Aunt Eileen

When I was a child, my extended family was a very important part of my life.  I spent many weekends with my Aunt Eileen (my mother's sister), Uncle Joe (my mother's brother), and Great-Aunt Flo (my father's aunt, and yes, that's her real name, and no, I don't mean that special monthly gift).  As I got older, for many reasons, I saw less and less of them.  By the time I was a teenager, I hardly saw them at all.  Yet, each of these people holds a very dear place in my heart.

My Aunt Eileen taught me to call children, "sweetie." She introduced me to chocolate croissants, to the notion that you could be a mom and listen to hip music, and how to play Mille Bornes. 

My Uncle Joe taught me that I would not actually *die* from having a cup of milk with my ham.  He also left me with the indelible memory of the sign on his pool - "Welcome to our ool.  Notice there's no "p" in it.  Let's keep it that way."  And he taught me that Rottweilers can actually be very sweet dogs.

My Aunt Flo taught me to enjoy scrambled eggs with pepperoni in them.  And she taught me fantastic poems such as Annabel Lee and The Pobble Who Has No Toes and the classic, "Poor Little Kristin sitting in the tub.  Her mother forgot to put in the plug.  Oh my goodness, what a shame.  There goes Kristin down the drain."  She was (and is) an amazing source of unconditional love an acceptance in my life.

Each of these beautiful, wonderful, amazing people cared for me, shaped me, set an example for me, and most importantly, loved me.

But as I got older I spent less and less time with them until eventually I hardly saw them at all.  My Aunt Eileen and Uncle Joe had moved to upstate New York, and so we didn't see them all that often.  My Aunt Flo was in Queens, and I spent most of my time as a teenager hanging out with my friends in Brooklyn.  As I grew into a young adult, and got married, I began to feel the lack of these particular people in my life.  But by that time I was living in Chicago, newly married, and not really sure how to go about reconnecting.  So I didn't really try to.

Over the years I thought about them often.  Periodically, I even had conversations with each of them.  When my mom was dying, I saw more of my Aunt Eileen and my Uncle Joe than I had in many years.  That was one of the hardest times of my life, and honestly, it was too emotionally charged to really bring about big changes in these relationships. There were some hurt feelings, and my Aunt and I parted not on bad terms, but not on good terms either.

And then,some seven years later (spring of 2009), something happened.  I found an old family friend who had known my Aunt Eileen when I was a child.  He talked about her sometimes and I started to awaken to a desire to have her in my life.  I didn't know how to go about it though.  A few months ago, I remembered thinking that she might have some family photos and decided to call her and ask her for copies.  I honestly did want copies of the pictures and I hoped (but didn't admit this to myself) that asking for this favor might open a door. 

Asking didn't open a door.  It opened a floodgate.

Ever since my mother died (eight and a half years ago as of this writing) I have had a mom-sized hole in my heart.   She and I had relationship issues, but she was my mom.  She knew me better than anyone on the planet, even my amazing husband.  And we never got to heal those issues.  And after she died, I finally allowed myself to be mad at her for what was missing in our relationship.  So much so that for many years I didn't even want to mourn.  I knew that allowing myself to have those feelings would be the only way to begin to move past them.  And then this past Mother's Day, for the very first time, I missed her achingly.  Just writing about her now has me wiping tears away.  I am 38 (almost 39) and still, sometimes, life gets overwhelming and I want my mom.  And truthfully, although I cannot have her back in this earthly life, I have been given an amazing gift.  A gift of grace.  A gift from God.  And that gift is my Aunt Eileen.

She is mentoring me.  She is teaching me to be harder on myself in healthy ways, in ways that matter, and to be kinder to myself and the world around me.  She is teaching me to be more aware of my relationship with myself, with my children, with my husband, and with my Heavenly Father.  She is actively cheering and guiding me as I exercise and revamp my entire eating philosophy.  She is directing me toward taking charge in a no more excuses kind of way of the things in my life that I have identified as lacking. She is filling that mom sized hole in my heart.  And for that, I cannot thank her enough.

I can do this though:

She has asked me to be more aware of my blessings, and to focus on the things I am grateful for. So, for the rest of this month, every day, I will post a new "Grateful for" on my blog each day.  There are many, many gratefuls in my life, but today, I will start with her.


I am grateful for my Aunt Eileen.  I am grateful for the guidance she is giving me, for the time she is investing in me, and for the lessons she is sending my way.  I am grateful for our renewed relationship, and that she loves me enough to stand up to me and for me. I am grateful that she is helping me to heal that hole-- that missing piece.  So today, Aunt Eileen, my first grateful is you.  From the very bottom of my heart, thank you so, so much.

Homecoming 2010

Scrapbook design generated with Smilebox

Man is in the forest - the final chapter, but not the end.

So, on Saturday after returning home, I gathered up my reciepts and necessary paperwork and headed to the filing station that the National Guard had set up at our city offices.

Upon arriving, I was escorted to a tent to fill out paperwork.  It was surprisingly little paperwork (considering it was a government issue).  After filling it out, I was brought into a room filled with Guardsman.  Every person there was so humble, so contrite.  They were gentle with every resident of Herriman, taking accountability for the fire.  They were gracious in their treatment of us.  I was signed in, and after a short time I met with a paralegal, whose job it was to review my receipts.  The guard looked over everything I had.  He wrote up his total estimate for what they owed us, and brought me to a JAG officer to review the work he had done.  It was actually very emotional to see all these guardsmen and women in uniform just being so gracious to those of us who had been affected by the fire.  They paid both Michael and me for the time we missed from work.  They gave us a generous per diem.  They refunded us for the few clothing items that we had to buy.  I walked out that day with a check. 

As of this writing, I still have to finish filing our insurance claim. 

Our soft surfaces (all fabrics and shoes) were laundered by a professional remediation service.  We had so much laundry that it took THREE weeks to get it all back.  The bill came to over $17,000.00 just for the soft surfaces.  We have boxes and boxes piled up and I still haven't found the kids' Halloween costumes.  It will take us weeks to get it all put away.

The dust is never ending. Wildfires make a ton of dust, and it seems that we dust our home only to have it look (a week later) as though we haven't dusted in a month. The ripple effect of this fire seems to be ongoing. Little things, like the amount of time it will take to put away the laundry, the extra dusting, the long wait to get our clothes back, keep popping up and will continue to. That being said, I want to share the words of a friend, who really summed it all up very, very well.

Our friend, Carl Wimmer (and local Representative for the Utah House of Representatives) summed everything up very well when he said this:

"At around 2:30am Governor Herbert, Congressman Chaffetz, Mayor Mills and I were driven close to the fire line to view what was occurring. The flames were extremely hot, very high and showed no sign of stopping. The foreseen devastation was horrible to imagine, as we were once again told that they had 0% containment on the fire.

Governor Herbert had arranged for he, Congressman Chaffetz, Fire Chief Jensen and myself to go up in a chopper at 6:00am to view the damage. We decided to leave so we could sleep for an hour or two before flying. Mayor Josh Mills stayed. He was not about to leave his city to go sleep, when so many were still in desperate conditions.

The next morning we met and boarded the chopper. All of us on board were prepared for the worst. We knew how devastating the fire looked just three hours before. Nothing could have prepared us for what we were about to see...Not another house had been destroyed, not one. Yes, some were damaged. But not a single home had burned to the ground with the exception of the three which had occurred earlier. Chief Jensen explained that after we had left the fire line around 2:30am, the winds had changed direction, the firemen had been able to do “back burns” to stop the fire, and one brave bulldozer driver had helped by making fire lines next to the homes.

The black charred earth was next to many homes, but the homes were still standing. The vast majority of the flames were out. Governor Herbert called it a miracle, and it was. Our prayer in Mayor Mills’s office had been heard. Not only did He change the winds, but He buoyed up the men and women who worked ALL NIGHT to help save people’s homes. There were no serious injuries reported.
The loss of the three homes is tragic, and the devastation to those families cause my heart to ache. I do not diminish their loss in any way, just to say that it was a miracle that more were not lost...God moved on Herriman that night. Of this I am certain."

Our whole town has rallied (and continues to rally) to thank the brave men and women who fought this horrific fire.  Our friends and neighbors have volunteered in the re-seeding of the mountian (to help prevent runoff and landslides).  This whole experience has been an absolute modern day miracle.  We are so very, very blessed that so many homes were spared from this atrocity. Carl was right. God moved on Herriman that night. I, too, am certain.

Now, pardon the cheesy music, but the slides show everything - from the start of the fire, through the awful night, to the next day, police barricades, National Guard restitution, sandbags being made, and the mountain being reseeded.  It's amazing to watch.

We interrupt this fire to bring you to the Adamism of the day.

I can't start this post without providing a little background and back story. 

First, a little background on an activity we hold in our home on Monday nights.  It's called Family Home Evening, or FHE, and it's an event that many members of our church strive to hold each week.  It's basically an evening that we dedicate to being together as a family, but it's an evening with an added purpose.  Family Home Evening consists of several components, and these components are assigned out to each member of the family.  Components consist of choosing a lesson topic, choosing appropriate hymns or children's church songs which support the lesson, having an activity or a game, and then having a treat.  We have found it to be a wonderful bonding experience, and it has opened some great dialogue in our home.  Topics can range from the importance of family, to lessons on various virtues, to fire safety, to budgeting, to scripture stories.  Each person takes turns in choosing and preparing the various activities of this weekly event.

Now that you know how Family Home Evening works, I'll tell you the next part.

Twice a year our church holds a conference (which is called General Conference) in which church leaders speak to us about a variety of topics.  We really love watching conference, and we provide activities for our children to do during conference because, honestly, it's hard for them to watch a bunch of grownups talk using big words for eight hours over two days.  We hope that they glean a little bit of what is being said, and we provide them with activity packets that help them look for details (such as who's speaking, what color their tie is, what day a particular person spoke, et cetera) in order to help them pay attention.  Truthfully though, we don't really expect them to retain a whole lot of it.

Okay, now you know how General Conference works.  I want to share with you a small bit about one of the talks that was given at our most recent conference (held two weeks ago).

A gentleman named Russell Ballard, an elder and leader in our church, gave a talk about addiction, and about how people become ensnared or trapped into such a dangerous and difficult place.  He talked about Lucifer's role in such matters.  Understand that in our home, Satan, Lucifer, the devil, whatever you call him, is not really a topic of conversation, well, pretty much ever.  We talk a lot about choice and accountability.  We talk about free will and agency.  We talk about the love that God and Jesus have for each of us.  We tend to focus on the positive, and generally only discuss the adversary (as we call him) when we can see that influence in the world around us.  We really honestly rarely discuss him though.  This is part of what Elder Ballard spoke said:


"Like the fly fisherman who knows that trout are driven by hunger, Lucifer also knows our hunger or our weaknesses and tempts us with counterfeit lures which, if taken, can cause us to be yanked from the stream of life into his unmerciful influence...and unlike a fisherman who catches and releases the fish unharmed back into the water, Lucifer will not voluntarily let go. His goal is to make his victims as miserable as he is."

Adam had to choose a topic for an upcoming Family Home Evening.  The rest of us had already chosen topics for other FHEs  in the month, and they were fairly simple.  I chose healthy eating.  Michael chose Thanksgiving.  Frankie chose honesty.  It was Adam's turn to choose.  "Well," he said matter-of-factly, "How about hooks that Satan has all around us?" 

Wha--at??? Who are you?  Hooks that Satan has all around us?  Where did that come from?  "Yeah, Adam," I said, laughing, "Where did that come from?" "You know," he said, "Like in Elder Ballard's talk. Like the artificial snares that Satan uses like fly fisherman use."

Little pitchers.  Big LISTENING ears.  Grateful mom.

And I will finish the fire story soon.

Man is in the Forest -- the next to the last chapter

Shortly after re-evacuating I was relieved to find that my allergy symptoms were dissipating.  This made me very happy. 

I stayed on the phone with our insurance company that afternoon for quite awhile.  I also called our city, the local animal control (to see if they could take our pets), and our vet's office.  There are a lot of mundane details in this entry, but since I'm also recording this for my posterity, I felt it important to include more of a play-by-play.

Here's what happened:

I explained to our insurance company that it seemed I am allergic to whatever burned.  I was exhausted. I was emotional.  The first time we evacuated, I had plenty of support.  This time, it was just me, the kids, and all the pets.  And it wasn't new.  Any sense of adventure was gone.  This time, it really just sucked.  There were two bright spots though:  Frankie was incredibly poised and helpful and our insurance rep was amazing.  She was compassionate, kind, understanding, and empathetic.   I cannot give them enough credit - we have USAA and they are incredible. I called several hotels, and, after consulting with Michael and our nanny, finally decided on Little America.  They offered a very reasonable evacuation rate, had spacious rooms, and were a decent commute for Michael's work.

That left the issue with the pets.  Little America (like so many hotels) is a pet-free hotel.  Honestly though, I could not imagine having that many pets cooped up in a hotel room with us.  It would have been awful. I knew I had to find placement for them.  I called the city animal shelter to see if they were still boarding evacuated animals, but they weren't able to help.

I spoke with our city and they made a call and found out the status of the fire relative to our home.  They assured me that it was highly unlikely that our home would have to be re-evacuated.  This helped, because I didn't want to bring my pets home and fear that they would suffer smoke inhalation from the re-invigorated blaze. Since the risk was almost nil, our nanny kindly brought the pets home.  She also took Frankie with her, and the two of them got some dinner on their way back to the hotel. 

Where are we?  Tuesday night.  So, Michael had gone to work, met me in Salt Lake, took the boys and me to dinner, and then we headed back to the hotel.

On Wednesday,  I called our insurance company again, concerned that I wouldn't be able to return to the home until the fire was a) completely contained and b) we had a smoke remediation service come to remove all of the smoke (from our house) and soot (from our garage).  Incidentally, I'd had a smoke remediation company come to our home on Monday, and I had gotten an idea of what needed to be done, but I didn't have a warm fuzzy feeling about that company and decided to explore other options. Again, USAA to the rescue.  They referred us to preferred contractors, and I made more calls.  Michael went to meet the contractors at our home, and grabbed more of our clean (but smoky) clothes while he was there.  He cleaned out the garage (which had needed it anyway and now really needed it so the work could be done) and met with the smoke remediation company.

The smoke remediation company came out and assessed our damage.  They told us they would bring ozone machines to rid the house of smoke, and a team of cleaners to wipe down all horizontal surfaces.


We had to make arrangements to have the pets go the vet to be boarded because smoke remediation involves using an ozone machine which essentially depletes the air of oxygen.  No living thing can be in a home while the ozone machine is in use because it is lethal.  In fact, had we owned plants, they would have been removed too.  He took the fish, the dog, and our two cats to the vet.  Thanks again to USAA (I sound like a commercial) for approving that expense as part of our displacement.  Our nanny took her cat to her cousin's house, and the outside cat stayed, well, outside.  Michael dropped the pets off and came back to the hotel and we all went to our favorite Thai place (conveniently located just blocks from our hotel) for dinner.

After dinner, I started to sort through our laundry and began experiencing all of my allergy symptoms again.  It might sound weird, but it was kind of reassuring to know that I really was allergic, and not just imagining things.  I hadn't anticipated having allergy symptoms from sorting the clothes that had been at home, but there's no doubt that that's exactly what was happening.

I spoke with USAA (again) the next morning.  They arranged to have a laundry service come and take every scrap of fabric out of our home.  Turns out that due to my allergies, we also needed our linens to be sent to a special cleaner (who deals with fire damage).  Michael took Thomas and went out to the house again (so much for staying downtown to give him a better commute) and made all of the arrangements.  He also brought our laundry home so that the laundry people could take care of it.  We had sorted bags into priority (meaning a week's worth of clothes that would be returned the next day) and everything else.

I took Adam and Max to our downtown, beautiful outdoor shopping plaza via Trax (our lightrail train system).  I discovered that the only outfit I had was ill-fitting.  I went to a store and bought a new outfit, on mega-sale.  It's funny, I suspected that I would be reimbursed for clothes I might have to purchase, but it mattered to me to be as frugal as possible.  I never once felt like it would be okay to live it up on my insurance.

Adam, Max, and I had lunch, and then we picked up a rental stroller.  We walked around for awhile and then I took Adam for ice cream at Ben & Jerry's.  Max was fussy too, so I got a little bit of mango sorbet and fed it to him.  By this point, Frankie and the nanny were almost back to the hotel from Herriman.  They met up with us for ice cream, and I returned our rental stroller.  I carried a dead-weight, completely asleep Max to the Trax station.  I never knew that a child could be quite that heavy.  Michael met us half-way through our journey and took us back to the hotel.

I forgot to mention that our nanny had been driving Frankie to school every day, going to work at her other job, and then picking Frankie up and taking her back to the hotel.  Frankie was missing her first period class every day, but it was far better than her missing so much school. Honestly, had Devin not been there I think we would have just kept Frankie out of school for the week, which would have been tough on many levels.

We all went out for dinner again that night at a place called Skybox.  They have a fairly run-of-the-mill menu but their kids meals come with tokens for their little arcade.  The kids and adults had fun playing skee-ball, pinball, and air hockey. 

I went to our local Smith's marketplace and bought a few necessities.  In my hasty sorting of laundry, I missed a few items we needed and shopped the sale rack to get them.

On Friday, Michael went to work.  Luckily, it was his early day and he finished at 2:30.  I mostly stayed in our room, having no stroller.  Eventually, I gathered up my courage (taking a two-year old and an infant anywhere by yourself without a stroller is a huge challenge) and took the kids downstairs for lunch.  We ate at the Little America Express Lunch Buffet, which sounds kind of fast-foodish but is actually the opposite.  It's a rather fancy buffet complete with linens, cold gourmet salads, several hot entrees in chafing dishes, a carving station, and almost no children.

Little America dining room (and yes, this is what it looks like at lunch time).

You may wonder why I would choose to take my toddler and infant to such a lovely place instead of taking them next door to the Little America coffee shop:

Coffee shop - if you look out the window you can see a Trax train blurring by as mentioned above.

I would claim temporary insanity and you might believe me, but the real reason is that the lunch buffet takes place in the Little America Steakhouse and Adam was dying to eat in the Steakhouse.  He had been such a great little helper and I felt he deserved a reward. He was so excited.  "We getta eat in the Steakhouse??? Wow!" The prices were actually fairly close in both places and honestly, I had eaten in the coffee shop a few times and was ready for a change of pace.  Plus, with a toddler to entertain, I liked the idea of being able to choose a variety of foods I knew he liked.

I ordered chocolate milk for Thomas and asked the hostess to remove our tablecloth.  She was reluctant to do so, and simply folded it in half, away from Thomas.  That worked out well, since five minutes later he spilled his entire cup of chocolate milk all over the tablecloth.  Cream colored tablecloths aren't that absorbent or that pretty when loaded down with chocolate milk, but they are more absorbent than the wooden table underneath. 

We went back to the room after lunch, and I settled Max down for a nap.  A couple of hours later, Frankie, and the nanny arrived, and we all went for a swim.  Michael was supposed to meet us at the pool but he got hung up at work.

We swam for awhile, and then Max fell asleep in the nanny's arms, in the pool.  We went back to our rooms to shower and start getting ready to go to dinner.

I spoke with the smoke remediation folks and they let us know that we could return home the next day.  I was so excited.  The hotel wasn't bad at all, but it certainly wasn't home.

We waited for our clothing to come back from the cleaning company.  It arrived around 5:30 and after getting it sorted, we went to an early dinner at Red Lobster.  It was Shrimpfest or something like that where everyone could get their fill of shrimp for $15.00 per person.  It was a little bit of a splurge, but we had been fairly cautious all week and it was within the budget that our insurance company gave us for our per diem.   And it was Friday, and we would be going home the next day, and I wanted to at least have what felt a little bit like a vacation now that our hotel stay was coming to a close.

After dinner, I went to Shopko and picked up diapers (an obvious necessity) and some Ghost Dots (a treat).  The Ghost Dots were a big hit.  They're all the same sort of glow in the dark kind of green (although they don't actually glow in the dark.  That would be scary since they're edible). 

When we got back to the hotel, Max was asleep but Michael wanted to go for a swim.  He took Adam and Thomas with him.  They had been gone for about 20 minutes when Max woke up.  I changed us both into our swimsuits and we headed to the pool.  Michael played with the babies and I gave Adam a swimming lesson.  We swam for about an hour and then headed up to bed.

The next day, Saturday, Michael and I got up early and took the boys to the Farmer's Market.  I was the only one that got out of the car since we had no stroller and I really only wanted to pick up a few things.  We took our wares back to the hotel and packed up our room.  Frankie and the nanny decided to head back to the house, and Michael and I took the boys for another swim.  Adam and I spent a little bit of time in the sauna, and then we headed back to the house.  I came home and started to gather receipts and paperwork to file with the National Guard, and Michael took the boys. 

Filing with the Guard will be the next and essentially final chapter.  It was an amazing experience.  I hope I can adequately describe it.

P.S.  I save all of Adam's clothes for hand-me-downs.  With eight plus years of his clothing, all of our seasonal wardrobes (Michael, Frankie, Adam, Thomas, Max, the nanny, and me) plus our towels, blankets, curtains, and other linens, we had 203 boxes of laundry.  We'll get it back this Thursday.  That's gonna be like Christmas, with a ton of gifts to put away.

Man is in the Forest - part II (coming home)

As we drove to home to Herriman that morning, we wondered what we would encounter.  Would they let us in to our home?  Would the air still be smoky?  Would the mountain still be on fire?

This is what we saw:

This is what the mountain looked like at the start of things on Sunday as well.  The only differences then were that the smoke was on the right side of the picture and the mountain was still green.

If you hadn't known that the smoke on the mountain was actually smoke, this might look somewhat Utopian.  What we knew though was that part of the mountain was still on fire, and most of the mountain was black.  And rows, upon rows, upon rows of homes were still, miraculously intact.

Although the fire was somewhat contained by this point, as we drove into our community, I could feel my throat starting to burn from the lingering smoke, (which had been much worse the night before) my eyes started to water, and I started to sneeze.

We drove to the first major intersection in our neighborhood.  The guardsman read our address from my driver's license and didn't want to let us in, seeing as how they were letting families in up to 14100 and we lived at 14172.  I told him we really only wanted to check on our pets and then we would leave again.  His buddy said he wasn't sure if the next checkpoint would let us through, but he let us give it a try.

We saw the next checkpoint as we were almost to our home.  My clever husband drove 3/4 of the way around the block in order to avoid him, and we pulled up into our driveway.  The garage smelled awful.  The house smelled smoky, but not terrible. We walked in, noticed our disgusting hastily abandoned dinner dishes, and headed to the basement door.  We let our cats out, and they made a beeline for upstairs.  I picked up Falfie, our tiger-striped boy, and held him for a moment.  He was pretty agitated, so I let him go.  Knowing they were no longer in danger, we left.

We talked to some of the law enforcement who were blocking the way to the homes a block east of us.  We asked them if they knew when the evacuation would be lifted.  They didn't. 

We drove over to the evacuation zone (the local high school) to see if we could find people we knew who might have more information.  We couldn't find them.  What we did find, though, was that volunteers from the community and the Red Cross had a plethora of food for the few people there.  It actually brought tears to my eyes to see how many in the surrounding areas had jumped to aid the evacuees.  Several fast food restaurants, Wal-Mart, and even some nicer restaurants all heeded the call to bring food up to the evacuation zone.  The volunteers insisted that we leave with food, and they loaded us up with snacks, salads, and bread.  We headed off toward Salt Lake City to plan our next move.

I was completely worn out.  Not having had even an hour's sleep the night before had caught up with me.  I knew everything was safe, and any adrenaline that had been keeping me going, was gone.  Michael dropped me off at a hotel that was about 15 miles from our home, and went to retrieve the kids.  I don't remember anything other than turning on the air conditioning, and dropping into bed.  I woke up when Michael brought the kids to me.  He and Frankie went to do something-- get more clothes from the house, I think.  And I entertained the boys.  Thomas was a little wild man, completely out of his element, and off his schedule.  I was grateful when Michael finally pulled back up the hotel.

Not long after Michael came back, we learned that our home had been cleared for return.  We still had to pay for the hotel, but they were kind and gave us a discount.  We headed home.  We ate leftovers for dinner, marveled at being home, and went to bed early.

The next day, Tuesday, my friend and co-teacher, Sherry, came over to school with me.  The whole time she was with me, I was blowing my nose, itching my face, and wiping my eyes.  I was so allergic to whatever had burned.  It was awful.  I didn't know how I was going to live this way.  My hope was that once the fire was out, the allergens and smoke would clear, and I would be okay again. 

Shortly after Frankie got home from school, (around 3:00)  I found out that the wind had shifted and the fire was heading back our way.  The air outside was smokier and had turned gray.  Since I was the only adult home with the kids, Frankie and I gathered up everything we had evacuated with, loaded up the car with the kids, our stuff, the dog, and four cats (my two, my nanny's one, and the outside kitty we feed), and drove back to Salt Lake.  The cats meowed the whole way.  They were not happy at all to be in the car.  Michael and our nanny, Devin, were both working in Salt Lake at the time, and we arranged to meet back at the home we stayed in on Sunday night.

At that point, I had no idea where we were going to go, or how long we would have to be gone. I got on the phone with our insurance company, and started explore our options.

This mountain used to be green.

Stay tuned for part 3...

(photos by Clayton Tycksen and unknown pilot)

Man is in the forest - part I

This past Sunday afternoon (around 3:00) I noticed that our home was starting to smell smoky, and I heard that some National guardsman has started a fire on the mountain behind our home. They had been shooting machine guns during high red alert fire conditions (not too bright) and a spark had hit dry brush.  To be honest,  I wasn't really worried about it since the National Guard starts a fire in our mountains every year.

This year was different in that this fire was about to spread...quickly, and far. But we didn't know this yet.


We went about business as usual. Later that night, our friends, the Brays, joined us for dinner. We sat down to eat around 7:15ish, as dusk was setting in.  Throughout our meal we took turns checking out the fire that was starting to crawl over the mountainside we view from our back door. We learned that families who lived high up in the mountain were being evacuated to the junior high that was about a block from our home. We still weren't too worried. After all, we were close to the place they were evacuating to.

The view about a block from my home at about 3:30

In the ten minutes it took us to learn that the evacuation site was being moved a few miles away, the fire tripled in size. Although we hadn't received any kind of word that our neighborhood was expected to be evacuated, we started gathering our photos, clothing, shoes, and important papers. It was a fairly unorganized packing spree as we stuffed our clothing in plastic bags. Although I felt very peaceful about the possible outcomes of this raging fire, we were preparing for the worst.

When we decided to pack

It took us about 30 minutes to pack everything we needed, and by the time we were loading our car our neighborhood was being evacuated by the police. By this point, we were frantically loading our car, concerned about our babies breathing in the overpowering smoke that was now hovering all around us.  I couldn't get out of my driveway fast enough.  We sat in rush-hour like traffic breathing in that horrible smoke for about 15 minutes as we inched our way out of our neighborhood. I put my A/C on recirculate to help, and tried to get Adam to hold cloth over the babies' mouths only, but they were having no part of that.  My single focus was on getting them away from the smoke as quickly as possible.  I guess I should have felt frightened, but honestly we had been able to get so much of what mattered out of our home and were never in imminent danger. I just wanted to get my babies to better air.

What the mountain looked like as we were leaving

As we had been packing, we made the decision to take our dog with us, but because we didn't think our neighborhood was going to get evacuated (in that we were leaving mostly to get the babies out of the smoke), we locked our cats in the basement (which wasn't smoky, and left them with food and water.
By the time we were halfway out of our neighborhood I regretted my decision. Given the smoke and the traffic though, it was too late to turn back.

We headed for a friend's home, about 25 miles from our home. Michael and the kids eventually settled in for a restless sleep, and I stayed glued to Facebook watching for every little update. I learned that more and more of our community was being evacuated, and I started to get a little bit worried.I think fear for my pets was the single concern that kept me up all night. I called the city and asked them if there was any way to evacuate my pets. They told me that if my home did catch on fire, firefighters would be alerted to the pets and make every effort to get them out. This didn't go very far in assuaging my guilt. I literally slept for 55 minutes the whole night, keeping my phone on my lap in case I got the dreaded call that my house had been damaged.

A few blocks from my home

Through the night, media sources reported that four homes had been burned but that we wouldn't learn the full extent of the damage until morning light. From what I could gather from neighbors on Facebook, media websites, and our city's website, our home was still a few blocks from the fire line. For me, the actual fire was coming way to close for comfort.  I just simply could not go to sleep and kept my vigil by computer light.  By dawn, I was physically, emotionally, and mentally exhausted. I took a shower and Michael and I learned that they were letting residents in up to 14100 South. We live at 14172 South. We headed for home, ready to rescue our pets, not sure if they would let us in.

To be continued...



(photo credits given to Heather Genessy, Doran Barton, Christopher Jones, Clayton Tycksen, and some unknown sources)