Keeping the Home Fires Burning [Literally]

Well, we had an eventful afternoon yesterday. It was completely unplanned and totally out of control. But, to explain yesterday's "fun" I must mentioned that on Monday afternoon Ryan [with our help] burned our Christmas tree along with lots of leaves and sticks from the backyard. I was actually taking some pictures during the burn for a completely unrelated post. 

 Ryan made sure the fire was out that night and it even rained early yesterday morning to help extinguish any remaining embers. When I was driving to the gym early that morning I heard there was a wind advisory with gusts up to 25-30 miles an hour. I mentioned it to Ryan when I got home, an he laughed and said, "You wouldn't want to burn today." I said, "No, there's a fire warning for our area." 

So, we go on with our day...

Rachael went with me to Trader Joe's and David went with his Daddy to "help" him work on the other side of town. 

Rachael and I came home, ate lunch, and I put her down for her nap. I sat down on the computer to do some work and heard a strange noise at the backdoor. I went to check on it and saw lots of white smoke in the far back part of the yard and the wind was blowing it hard toward our back fence and to the thick row of trees and underbrush just on the other side! I went up to our Master bathroom window to get a better look. The whole way up the stairs I was hoping my eyes were deceiving me. But, they weren't. There were flames being pushed at a high rate of speed toward other people's homes and one man's shed filled with high octane fuel!! 

I found the phone and called Ryan all the while putting on shoes [flip-flops, because they were the easiest] and running out the backdoor. He told me to get the fire rake in our shed and try to kill the flames that way. But, when I got to the fire I quickly realized I wasn't going to be putting the fire out by myself. I needed more help than a bucket of water could provide. I hung up with Ryan and immediately called 911. At first the operator told me to call back later if the fire got closer to the house. Ummm, he didn't seem to understand me. I tried to speak clearly, but I was so flustered that I could hardly make the words come out right. I'd love to hear the recording. Once I explained it better he informed me that a truck had been dispatched.
GREAT!

I open the gate so they could get in easier, run back to check the fire, the man who owned the shed with the high octane fuel came out and yelled at me, I had to wrangle Annie The Goat back inside, go inside and get some bread to help lure her, put her in the chicken coop, go check on the fire, come back inside to check Rachael's monitor all while the cold, strong wind is blowing a hot fire further and further away. I felt so helpless. 

Finally, I heard the sirens! Help was on the way. 

When the men arrived they moved very slowly and deliberately. They were in no rush, it was clearly not as big of a deal to them as it was to me. I wanted them to RUN, but they were the professionals, so I tried my best to play it cool. I calmly suggested they might want to send another truck to the road behind our house to get to the fire that way. They radioed back for another truck. When they saw the actual fire, they moved much quicker and started getting to work doing what firemen do. Our next door neighbor came out his back fence with his water hose to keep the fire from spreading closer to his house. The man with the fuel continued to yell, now at the firemen, wanting them to work faster. Ryan and David finally arrived about 30 minutes after I first talked with them. I have no pictures of the inferno or the firemen at work to share. It was just too chaotic and never even crossed my mind. But once they got the fire under control, I was able to relax and even laugh a little, I took a few pictures.
The fire chief arrived in his truck to help too. The view out our front window.
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Also a man with the Forestry Commision brought his bulldozer in case it was needed![no picture of that unfortunately]

David thought the whole event was the great!

Even though he was a bit stand-offish with them, the firemen were SO nice to him.




He really enjoyed learning about fire hydrants [I did too].







From the first site of white smoke 'til the firemen left was about 2 hours.
Rachael slept through the WHOLE thing.

Rachael sings her ABC's and Months of the Year

I know I've said it a million times, but I LOVE my kids' school! They learn so much more than I could teach them, or than they would want to learn from me. 

Here's Rachael, just shy of 2 1/2 years old, singing her ABC's.

* "Double Q" is my favorite letter!*

And singing her Months of the Year.

And that's not all she can do. She can also count to 14 [sometimes skipping 2], say the Pledge of Allegiance completely,  and recite most of The Lord's Prayer.

Watching these videos, I can't help but reminisce about when David was at this age, first reciting his ABC's and numbers. 

My heart bursts with pride for both of my incredibly smart babies, or should I say, kids? They are constantly impressing me with how much their brains retain or how far back their memories can go [that actually is creepy sometimes].  They love to learn and I'm so thankful they have wonderful teachers who are able to nurture and encourage that love.

2014 Ski Trip

Last week we took our annual trip out West for a fun time of snow skiing, ice skating, and the making of lots of family memories.

To start our trip, we woke up bright and early and made our drive down the interstate to the airport. While we drove I fed the kids a light breakfast. They didn't eat much, though. They were too excited to eat. After making our way through the fun that is the busiest airport in the world we made it to our gate with about 30 minutes to spare. This was perfect for us because it gave us time to catch our breath, get dry diapers on all kids [David wears one in these instances in case he falls asleep on the plane], refill water bottles, and just reorganize everything before boarding. 

The kids were excited to see [what we thought was] our plane

Just as Rachael and I were returning from the bathroom, Ryan informed me that the plane we were supposed to be on had just taken off...from Detroit. 

Ooookay. 

We had an hour and a half delay with two wiggly toddlers. 

Because it had been a few hours since they "ate" in the car, I offered them some of the snack food I had packed for them to eat on the plane. We had a picnic right there in the terminal. 

 

 

And then the kids played ring-around-the-rosie.

 

They did well at being as patient as two toddlers possibly could be.

Finally on the airplane they were ready to fly!

 

 

They didn't sleep much on the plane, but were very well behaved. I packed LOTS of new toys to keep them happy and entertained. 

We took a big bus to get the rental car and the kids loved riding on it. Honestly, they love anything that may resemble an adventure.

 

 

After getting our car, still later than planned because of the flight delay, we hurried up the interstate to the ski resort.

Once again...happy kids along for the ride. 

 

 

We got settled into our condo and went to a nearby restaurant for an early dinner to get our exhausted kids [and selves] in bed for a good night's rest. Our first morning, unfortunately, welcomed us to the snow with some altitude sickness for us all. But, thankfully, it was mostly gone by late morning and we were able to get some skiing in before the kids' nap time. We rented their skis and headed for the slopes.

 

We were SO thankful for these wagons to help transport the kids and all our gear!

Rachael was really excited to get her skis on! [By the way, that's the same snow suit she wore last year, size 18 months]

 

Here's a video of Rachael's first "ski".

And David's warm-up run. 

While Rachael and I kept practicing on the little hill, the boys headed for the Magic Carpet connected to the smallest bunny slope.

They only had time for a few runs, but David did great and Rachael really enjoyed skiing on the little hill with me.

As we waited for the shuttle to take us back to our condo, the kids made snow angles. 

 

Rachael wasn't sure about exactly how to do it, though. 

 

We ate lunch back at the condo and it was nap time immediately following. 

The kids loved their bedroom because it had a bunk bed!

 

Just after the kids woke up, Ma and Big Daddy arrived!

 

We enrolled David in ski school [which was from 9:30am-3pm] on Day 2 and took Rachael to the bunny slopes that morning. 

She did GREAT and absolutely loved learning how to ski. Her favorite thing? 

Riding the chair lift. 

 

 

As soon as we would reach the top, she would say, "I wanna do dat again." We'd say, "Okay, you have to ski down the hill." and she would start shuffling her skis to get going. 

*if you listen closely you can hear her saying she wants to do it again as we ski past.

The ski school let us borrow this great vest that has a handle on the back so Rachael could have more control of her skis. When we took a break, she ate the snow. Just like last year.


While we were working with Rachael in the morning, Ma and Big Daddy were skiing on the mountains. We met them back a the condo for lunch and Ryan and I went skiing while they stayed with Rachael, who was napping.



I'm always in complete awe of the beautiful views.


That evening we went ice skating. They had these road cones with wheels on the bottom to help the little ones keep their balance. They also had ice cleats that fit on the bottom of our boots so Ryan and I could walk on the ice without falling.








They LOVED it and were pretty good at it for first timers.

David and Rachael enjoyed room service [in Mama and Daddy's bed] every morning. We should all be so lucky.


David wasn't too happy to go back to Ski School the next day, but Ryan took him anyway. We once again took Rachael to the learning area where she did AWESOME!

She's not afraid of anything and it really showed with her skiing.

When we went back to the condo for lunch the director of the Ski School called Ryan and informed him that David needed a lot of persuading to go skiing after their lunch break and was asking for his Mama and Daddy. He told us where David was skiing with his class on the mountain if we wanted to go give him some encouragement. We watched from afar and it was obvious David wasn't having fun.
That's him in the white helmet, blue suit facing away.


We watched him take his turn. As we watched and listened, we realized why he wasn't loving it so much. [sorry about the bad video, he was a really far away]

His instructor, a foreign male, was not the super happy, outgoing, encouraging instructor I was hoping and picturing David would have. I'm sure he knows a lot about skiing, but perhaps teaching adults would be a better fit for him. So, even though David was scheduled to receive a new teacher the following day, his idea of Ski School had been tarnished. We didn't want to force him to go back and risk the chance of him developing a dislike for snow skiing. Also, since the class lasted ALL day and he is still used to taking a nap after lunch, I think his exhaustion was beginning to play a part. So, we took him with us the rest of the days, which he was happy about.

We stopped by the old chairlift for a picture like we took last year.

2014


2013


Yes, actually, they both still fit in their snow suits from last year.
 Ah!! They've grown up SO much!!

Then up the lifts we went!






There were a few times that we weren't in ski clothes...





David took this one! Three generations.


One afternoon, Ma and Big Daddy brought the kids up the mountain on the gondola after nap time and we had lots of fun at the Snow Fort.






 

All of us sitting on an ice bench.


On our way down the gondola the kids wanted to try on my goggles.




Our week came to an end way too quickly. We are ready to go back already!! We had such a wonderful time and made lots of great memories. But, my favorite memory of all is watching my dad teaching David how to ski.

Oh! And during our drive to the airport, David asked if he could take some pictures of the snow out his window. As I was going through all the pictures later, I saw that he did take a few of the snow, but most of them looked like this:


Such a goofball.