Ruth's Birthday

Ruth had a Nancy Drew Mystery Party for her birthday on Friday. We used the script that I had written for Kaitlin's 11th birthday (it is found on one of my blogs linked on the bar on the left). Five girls came and the six of them acted through a mystery with several rounds of games and clues. They all seemed to have a fun time.


On Saturday we went to huge corn maze. Not only is it a maze but they had many other activities for the family. It was hot and Jared didn't like trudging through the dusty maze in the sun. But we all enjoyed the other activities and had a fun time.




A tractor ride through the corn.


After 50 minutes of wandering we made it out of the maze.


Making the faces of the pumpkins.



Soccer

Jared is almost finished with another season of soccer. This is the first year they've had goalies and Jared has been very excited to play that position. He had his chance this week and only let one goal past him the entire half.

Fire Recovery

Things are finally settling down from our fire. On Monday and Tuesday we still could see smoke and had constant helicopters and plains overhead. By Wednesday our neighbors all returned to their homes. We've had a few days with a smoky smell in the air but that is it.

It's been amazing to see the community come together, and we are so thankful to the firefighters and other workers that handled this emergency with such professionalism. Take a look at this overhead photo of our fire. Our house would be off this photo to the middle left. Two of the houses that were burned are in the lower center, where you can see the fire crossed over the road. The houses we were watching with the flames behind them are the ones in the left lower corner. You can see from the photo how the fire burned right against their yards. It's really a miracle that more houses were not lost.


Chaz gets a Lead in My Fair Lady

All those years quoting Harry Potter in a fake British accent are finally paying off for Chaz. He got the roll of Colonel Pickering in his high school's first every musical My Fair Lady. He has already started rehearsals, and the show will be in November.








Zucchini Fest!

The Saturday before the big fire I helped put on a church activity for families. In the spring I had given zucchini seeds to all the children in our church. On Saturday we had a big dinner celebrating our harvest. We had a few contests for the longest, heaviest, etc. zucchini. And after the dinner our cub scouts and girls groups put on activities for all the kids. It was a fun activity that was well attended. Here is one of my contributions to the event. I painted this photo opportunity are corrugated paper board.

A Long Night

As I sit here this morning typing this, out one bedroom window I can still see a large cloud of white puffy smoke. It looks like fog really, or like a cotton ball, with just a little tint of gray. The fire is still burning up above the reservoir, but thankfully the wind is coming from the north now, and blowing the flames away from our neighborhood. Out my other window I see the black chard foothill. The one that just yesterday was showing the first hints of fall color. A blackhawk helicopter is flying over now, towing it's tiny bucket.

It All Started...

It all started Sunday morning. We sleep with our windows open and we woke to the smell of smoke. According to the news a fire is burning somewhere far away, so we don't think anything of it.

When we get out of church at 4:00 pm and walked home, we can see a gray plume of smoke over our mountain. We hear on the news that there is a brush fire at Fort Williams that was started at the machine gun range. The cloud is little more than a curiosity to us. Kaitlin takes advantage of the shifting orange light to get some cool photographs.

At seven when I leave to go to a meeting, the smoke cloud has grown. It's an amazing sight. As I drive up the mountain side to the church building, I see the valley covered in gray smoke, turned orange by the setting sun. The sun is a red and orange ball on the horizon.

A Frightening Awakening

For an hour and a half I am in the meeting. We are discussing the Christmas Music Fireside. I'm assigned to write the script for it, and that is what I am thinking about when I exit to my car. Night has fallen. I pull out around the building to head home, and am not prepared for the sight. The mountain is on fire!

I have never seen anything like it. Bright orange lines of fire zig-zag across the mountain range. In some places I see the flames lick up towards the sky. The mountain is cased in a hazy orange halo against the black sky.

I'm in a hurry to get home, and drive past lines of cars pulled over to take in the sight. Everyone is out of their houses watching and waiting. When I get home my family is already tense. Ruth is visibly upset. But there is also this feeling of excitement and exhilaration.

We all pile in the van and drive out to get a better view. It's amazing and frightening all at the same time.

Evacuation?

Once home again, reports start coming in that many of our friends and neighbors are being evacuated. Our primary news source about this is Facebook, though we do get a few calls, friends letting us know that they are leaving. When Chaz get's a call from a friend, only a few blocks away, it is then that the reality that we may also have to evacuate distills upon me.

Two families in our circle begin to pack up. They are leaving. Another friend, who's boy has asthma has already left. Ruth begins to pack - just in case.

We get a call from my brother in Layton offering his house to us. Chuck and I consider the possibilities as we watch the line of fire move closer to our neighborhood and the air thickens with smoke and starts rain down ash. We evacuate our rabbit into the house.

The Waiting Game

Our across the street neighbor is a ham radio guy, and is also the emergency communications specialist for our area. He is standing in front of his house with his radio. Our bishop arrives and he joins our Elder's Quorum president on his roof to keep an eye on the flames.

Around 11:30 I get a call from the PTA president requesting that I put information on the PTA website and Facebook page about school closures. Both the city website and the school district website has crashed. Facebook is still the best place to get information. The city is updating often.

By midnight Chuck has gotten Ruth and Jared settle in front of a movie, Kaitlin and Chaz are packing. The evacuation zone is growing and we are beginning to feel like we may be next. A group of us stand together on our neighbors lawn watching the fire progress. It's an organic living thing that moves unpredictably. At times it the flames would be high and concentrated, and then with a gust of wind it would move across the mountain like a snake. Huge areas would be consumed in a matter of seconds. We watch the flames move across the ridge line of one of the foothills with amazing speed. In the far distance we can see large blocks of orange red flames, the smoke is blacker and thicker. The men on the roof report that they are houses burning.

The wind is blowing from the south east, and suddenly we see flames lick over the top of the foothill that our neighborhood is built against. We can see the top ridge of houses in silhouette against the orange flames. Flashing blue lights and tiny black men are dwarfed against the flames. We see fire hoses starting to douse the homes. From our perspective it looked like squirt guns shooting at a huge bonfire.

We stand there and watch for thirty or so minutes, thinking that at any moment these houses would burst into flames and rain burning embers down on our neighborhood. Thankfully they don't. The wind has shifted and the flames in that area are dieing down.

The shifting wind pushes a line of flame up our foothill. Within seconds our foothill is covered in flames! The fire moves so fast. This is the most frightening time because we know if the wind shifts, that wall of flame will slam into our neighborhood. The fire is less then a mile away now.

Our ham radio guy gets reports that the houses just to the south of us must evacuate. Again we are spared evacuation. The wind keeps blowing in our favor, and the weather report is optimistic. A cold front is moving in from the north. Over the next little while we watch the flames grow smaller and slow down.

Safe Enough to Sleep

It's almost 2:00am and we have decide to go to bed. We are all exhausted. The wind is steady from the north now and we feel that most of the danger has passed. Our city is operating on a reverse 911 system, and we will be called if the evacuation zone changes. Jared fell asleep in front of the movie, but Ruth is terrified and sleeps in our room, beside me on the floor. I feel a sence of peace, like everything will be fine, so I fall asleep right away.

At 5:00am I am up again. I check the school district website and update my PTA website and Facebook group with the news that the local schools are closed. Around 6:30 am Chaz heads out the door to go to the High School, he is a student body officer there, and they are helping with the evacuation site.

I woke up at 8:00am. My head is pounding, but the sun is shinning. I opened all the windows to try to air out the smoky smell in the house. I've also started the laundry since all our cloths smell like fire. It's amazing the difference a few hours can make.

The news is that only four houses were lost. One friend, who's house was right in the thick of things, still doesn't know if one of those houses was hers. In the light of day the events of the night seem surreal. We feel very blessed that everything is alright.

Things I'd Do Differently

I guess it's only human to try to make something good come out of something that was terrifying. I've been thinking a lot this morning about things we could have done differently or better. Here are some things I've come up with:

A Place to Go: Establish a place to evacuate to in advance. We got offers from family, but they lived quite a distance away, and we wanted to stay close. If we had already established an evacuation place with a friend that lived closer, we probably would have been more willing to evacuate earlier. As it was, I did call a friend around 11pm that lived only 15 minutes away, and she was on stand by to receive us if we had to evacuate.

A List of What We Should Take: I wished I had a list of things I needed to take if we had to evacuate and only had 20 minutes to load the car and go. It was hard in the moment to consider everything that we would need under those circumstances.

Masks: At times the smoke got thick. It would have been nice to have had face masks in our 72 hour kits that we could wear if we had to. My throat and eyes are still irritated this morning.

Evacuate Earlier: If I had it to do all over again, I think I would have had the kids pack up early on and headed for a relatives house. Then we would have been spared the anxious hours of watching and waiting. Then my kids would have the memory of a fun adventure to a cousin's house, rather then the memory of watching a wall of flame move closer and closer to their house.


So Grateful

I feel so grateful to those hundreds of men that risked their lives to save our neighborhood. I'm grateful to their families, that sacrifice their fathers, sons, mothers and daughters, to keep us all safe. I'm thankful to Heavenly Father, who turned the winds. That made all the difference.

Thank you all for your concerns and prayers. I feel better after writing this all out, so thanks for reading.

Happy Birthday Chuck

Chuck's birthday was on the 31st. We had a family party the day before with a home made cheese cake. On his birthday, Chuck went to a baseball game with the boys he works with at church, and Ruth and Jared and I went to the cast party for the play that Ruth had been in. Chuck got some clothes and motorcycle tires for his birthday this year.





Snow Family Reunion

This last weekend was the Snow Family Reunion. This is a reunion with my parents, my siblings and children. After school on Friday we packed the van and headed to Deweyville. All six of my siblings were there. That night we had a family talent show and karaoke night. We had several acts from our family, including Ruth, Kaitlin, Chaz and I singing "The Book Report Song" (pictured) and Ruth was the big hit with her singing Taylor Swift and playing the guitar.

The next day we went to the Logan Temple in the morning and then in the afternoon we attended an open house for my father and his sister (see newspaper clipping). This month my father, Woody, turns 80, and his sister, Ruth, turns 90. We were able to visit with cousins we seldom see and town members that I remembered from the short time I lived there. That night while the kids played games the grown ups enjoyed listening to the BYU football game and talking.

On Sunday we all went to church in the morning and in the afternoon had a meeting to plan the next reunion in 2013. We all had a great time visiting and the cousins had a good time together.

We Built this City

Ruth had a great time performing in the Children's play this past weekend. The Friday performance was delayed several times because of very hard rains. The large pavilion where they preform has a tin roof that just thunders in the rain and it was too loud for the microphones to be heard. Even on Saturday it was super windy and all their set, even weighed with sandbags, was waving in the wind. Ruth did great on her lines and dances and is sad that it is over.




Back to School

Kaitlin and Chaz are back to school, and are overall very excited for the coming school year. Chaz found out that participating in the two top choirs will cost (not an exaggeration) $1000+. Not to mention he would miss work often because of rehearsals and performances. So this weekend he made the hard decision to drop choir, which he admitted that he was doing for the socialization, not because he liked singing. Kaitlin is making new friends and seems to like most of her classes.


Lunch Lady Labors

I started my work as a substitute lunch lady this past week. I had a couple days of training and then I started my work on the first day of school. It's always stressful learning a new job, but it was also kind of fun. They are willing to work around my schedule, so while the kids are off track I won't be working. When they are in school I'll get a day of work here and there. For me right now in my life it's an ideal job.

Ruth Getting Ready for Opening Night

Ruth's play is this coming weekend. She is practicing hard and is at that point where she is feeling stress that the show will never come together. She has dress rehearsals all week and then the show runs Thursday-Saturday. Ruth has three lines and sings a one line solo in one of the songs.

Jared dropped out of the play after a few weeks. Singing the song "Thriller" and dancing like a zombie freaked him out. Even after getting permission for him not to dance in the Thriller number, he still was not interested.

Can you spot Ruth's picture on this publicity poster? (click on it to see a bigger size)


Violent Hail Storm

On Thursday we had a powerful front move through that pounded our house with wind, water and hail. The hail shot out of our rain gutters forming large white piles and then backed up, leaving the rain gutters spurting water out the sides. Our emergency drainage ditch at the back boarder of our yard was full, almost overflowing and our back yard flooded with a few inches of water. I kept checking our window wells, but thank heavens they kept draining and we stayed dry. Several of our neighbors were not so lucky.


Lunch Lady Training

This week I got to sit through a couple hours of training to become a substitute lunch lady at the school. I got a food handler's permit and learned important things about hair nets and cantaloupe. I have another four hours of training next week and then I'll be ready to be called in when they need me. I'm not sure how many actual hours I'll get, but it doesn't matter, it's just for fun.


Musicals

For fun the last couple of weeks we've been watching musicals and some Shakespeare at our house. We've watched West Side Story, Les Miserables (the concert), The Fantastics, The Phantom of the Opera, Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, Much Ado about Nothing and part of Romeo and Juliet (it was so old and cheezy we couldn't get through the whole thing).

Kaitlin's favorite so far has been by far the Phantom of the Opera, followed by Les Miserables. As a result we've all been singing the Phantom songs around here for the past few days. Kaitlin also drew this artwork.

Youth Conference

Chuck, Chaz and Kaitlin had a good time at Youth Conference last weekend. They drove to Castle Dale Utah, where they camped and attended the Castle Valley Pageant. They all had a good time and Kaitlin said it was much better than Girl's Camp because: "there were boys there."






Shakespeare Festival

The same weekend I went to the Utah Shakespearean Festival in Ceder City with my mother and sisters. We had a wonderful time seeing the plays and spending time together. We saw Much Ado About Nothing, Pride and Prejudice and The 39 Steps. Our favorite by far was The 39 Steps which was not only very funny, but amazed us with thier simple yet very effective special effects.
Walking the grounds of Southern Utah University. Me, my Mom, my sisters Donna, Kathy and my Sister-in-law Shauni.

I couldn't pass up the chance to sit on the lap of The Bard.

We Built This City

Ruth and Jared are doing a lot of practicing for the children's play that they will be appearing in later this month. Ruth is loving every minute and Jared not so much.