which is still raging and only expected to be completely under control on 7 September, was coming close to the hills in Santa Barbara. As a precaution they were considering evacuating all of Santa Barbara and Montecito. Our new home on the Mesa is two blocks from the Pacific Ocean, so we weren't too concerned about it being caught in the fire. As horrible as it sounds, all I could think was, "Well damn, we just unpacked everything!"
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We're now members of the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum. It was there I learned that every square inch of "forest" in California (think: lots of grassland, small trees, beautiful) has burned in natural wildfires on average 500 times in the last 11,000 years. While the Zaca fire didn't start naturally, but rather by a farmer welding a pipe, at least these type of fires aren't unheard of in this area. But 72,000 acres...