FIRESTORM 2007

I'm sure most of you by now have heard of the Southern California wildfires, or as the local news stations so aptly named it "FIRESTORM 2007". Let me tell you that it was actually kind of scary. On Sunday afternoon before Alice and Julie left we noticed huge plumes of smoke coming over the hills towards the west. I figured it was just some distant wildfire and nothing to worry about. Little did we know that by Sunday night and Monday morning it was raining ash and smoke and only got worse as the week went on. The smoke was so bad that we had to keep all the doors and window shut despite the 80-90 degree temperatures outside. It was a good thing the smoke blotted out the sun for the most part.


Anyway, we were very close to the evacuation zones but never actually got the reverse 911 call to leave. But it was kind of surreal when I was running around the house preparing and packing in case we did have to leave. I'm a planner and I like to be prepared. And it wasn't to paranoid of me either because they evacuated Scripps Ranch which and Miramar which is pretty dang close. Anyway, I walked through the house looking at all our stuff and realized that in fact, it was just all stuff. It was ALL replaceable. I grabbed the few pictures we had hanging on the walls that couldn't be replaced, our wedding album, computers, some clothes and that was it. It made me realize that this stuff around me doesn't define me or us or the things that are most important like family, marriage and my beautiful baby. It was quite freeing.

My parents were in a voluntary evacuation zone. The fires in Rancho Santa Fe were only a few miles from their house, but because they are located beyond lots of businesses they weren't in real danger, although they could see embers and stuff in the air.

It's hard to live down here and not know someone personally who was affected by these fires. Whole neighborhoods went up in ashes in a matter of minutes -- and those ashes blew all over our deck and car and everything else that was outside, but let's focus on the important things, right?

The air quality was so bad that Tyler decided to take Max up to his parents' house in Sonora for the rest of the week so his little lungs could be healthy and not full of ash and soot for the rest of his life. I think he had a great time with his cousins and grandparents.

We survived FIRESTORM 2007 (if you say it in a big booming TV voice it's way more intimidating). We're so grateful to all those firefighters and their families. I always seem to relate more the the wives and moms of those firefighters because that's who I am.