Never a Dull Moment

We are back to normal today, with J.'s Mayterm class starting this morning and all systems go at home, too. On Sunday night, J. did a lot of the unpacking, but we are not finished yet. Considering that we are still under an evacuation warning, I think that's OK. Earlier this morning J. was informed that although the fire is back in the wilderness right now, if the winds pick up tonight and fan it up (the way it was going last week--see photos from last Wednesday) it would reach Mountain Drive in about 45 minutes. My guess is that at that rate our yard is about another 10-15 minutes.

So, there's the fire update. Here are a few fun photos from our last couple of days:

Our first evacuation stop: the playground. Those aren't clouds behind him!

Pixie and the strawberries at MaII’s

Uncle Dale tirelessly pushed Pixie and Bud in the hammock, although Bud used it more as a launching pad than anything else. His favorite exit was a somersault.

Yesterday, Wombles went AWOL for a few minutes. I found him playing in our bathroom sink. ???

Bud and Wombles climbed into the wheelbarrow this morning. They had a lot of fun, and I don’t have all of the dirt out of Wombles’ scalp yet.

The sign of peace when we came back from our evacuation: a spiderweb on the play set.

We're Home!

We are home--Hooray! I won't be uploading pictures tonight because I want to do a little Mother's Day celebrating. :)

On our way home from LA, we saw a little "parade" of4-6 large fire engines heading the opposite direction--south. Home for them, too! Always a wonderful sight to see the firefighters heading home. We were cheered.

After our return, our neighbor across the street welcomed us back and added "Let's hope it's for good"--a reminder that the fire's still burning up canyon (as if the near-constant helicopters weren't reminder enough!). I sure hope we don't have to leave again.

Other good news is that the total count on destroyed homes is much lower than first thought, for which we are very grateful.

Happy Mother's Day!!

Evacuation Order Lifted

I just found out that after 10am this morning we will be allowed to go back home! Wonderful news. We're enjoying our time here at MaII's very much and are so happy to spend time with her and Dale (who got in this morning for Mother's Day) so we're not running back to Santa Barbara this minute; but it will be good to be home in time for J. to teach his Mayterm class this week!

Perhaps from home next time,
H.

Jesusita Fire, Day 5

I wish I could adequately communicate how wonderful our hosts have been. They are generous in a dying-to-self sort of way that is inspiring (and a little scary, when I realize how much I'd like to be like them, and what that actually means). We love them, and are loved.

OK, I just couldn't go on until I got that out. Today J. did the whole graduation thing, taking most of the morning and into the early afternoon. The skies in Santa Barbara were very foggy today (GREAT news for the fire--cold and wet air right off of the Pacific). After watching flames in the distance last night that were probaly 100 feet high, this morning was calm and cool and very encouraging.

The 8am press conference from unified command (Forest Service, Cal Fire, Santa Barbara and now Montecito Fire Dept.s, Sheriff & Police) focused almost exclusively on the Montecito front, which is the eastern one and the one nearest us. Later in the morning I found a fire map that could track where fires likely were (although not how large they are). Then a CD was played that was from our refugee days--Seeds of Purpose . Love it (in fact I had given this copy to our hosts) but I find music so incredibly evocative, and the combination of those three things made me...well...sad. Not necessarily worried that something was going to happen to our house (I still think it will be fine) but certainly a return to feeling very vulnerable, and a mourning for what has been and what is...like running into my friend Jill at Target in Ventura, whom I never see anymore because her house (two doors down and across the street) burned down last time and she and her husband and five children haven't moved home yet. They were out, like us, on a mandatory evacuation from their rental! Sometimes it seems like too much!

...and yet it isn't, of course. Unless, still, it is too much goodness. There is still far more that is beautiful and good, and those are good gifts that I will take with whatever evil happens across our paths. I look forward to sharing with you photos from tonight, where we are safely and comfortably at J.'s grandmother's, and where Pixie picked strawberries to her heart's desire. Where she and Bud blasted recorders in their band, and Wombles swung in the hammock or played gleefully in the dirt.

And those are the little wonders, right? Someone we admire very much once told J. that a good answer to "How are you?" is "Better than I deserve." No matter what craziness is going on here, that is still a good answer from me. Those of you who know Jesus know what I'm talking about.

And so, basically, I don't have much news to report because we're in LA and I can't get any news about what matters to me back in SB except that we are still on mandatory evacuation. Down here I can't hear when the helicopters are flying and see where they are working, in order to get a good idea of what's happening, like back home. We'll just have to wait and see what happens tomorrow! I can't even step outside to see how hard the wind's blowing...And maybe that's a good thing for now. SO you just get a little of the internal progress of the fire instead! :)

Happy Mother's Day!! I am excited to be spending it here with MaII tomorrow. The kids were SO excited that we were coming here, and were not disappointed upon arrival. Thanks so much for checking in.


PS: Here's the fire map. It's actually pretty cool.
http://wv.enplan.com/

Jesusita Fire, Day 4

We received a phone call at about 7:30 this morning informing us of the evacuation order that had been extended to our neighborhood. The call was from one of our neighbors who lost his home in the last fire, and heard about it on the radio. I had been off of the phone with my brother, who was checking in on us, for about 10 minutes.

Within minutes there was a patrol car driving through the neighborhood with a loudspeaker, telling everyone that we needed to leave. As we were nearly packed, you wouldn't think it would take us long...given the luxury of warning and time, we took over an our to get out the door this time.

We spent the first part of the day at a playground by the beach, and then in Ventura. Target and Barnes & Noble!! We were with another family, our dear friends whom you've seen in our refugee Thanksgiving post. We came back tonight for baccalaureate at Westmont and are staying with the same dear folks from church who took us in after the Tea fire. After graduation tomorrow we plan to go spend some time with J.'s grandmother...Mother's Day weekend--perfect! We were just talking about going down for Sunday anyway, before all of this fire business! :) Funny, I don't generally post when we are going to be gone--but no-one is getting up the hill to our house, so it doesn't matter.

The fire is not--currently--threatening homes in Montecito; Praise the Lord! The winds overnight will play a big part in whether that remains the case. Overnight is when the winds tend to blow hard around here, so it's hard to know what you'll wake up to in the morning.

The house we are in has a panoramic view of the entire fire line...it is pretty big. The children are doing well, better now than when we had to leave this morning. I really appreciate your prayers. we are doing well. God is faithful.

Love,
Holly

Fire update tonight

Once again, the fire has picked up with the evening winds, which are blowing so hard tonight that it's hard to stay outside due to the dust it's kicking up--like a sandstorm at times. The evacuation warnings have shifted and we are still not in that group--now we're also a few hundred yards NORTH of an evacuation warning line, as well as west. I keep using that term--does anyone know what it means?--it means you are to have your bags packed and your car loaded, ready to pull out if and when the reverse-911 call comes. We're actually supposed to have a bag with important papers, etc., packed all of the time. There is a little sign in front of every fire station here to tell us the days to pull it out and put it next to the front door. So a warning isn't a huge jump from what firefighters would have us do normally--although of course it is. Our van is loaded, mostly; I'm not pulling things off of the walls, since I really don't think we'll be called out. But this time I have a list of what I want pulled off the walls, just in case. :)


I've never tried to upload video before, but here it goes:




Thanks for checking in!

It's Hot Out

Everything has been quiet today, exactly like yesterday until around 2:30, when the winds picked up. We're forecast for the same weather pattern again today: high winds in the afternoon, and HOT. The poor wilty rose above was just a fresh little bud yesterday (two of them have done this today!).

We have the twin noises going of construction vehicles across the street, and helicopters making water dumps on the the other side of the ridge behind us. They are farther East (i.e., towards us) than the flames we saw yesterday; it will be very interesting to see if and where the flames pop up again today like yesterday. If we have power, and if anything exciting happens, I'll try to let you know.