Fire, Rain, and other exciting news...

Well as most everyone knows, we've recently had a fire. The Wallow fire... Unfortunately this fire has done everything but "wallow". It has burned near 500,000 acres and came close to town. We were able to evacuate and nothing in town was harmed. But it was interesting. We didn't see my Dad for more than 5 minutes a day (if we saw him at all) and we were breathing in smoke like it was the most natural thing in the world. Now our mountains are burned up and black. There are spots where the green remains but the vast majority of it is black in one way or another. My dad said that everything we know about our mountain is forever changed. It breaks my heart. But luckily the firefighters worked their tails off so the damage was minimal to residences and towns. I've never been so grateful for firefighters in my life. They don't get nearly enough recognition for all of the hard work they do. So this is my sincere thank you.

Now we're playing the waiting game to see what the rain will bring. It's been sprinkling off and on today but when the monsoons hit, they have us prepared for mass flooding. Isn't it ironic that one month you're afraid your home will burn to the ground and the next you have to worry about it washing away? Natural disasters are just not fun! But we are definitely praying for rain! The fire won't stop smoldering until we get a good rain in so keep us in your prayers, and thank you for all of the prayers said for us thus far.

This weekend is the long awaited 4th of July! I can't wait! It is my favorite holiday and I'm hoping it will bring some semblance of normalcy back into our lives. My friend Juelaine is coming to stay with us and she's afraid I'm going to convert her to "Village Life" by making her swim in Lyman and sleep on the porch... she will also have to attend various family gatherings... Ha it'll be interesting! In other news... Shilee graduated! Go Shorty! I'm so proud of her. And she will be going to EA come August. She's excited but my Mom is not! Race Davis gets home this weekend too! I can't wait to see him! Katie, Sydney, and I have a trip planned to see the final Harry Potter movie with him on the 14th. He'll be so excited... or he will pretend! :) Baby Carter is going to be one soon and that is just crazy to me! I love that little boy but I can't believe that a year ago we were waiting for him to get here! My favorite person in the whole world, Tyson Nicoll, gets home in about a month and I'm excited to have him back home. I've missed our mac & Cheese movie nights, and milk shakes, and watching scary movies, and just all of the random things we used to do. So it’ll be nice to see him for a while before he goes to school. Basically that's what's been going on in the village lately! Hopefully I'll get up on the mountain and get pictures of the Havoc for those of you who don't get to see it daily....