Sept. 27
Dear Family and Friends,
Here I am again at the end of my three week off-track time. I have had a nice relaxing break--I am not sure if I really want to go back. Oh well, that is why we sign contracts. I have a great group of children in my classroom this year. They are very talkative during their work time but not behavior problems. Giving warnings to them, pretty much take care of the problems.
I guess the big news lately was that we were evacuated from our home for about 18 hours because of the "machine-gun" fire that was started last Sunday. We were very fortunate that all was well with our neighborhood. The fire started on the other side of the mountain that is next to us because the Guard was practicing their machine gun tactics on a very windy day and the sparks started the fire. We have had very little moisture around here and it was in an area where there was a lot of brush. It crested the top of the mountain and within 10 minute we were told to leave. Johnny lives up here also. So all of us invaded Jane's home for the night and went home about 2 pm the next day. You know brush fires burn hot and move fast especially with the wind. It was a little scary, but because the way the wind was blowing we didn't have any damage. The only smoke area was the garage and if you opened it up and aired it out for about 5 hours it was okay. It did come within 30 feet of some of the houses at the top of our neighborhood. We were certainly blessed. Two homes with a quarter of a mile of us to the east and the west were burnt to the group. I believe their were both log cabins with a lot of brush and debris around them. They were both older homes as well. In all there was a total of three lost homes. The mayor, governor and other town council members were expecting to have at least 50-100 homes gone because of the wind and intensity of the fire; but the firefighters and National Guard members did a great job fighting the fire. It was interesting to be evacuated. It reminded me of our fire when we had the evacuees come from Show Low. Out of the 2000 people that were evacuated here, there were only about 95 people that didn't have a place to go to. There weren't many businesses that were affected in this fire. Mostly new subdivisions that were built in the foothills. It will be interesting to see what happens when it rains. How much flooding will there be. They are supposedly working on that problem. Hopefully we will have a longer Fall and maybe they can get some of the re-seeding done and growing. I don't expect that to happen. Next week is conference week, and in the past there has always been snow on that weekend.
We have been busy around here. John has completed getting the fence in for the back yard. Now he is working on building a shed for most of the things in the garage--lawn mowers, snow blowers, shovels and other tools and other miscellaneous things. He will keep his hand tools at the work bench in the garage, but hopefully the garage can be organized better so you don't have to step around or over items. He still keeps busy three days at the temple. He has also put in ceiling fans, water softener any my pantry storage cabinets. The to do list has dwindled some, but there is still more he can do after he gets his shed finished.
He has also been helping Johnny get his basement finished for his mother-in-law. Oh, they are going to be having another baby boy in February. The twins are so excited, when they found out, it was much easier to potty train them, because they didn't want to wear diapers, they wanted to be big girls and help take care of the new baby.
I worked on unpacking about six more big boxes. Some stuff that came from AZ and was never unpacked. It could take me awhile to get everything unpacked, but that is ok. Most of the things down there are things that aren't essential and I am not going to stress out about it. The unfinished basement can be their home. Some things need to be in the basement once it is finished anyway. I am debating on how much I need to keep things especially things that came from my moms and dads. A lot of their things like pictures, books, don't really mean a lot to me. I have all the keepsakes that I wanted out or packed away, so I think this other stuff will be put in the recycle boxes.
We didn't even make it to Round Valley this year. Shelley and LaVerl are coming up this way to Utah and they are going to bring our travel trailer back to us then.
We are doing well here. I am getting some basic health tests done to see how much I need to work on. So far, I have a little bit of high cholesterol, had to tweak my thyroid medicine, overweight and need to start taking more vitamin D. We haven't been sick, but I thought I better get some baselines for my Dr. in case things change as I keep ageing. I am having some heart tests done with Life Line Screening co. to see how my ticker is doing. With mom and dad having heart issues, I thought I get checked and hopefully all is well in that area. The offer from this company was only $159. which most of these test done on Dr. orders would be in the range of $5,000. I have heard that the tests are good and not watered down versions. I would like for John to get them done as well. I guess on another occasion he might try.
Well I have gone on enough, so I hope you have a great Fall. It is beginning it get pretty around here now. The pictures that follow are about the fire that was just up the road from our house.
Love Nancy and John
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