A Normal Weekend?

I am here at the computer basking in the delights of a full and productive day. 26 hours ago I was completely freaking out about the amount of chaos. There is a lot of chaos--we still have not returned to "normal" since moving home; our bedroom, office and garage are still loaded with boxes from the move; many of the ones in the garage contain items that still need to have ashes wiped off of them; and we had started a rather large yard project that made me feel like everything was CRAZY! I did not handle it well.

Today, though, we both worked and took time to "play" and it was wonderful. This morning after J. got some writing done at the office we went downtown to the living history day at the Presidio--a fun and FREE activity.

Bud and Pixie grinding corn as one step of tortilla-making

By far their favorite "exhibit"--the archeological dig. The trench was, ah, stocked--but with authentic pieces recovered from the site. We talked about how Uncle D. did this!


Mmm, chocolate--but I'm not ready to give up coffee or tea.

Pixie picked out "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" at the music exhibit.

After we got home this afternoon, we got a lot done working in the yard. We had had some large rocks/small boulders moved around the property on Friday afternoon, and doing a lot of the fine work was a lot of fun. We're VERY pleased with the results. It was delightful to be working, and have the kids join in; Pixie and Bud borrowed shovels to move dirt, and the Wombles ran and got his sandbox shovel and joined in. It would have been great fun even if we hadn't also achieved wonderful things outside, including a new wall around our raised bed--which J. made complete with flat rocks on top, so it's a bench! Love it!

J.'s grading is over, and we are feeling the relief of having less pressure. It's great. Happy Weekend to you!

Six Months Later

My three little oak trees!

Back in February, I posted photos and thoughts as I reflected on the first three months after "our" fire. At that point we were still in the rental, with nearly a month left to go before we could move home again. The "fire things" still seemed somewhat distant, even as we lived in the immediacy of constantly reacting to some ramification or other.

The tree with the small crack in February.

After we moved home, the first three weeks were a little traumatic in ways that I did not expect. I thought I had come to terms with where life was now. However, living in the midst of the slabs of our neighbors' homes was not the same as "coming by"--the price of the fire is evident from every window, on each trip in the car. From our mailbox I can see the place on the hillside where the fire started. I wasn't prepared for how sad it would be to come home.

After a few weeks, however, things evened out and, of course, there is reconstruction everywhere! And now, at the six-month mark, I can pop out and walk to the barranca where 40-foot flames swept through and take a few shots. It is greener yet than in February.

Every tree in the grove is tagged. At some point, the dead ones will be removed.

Can you tell the difference between the ones that are living and the ones that are not? The morning after, there was no visible difference. Now it is extremely clear (at least in person).

Shedding its old, burned bark for the new!

When I worked on the February post, I had Isaiah 61 constantly running through my head. This time around, I have a song from the album Seeds of Faith: you can't hear the tune (I just turned it on in iTunes) but it sings:

If anyone
Is in Christ
He is a New Creation
He is a new creation
The old has gone
The new has come
He is a new creation
He is a new creation
..............
The old has gone
The new has come
He is a new creation
YOU are a new creation
The old has gone
The new has come
You are a new creation
You are a new creation

You get the general idea. I wish you could hear it. The music goes well with it, and it goes well with anything (being, as it is, 2 Corinthians 5:17). The pictures of the sprouts taking over the trees, the old bark falling off and revealing the fresh and healthy...and strong...new bark beneath, fills me with a painful kind of hopefulness, longing and contentment all at once.

Thanks for checking in!

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