Evacuation

Apparently Jeremy dislocating his shoulder last week wasn't exciting enough.  This week we got to evacuate our home due to a wild fire!

Thursday afternoon a target shooter started a fire in our area.  Thursday night we had fun looking out watching the helicopters dump water on the fire and enjoy the beautiful view.  (I took these from my back yard.)

Friday morning at about 10 am, we got a knock on our door.  It was our neighbor informing us that we were being evacuated.  Luckily Jeremy was working from home, so he could help me gather a few things.  It was an eery feeling deciding what was important to take and what could be replaced if the worst happened.   We also got a lot of phone calls from friends and family that morning asking if we were on the evacuee list, so it took me a lot longer to get packed than what I thought.  At 11 am, we had the police knocking on our door telling us what our neighbor had an hour ago.  The interesting thing about that was we knew the police officer from when we lived in Orem!

Something else that took a while was our little Clara.  We decided to have a family prayer before we started packing.  We told Clara why we were randomly having a prayer, and she started crying.  She wasn't worried about our house, but about her special things.  I learned quickly to get her helped before doing anything else otherwise she was a HUGE distraction.  But once I found the toys she was so worried about, then gave her a bag that she could pick out her most special toys and put them in, she was almost excited for our adventure.

The other fun thing was that Jeremy couldn't do any heavy lifting because he's still recovering from his shoulder injury, and I can't do any heavy lifting because I'm 32 weeks pregnant!  Luckily our wonderful neighbors checked in on us before they left and were able to help us load our car.  I'm so glad to live where we do and have such thoughtful neighbors.

After checking on Jeremy's home teaching families, we headed up to Jeremy's parent's house for the weekend.

Shortly after arriving at John and Sharon's, we found out that our subdivision was no longer a mandatory evacuation.  We decided to stay put because I didn't want to go back home just to have to leave again.

On Saturday we got to have a picnic.  When we told Clara that we were going to the mountains for it, she refused to go.  All of a sudden I realized she probably thought we were going to the mountain with the fire on it.  After I explained that we wouldn't go near the fire, she was so excited to get outside and go for a little hike.  Here we all are on our outing.

The evacuations were lifted Saturday night, but we didn't find out until almost 7 pm.  We decided to just stay there one more night and came home on Sunday.  This is a picture I took from our back yard of the results of the fire.  You can see the black line of what got burnt and what didn't.

The fire ended up burning 5,676 acres.  (That was the last known report before people were allowed back into their homes, so it's probably more since the fire was still burning, just not next to any homes.)  It came withing 20 yards of some homes (not any from our subdivision.)  The rest are pictures of the fire I got from our local news station: ksl.com

And in this last one you can see how close the fire actually came to some homes!

I'm so grateful to be safely home again.  I knew our house was far enough away from the fire that it would be ok.  I was more worried about smoke damage than anything else.  The reason why we were evacuated was because there were a lot of strong, unpredictable winds that day, so officials had no idea where the fire would go.

Thanks for everyone's prayers during this exciting weekend!  :)

Mission Homecoming and Father's Day

We were able to spend Sunday morning with lots of family.  Jeremy's cousin (once removed) came home from serving in the Spokane Washington Mission.  We were able to attend the Sacrament Meeting where he spoke and then headed to his house for a lunch with LOTS of people.  I'm glad Mason is so loved!

There were so many people there that the street (along with the neighboring streets) were lined with cars!

We came home and were able to have Jeremy open some gifts.  Clara couldn't wait for him to see what he got.

 She also wanted a picture of just her and Dad.

Then she wanted to take a picture of me and him, and I think she did a great job!

In the evening we headed up to a family dinner to celebrate Father's Day with Jeremy's family.  There was lots of entertainment!

And I especially liked how John was able to find a quiet place to do one of his favorite things.  :)

A Trip to the ER

Thursday evening, we headed to a family birthday party.  10 minutes into the planned kick ball game, Jeremy was on the ground and in a lot of pain.  His arm was hurting him pretty bad, to the point where he told me he felt like he was going to faint.  When that feeling passed, we got him into the car and headed to the instacare.  1.5 hours later we were told that the morphine they gave him wasn't enough to be able to relax the muscles enough to put a dislocated shoulder back into place.  We had to go to the ER.

-Did I mention that we were babysitting 2 little kids?  Jeremy's family did offer to watch the kids for us before we headed out, but I knew that it was close to the time the dad would be picking up the 2 little kids, and Clara refused to stay behind.  After getting ready to drop off said kids, we found out that their father was running behind.  So all 3 kids (ages 4, 3, 1) all sat with us at the instacare. 

So we dropped all 3 kids off at our house with my Mom coming over to watch them on a very short notice.  I then drove Jeremy to the hospital where they had to knock him out before they could put his shoulder back in place.  It was a very interesting experience to watch.  I'm glad they told me that his body would still react to the pain, but that Jeremy wouldn't remember anything.  There were quite a few times where Jeremy sat up and looked right at the Dr.  That was the doctor's cue to give more meds, and Jeremy would relax and lay back down.  Jeremy was also moaning and groaning pretty good too.  After trying to get it back into place by moving the arm around, they finally had to pull is arm to dislocate his shoulder even more, and then put it back in place.  We finally got home just before 1 am!  It was a very long night.  But loaded up with Lortab, Jeremy was able to sleep until 3 in the afternoon the next day!
Jeremy's arm is still pretty sore, but that seems to be normal.  We have a follow up appointment with an orthopedist later on today to decide what needs to be done from here....
(For a few pics, see my picture blog.)

Clara's Art

So I know that this becomes a reoccurring theme on my blog, but sometimes I am seriously impressed with my daughter's drawing ability. 

Clara showed me this picture that she drew completely by herself.  I always ask her to tell me about her pictures when she shows them to me.  She is swimming in the water (blue.)  Rachael (my sister) and I are on the sand (red.)  Rachael is sleeping (with eyes closed) on a towel with flowers on it under a beach umbrella.  I am sitting on a camping chair where you can even see the mesh cup holder Clara drew.  Then of course there are clouds and a sun in the sky.

As I mentioned in my picture blog, Clara draws pictures of the things we are reading about during our nightly scripture study.  We were talking about baptism and Clara drew this.  The thing that awes me about this one is that when she was explaining her picture to us she told us she decided to draw a baptismal font like the ones in the temple.  That is why there are "cows" holding the "bowl" up.  I had no idea when or where she had ever seen a picture of a font inside the temple, but she obviously has and even remembered!  (Cows and bowl are in quotes because that is what Clara calls them.  They are actually oxen and a font.)

For those not familiar with our temples, here is a picture (from lds.org)

Summer is Officially Here!

With school out and temperatures rising, we've been swimming a lot lately.  Our neighbors had a pool party this week.  It was actually a pretty cool and windy day, so we filled the pools with warm water and the kids had a blast.

The biggest hit was the pool with a slide.

And then when all the other kids were cold and done swimming, guess who was the lone child left who didn't care about being cold (or alone.)

Then on Friday, my sister's family and I went to check out a pond that I'm thinking about playing at for my family reunion in July.  The water was freezing, but we had a lot of fun sitting on the "beach."

 

• While driving in the car, Clara randomly said, "When I grow up, I want to be a lady that cleans!"

• While listening to the radio, a commercial came on for coffee at McDonald's.  When Clara heard it, she said, "McDonald's has coffee?  I'm never going there again!"  A little while later, we happened to drive past a McDonalds.  When she saw the golden arches, she again insisted that she will never eat there again because they sell coffee.  (The next day she insisted on going to McDonalds for lunch.)

• While visiting the Bean Museum (a museum full of stuffed animals,) I pointed to a porcupine and asked Clara what it was.  Her response: "A pokey pine!"

Pony Express Days

We've had our city's summer festivities this week.  That includes a carnival.  So my neighbor and I took our kids on Friday to check out all the cool rides.
Here is Clara waiting for the rides to start.

 Clara actually went down this huge slide.  I was quite surprised she did it, and it scared her so she was crying by the time she got to the bottom, but she did it!

More rides

And the prize she "won" with her friends.

Clara saw this care bear when she first arrived at the fair.  She really wanted it, but of course you had to win it....  Clara had me throw the balls so that she could win.  Well, that didn't work either.  She started crying and as I was explaining that you can't win every time, nor would she be able to do this kind of thing again if she continued her current actions, the carnival girl just gave Clara the bear anyway.  I thought that was really nice, but I was also so frustrated as a parent.  On the way home, Clara even said, "You didn't win this for me, but because I cried so hard, the lady gave it to me."  So now she'll cry way more often in the hopes it will work.....  Grrr....

Preschool Graduation

Clara graduated from Preschool this week.  It's weird to think she's done.  I'm not planning on putting her in preschool next year because I don't want to do a mother's swap thing with a new baby.  Nor do we know yet what Jeremy's  job situation will be like next year, so I don't feel like I should put her in a preschool that we need to pay for.  So we'll see what kind of learning she'll do next year before kindergarten.

This is Clara with her class saying some of the things they learned in preschool this year.  Left to right: Hyrum, Clara, Brigham, Taylor, and Jared

This is their graduation leis that they received.

Clapping to congratulate themselves on being done with preschool

And the class attempting to look at the cameras for a "good" picture.

And finally, the proud graduate:

• While watching the credits after a movie this week Clara proudly announced that it just said, "To: mmmm."  When we went back to look at what she meant, we saw the name Tomm.  So I guess my kid is starting to read!