Fire, Fear, Fall & Fun

 My Dad was evacuated a few days ago because of a fast moving fire near his property. The #Oakfire in Willits, CA spread through the Brooktrails neighborhood and moved northward to where my Dad and step-mom, Michelle, live out on Ryan Creek Road. 

He messaged our family in a group text to let us know that he had left the property, that Michelle would be joining him shortly, and that Michelle's son Jeremy was staying behind on the property to help Cal-Fire. (He has firefighting experience and would prove to be very helpful.)

Because Jeremy was on the scene, he was able to take some pictures occasionally and send them to Dad, who would then forward them to all of us. 

This is a view of their house, with plenty of fire retardant all over everything. The fire came within 1/4 mile of their property as it pummeled the forest and hills on its way north.

This is the view from their kitchen window, per Jeremy.

My Dad was cheered by this photo because it showed that their mailbox was the only one still standing. This row of mailboxes is stationed next to Hwy. 101, north of Willits. A much better location for the mailman, I'm sure! This group of homeowners live about 15 minutes into the forest from here, down gated dirt lanes and tight corners at times.

That joy was short-lived, however, because a day or so later, this photo confirmed that their mailbox is no longer standing. But at least their house it still standing!

And this afternoon (Sunday), we got the news that the evacuation order had been lifted for their neighborhood and that they would be returning shortly. He will send out pictures as soon as he is able to. I'm not sure if they'll have internet out there for a while, and they don't have cell service where they live either. It's too far out in the woods. They do have a landline, but who knows if that even works right now! 

I am just SO GRATEFUL that they are okay and that they have a house to come home to. A miracle to say the least!! At first, they stayed with their son, Troy, in Willits (at the house that I helped work on last fall), but there is no heat or comfortable bed situation there. So after a couple of nights, they moved to a different location to stay with friends who had a bed available. Those small things in life just mean so  much!

Update: My dad sent this text a few minutes ago - - (Sunday evening)

"We returned home. A huge bunch of stuff to be dealt with. Refrigerators to be emptied. Leftover Glen stuff that was on the big front porch was brought inside. (Glen is Michelle's father who passed away earlier this year) Reconnect power in the pump house - the one with rotten floor. New mail box set up. Ours succumbed to the fire. No noticeable smoke inside. Negligible ashes inside."

In Other News

Monday: Jacob and Scott helped our nephew, Caleb Schwendiman, with a physics assignment.  He had to fill a 2-liter bottle with water, then puncture a hole at a certain level and record the force of the water draining out. It ended up needing all 3 of their engineer brains to get the school assignment done! But they had fun in the process. 

Photo: Caleb on the left, with Jacob on the ground recording the event for him . . .

Also, Scott finished the fence post, and built a new gate. It looks very handsome!

Tuesday: Monday night there was a huge windstorm, combined with frigid temperatures heading into Tuesday. Canada sent us ALL of their wind and cold. But we squeaked out with only minimal damage outside, thankfully. My mother-in-law called from Rigby to check on our situation, but her damage was more significant than ours. I saw several stories on the news with cities to the north of us and even south down into Utah that suffered some really SERIOUS damage. Massive trees uprooted, roofs blown off, etc. 

But this was the extent of our damage - just a lot of leaves and small branches and small debris all over the yard.

I was worried about the status of our almost-ripe peaches, but they were just fine and still hanging onto the tree. My mother-in-law lost all of her apples, and some pears, too. 

So what does one do when Fall very abruptly enters the scene? Go shopping of course! I put away all of my patriotic decor that I've had out since May, and after perusing my meager fall decorations, decided that a trip to Hobby Lobby was in order. 

After decorating to my heart's content, I sat down to do a Halloween craft with Abby and Gwen. I found a spooky little house made out of craft foam in my decorations from years past. Once we got it all assembled, I used some craft glue to attach all the little spiders and ghosts all over the little house, as the girls took turns directing me in what to glue and where to glue it. 

It was really fun! But it didn't exactly start out fun, ha ha. As the girls were reaching and grabbing at everything we pulled out of the box, peeling and pulling things apart, asking me to do this and that all at the same time, it reminded me of this hilarious video that Amber had shared with us earlier that day. It's called "Cooking with Cade and Nana". Prepare to pee your pants as you laugh hysterically.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNNgwwsO24Q&ab_channel=17

Wednesday: We took the girls to the park down the street, so that Abby could go on the zipline again. She had just barely tried it the last time they went to Community Park, and she was really excited to give it a go again. 

Flying free like a bird . . .

Gwen decided to try it for the first time, too. She loved it!

A video of Abby on the zipline:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/WXXoExaveWxyFJoG8

And a video of Gwen on the zipline:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/PKGBSqUde1s4TAxQ9

After an hour at the park, Amber and I went out to lunch together, minus the girls. We never get a chance to go out for lunch, so it was really nice that my sister, Melanie, and her family were super happy to babysit for us. 

We went to a nearby favorite, called Abracadabra's, a creative and tasty brunch restaurant. We had a wonderful time talking uninterrupted (ha ha) and catching up on things together. It was lovely!

When we got home, Melanie was in full swing doing an art project with Abby and Gwen. 

Amber had suggested that they try drawing by using their feet instead of their hands. Abby wasn't interested in doing such a weird thing, but Gwen was! 

Gwen even got into the whole thing by pretending she didn't have any hands. :)

Abby LOVED spending time with her Aunt Melanie. :)

After lunch, I took Melanie and Caleb with me to walk along the greenbelt of the Snake River. They were so happy to be OUTSIDE and in nature without melting. (They are from Mesa, Arizona and it's still above 100 degrees down there right now.)

Me on the left, Melanie on the right

Caleb, Melanie's son, on a railway bridge over the river

After we got home, we started preparing to make grilled pizza. Caleb and Melanie had requested that we make this while they were here, because the one time Melanie tried it at home - it failed. 

The trick is to be sure to brush olive oil on the dough BEFORE you flip it! And then be quick to put your toppings on and close the lid.

Classic picture right here - Melanie sticking out her tongue, and lots of people blinking, ha ha.

Gwen was sooooo hungry. This was her "Don't talk to me unless you're feeding me at the same time" face.

Amber was in charge of rolling out the dough for all of our individual pizzas. She kept us all in business.

And Caleb was supremely happy with his pizza. 

After dinner and a quick clean-up, we drove back over to the river to explore a different stretch this time. We started at the Japanese Friendship Garden, right across from the main waterfalls in downtown Idaho Falls.

Caleb, Abby, Melanie and Mandie

Caleb holding Abby. They were buddies.

Scott helped Gwen climb down all the rocks close to the bottom of the waterfall. There was a little area to hang out near the edge of the river.

He took off Gwen's shoes so she could dip her toes in the water. So precious!

Back at the top of the falls, Scott and Caleb chatted about the hydroelectric power that is being harnessed by the beautiful, but intentionally built waterfall.

Thursday: We hung out in the back yard and slowed things down a bit. It was fun to watch Natalie's puppy, Ollie, romp around and play in the back yard.

Video of Ollie chasing a tree branch that I picked up off the ground (leftover from the storm):

https://photos.app.goo.gl/tVp8MQzLyySeHsdr6

And then they were off! Back to Arizona . . . They will be missed!

Two little princesses, sitting on the porch waiting for their prince to come . . .

Scott, in helping me to clean up bedrolls from the company staying with us, decided to make things interesting with Gwen. She loved this so much that she asked him to do it again and again - about 25 times at least! 

Click here to see what they did:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/MTbyRS5yWK5Z8Y2D9

Friday: I cleaned all over the house. The End.

Saturday: I finished cleaning the house, and then went outside to work in the yard. 

We picked all the peaches off the tree. :) Yay!

After the peaches were all picked, I picked as many orange cherry tomatoes as were ripe. I took some over to share with a ward member and her family, along with some of our abundant peaches.

I also found a small handful of lingering raspberries and ate them with my lunch. :)

Later in the afternoon, after the back yard was in the shade, I pulled up all the weeds along the back of the house, in and amongst the strawberries. Then I pulled up all the cilantro stalks that had gone to seed. I harvested most of the seeds, with the intent to share some for Christmas gifts and to have some for another year. 

There were already a ton on the ground, so I just let those be. They'll come up in the spring.

Voila! About 2/3 cup of cilantro seeds.

Scott had his Army weekend and went down for his drills in Pocatello on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We had a lovely date night Saturday night. I told Amber early in the afternoon that we needed some quiet time together. It had been a busy week with our house full of company for several days, and I knew that Scott would be tired and wouldn't want to go anywhere once he got home. He's been getting up at 5:30 a.m. each day to leave by 6:00 a.m. I figured that a quiet night "in" would be just perfect. So I made us a simple dinner once he got home, and we went in our room and never came out! ha ha 

We watched t.v. together and talked. It was perfect.

Life is pretty darn good.