Three Months Later

Three months ago today, the Tea fire swept through and changed so many things.

Some of you will recognize these shots, which were taken the morning of the 14th when we walked back to the house to gather some things. We mourned the loss of the lush vegetation, the animals, the birds, the homes of friends and neighbors.


Today, I was over in the neighborhood between rain showers--yes, rain!--and took these "three mesaversary" shots. Note the two small oaks in foreground above? They are in the one below, too.


It is amazing to see the green coming back. We are not living there yet, but a neighbor has emailed with updates when the birds returned, and the frogs. There is a light dusting of green starting to cover the whole mountain range! Santa Barbara snow, maybe :)



When J.D. and I walked this road at 3am after the fire burned through, the trunks of these eucalyptus were glowing. There were literally columns of red lighting the woods, as the flame was gone but the live coals remained inside the trunks.


But some of them have made it. From the inside out, these trees are shooting out the means of getting energy for themselves. It is a beautiful picture of life springing from something that was apparently, and should be, dead.


As my friend Shannon reminded me, He gives beauty for ashes.

I'll just quote the whole chapter. This is from the ESV.

The Year of the Lord's Favor

61:1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
3 to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
4 They shall build up the ancient ruins;
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.

5 Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks;
foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers;
6 but you shall be called the priests of the Lord;
they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God;
you shall eat the wealth of the nations,
and in their glory you shall boast.
7 Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion;
instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot;
therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion;
they shall have everlasting joy.

8 For I the Lord love justice;
I hate robbery and wrong;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.
9 Their offspring shall be known among the nations,
and their descendants in the midst of the peoples;
all who see them shall acknowledge them,
that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed.

10 I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
11 For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to sprout up before all the nations.

In those early photos, I mourned the calla lilies that grew in the wild down by the rainy-season creek bed.

There is one clump back already. I look forward to the rest coming back.

I also look forward to the day when I am done with sin and the death that comes with it. Please, Lord, cause righteousness and praise to sprout up in me.

Bold, Boundless Boyness

It has been quite a week with these boys of mine. If you ever need a little bit of extra adventure (indulgent parent-ese for "Chaos"), please please please stop by for a visit. You can hang with B & W and I'll run out for tea. :)


Bud has been learning how to swim ever since DD was here and taught him to put his face in the water. This is really, really fun for all of us.

Mmmm, chocolate doughnut. That's the sun rising there, folks. It's going to be a long day.

This is from the "Mama, Wombles dumped out ALL of the toothpicks!" incident. Yes, that's the 800-toothpick size. I really wanted to use a different photo that showed all of those toothpicks, but I couldn't pass on his expression.


One of Wombles' "12 Days" presents was his very own set of chubby little crayons. Last week he colored for the first time, which was fun; now he likes to join us for a little of school everyday and flex his artistic muscles. I have to keep a sharp eye on him, though: there's not much of his purple crayon left. And he hasn't done that much coloring. Can you figure out where it's going?




There are the sweet moments, too--like when I found Bud entertaining Wombles, even though he was outside and Wombles was inside. He kept blowing bubbles at Wombles until they stuck on the glass, which made Wombles shriek with glee:




OK, so it's not all crazy (glad I have the photos to prove it!). Here's one of my favorite moments (becoming much more difficult to capture): the sleeping baby.




Finally, who could resist this bouquet, picked "especially for you, Mama! Do you like the yellow? I'm so happy you like yellow, because I picked them for you."


I'll try to catch you up on her Majesty's doings next time.

Alternative School

Usually when we start school, it looks something like this:

Granted, by the time we're done it usually looks like a kiddie arts-and-crafts store got picked up by a tornado and blew through the kitchen on its way out to sea, depositing odd bits and piles (we don't actually have tornadoes here, though). Here we've just gotten started and I'm reading to P&B before we start any lessons. I find they listen much more closely if they are coloring at the same time. Or maybe it's just that the fidgeting that otherwise happens drives me nuts.

ANYWAY, I have decided that while we're refugees we should take advantage of living two blocks from the ocean. The BBC's "Blue Planet" is providing the facts to back me up. The Pacific itself is providing the inspiration.

Bud with my Dad down at the tide pools

Our road dead-ends into a park running along the cliffs/bluffs. There are stairs down to the water that are no good at high-tide, but when the tide is out they provide access to a beach, climbing rocks, and tide pools. It is fun to look for the sea creatures hiding and waiting.

Serious studying going on

On our way to the beach steps, we have to pass the playground (I know, I know...were there ever more blessed "refugees" in all the world? I don't think so!). Wombles' new love is the slide.




Pixie's face while she was on the phone with "Auntie M," who was asking her to be her flower girl! I haven't yet told N or M that there is a STRONG possibility Pixie won't have either of her front teeth for the weddings...

I spent most of today going through photos of our losses, listing items, and finding replacement prices online so that we can file with insurance. It is totally ridiculous that looking at pictures of spices should be hard, but I feel all worn out. Looking at these blog photos has reminded me of how wonderful things are. I have been incredibly encouraged by some of my friends on facebook today and yesterday. And, we so clearly do receive good with the evil (Job 2:10).

And After

I go back and forth between feeling that the fire is a small part of the normal flow of our days--homeschool, three small children, trips to the playground, church--and somehow feeling defined by it. I know that I am not, and that my identity is secure elsewhere. Even 2.5 months later, though, it can seem that the fire is referential for every bit of life. There is "before" and "after," of course. But there are a million "because of" and "in spite of"s, too. I'm sharing two pictures here, but they are just place markers. I may process more here, and I may not. Tonight I'm a little overwhelmed by it all and am going to move ahead to other images, to share a bit of our last few months.

The fire cresting the hill as we drove toward the fire on our way to the gym

The South wall of our garage at 3 a.m.

Most of the following images are old ones that I'm just now getting to enjoy. Likewise, we'll see whether I get around to sharing Christmas in Quincy, New Year's in L.A. or Mom and Dad's trip out here in early January. :)

While at our first refugee stop (a couple from church, we stayed at their house for the first 2 1/2 weeks after the fire), Wombles learned how to play "Push." This involves accosting anyone sitting on his level and pushing them down. He loves it. I especially love the outfit he is in. We spent a little while scrambling, as it was 85 degrees when we grabbed clothes from the house (before they took away practically every stitch of textiles to be cleaned) but the weather got cold about 10 days later. Yeah, glad we have all of these tank tops! :p

The Sunday after the fire, we all went to Santa Barbara Outfitters and got "Life is Good" hats. We wear them cleaning up and working at the house and around, but especially as reminders to each other and our neighbors when we're in a tough spot. Bud's LIG shirt was one of the few articles of clothing he had for the first few days, and the feedback was so great that we all joined in. (This photo is from after Thanksgiving)


Thanksgiving Day with D.B.B. (see 11/12 post). That was our first week back at homeschool (ironic, I know) and we were on "I" week...see headdress. Yes, we ate our meal outside. Our non-homecooked meal. With friends.

Also on Thanksgiving. Pixie's friend Lucia from the neighborhood was also a refugee at this point (with her family!) . Lucia's family and ours have a supper swap and eat together every week. My friend Helen (Lucia's mom) covered the table with paper and brought crayons and the kids all drew pictures of things they are thankful for. I love the idea and hope to do it every year.

Pixie and I went to see the Santa Barbara Theatre Company's Peter Pan. It was the musical, and they really flew! Things had been so chaotic that we didn't even know that two young people from our neighborhood were in the show until we were there! Pixie was excited to see (her friend) Leia's brother as "John" and our next-door neighbor as Wendy's daughter.

Wombles-the-architect stacking canned goods on the trash bin. Mmmm. This is in the rental. The sunset below is from the rental, too!



Many blessings to you. Thanks for checking in.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

For we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the World.

--1 John 4:14

Merry Christmas.

More soon.

Fire update

Well, I guess I spoke a little too soon about having a season "between" fire and rainy seasons. As many of you know, Thursday a wildfire swept through our area. It moved extremely quickly--from J.D.'s "I smell smoke" around 5:45 to our neighbor's "you might wanna get some things together" at 5:55--when we could see the wall of flames up the hill, even as we felt the Santa Anas whipping past. We left for the shelter 15-20 minutes later.

We are all fine, and staying with a family from church who has offered us housing until our home is habitable again. We hope that will be soon, but there is some damage and there is yet danger in the area--so we're not sure when that will be. I hope to soon upload some of our photos, and give more detail. Life is right now a series of details to take care of, as you can imagine--please join me in thanking the Lord that he is in control of every one of those details, every one of us.

Pixie is feeling better and keeping food down.

Please pray for the children (not just ours), for when we return and they see the extent of the damage.

Many, many thanks. Hope to be in touch soon (hope to have my own computer with internet access soon!!)

Love,
F.C.

Sunset Season

I think sunset season falls just between fire season and rainy season...whatever the timing, we've been having some doozies for the first few weeks of November. We do have those other four seasons, too. However, as one of J.D.'s co-workers put it last year: "How do you like winter?...it's subtle." But boy, do we have either wet wet wet or tinder.



Pixie has started a dance studio in the front room. It involves lots of twirling and lots of asking me to be the teacher. I quit ballet after second grade (alas), mainly because ballet class was the same day my friend Niki could play after school, I think. So I do what I can, which isn't much. Anyway, Pixie fires up the electric keyboard on "autoplay" and goes to town.

Bud tucks in "Delicate Blue Baby" nearly every night at bedtime. If you ask Bud the baby's name, he says "Baby Wombles," but he actually only refers to him as "Delicate Blue Baby." He is Bud's son. Last night Bud explained to me that he was taking care of D.B.B. because he loves him. "Like you and Daddy take care of me, right, Mom?" [melt]