One Year

Wow, I can hardly believe it has been one year since we moved. My parents arrived here with 3 of our children one year ago yesterday. David and I -with our other two children- arrived one year ago this coming Tuesday. Amazing how fast a year can go! So many things have happened in this year. So many blessings, so many changes, so much growing -both physically and spiritually. I do feel like -almost- a completely different person than I was a year ago. I feel like I have finally grown up. I have finally figured out what I want in life -for now. I know what is important and I have re-prioritized my life. I will not say that I have achieved balance, or that I have become a better mom, or that life is wonderful without struggles. But I can say that life is wonderful, even though we struggle everyday. I have my wonderful husband, my wonderful children and my health. I am so grateful for the many lessons I have learned and for the place I am in my life right now. There are many new adventures and changes to come, but I could not be happier with the changes we have gone through. There are so many friends I miss in California, I do miss having the business from time to time -not the craziness of it, but being around all that creativity and the relationships I had with my employees and customers. I miss that terribly. There are many places in the Bay Area I miss. The beach and the tidepools being the one I miss the most. But still, I wouldn't change where I am today. To see my kids so happy here and to see all the future holds for them, just reconfirms we made the right decision.
Anyway, on this one year mark, I thought I would put up pictures of our journey to Arizona -the fire... I have never posted them, not sure why, and I am not really sure why I am now. Just thought it might be fun, I guess. Sometimes I feel like we aren't as far along in replacing everything as we should be, but we do have our reasons. Currently we are renting a 1900 sq ft house. It is quite small for all 7 of us, we tend to be on top of each other and we often joke that it was a good thing everything burned because it wouldn't fit in this house anyway. But you see, I don't want to buy anything until we have OUR house. Yes, I could buy stuff for this house, and we could move it to the new house, but I really don't want to buy anything until I have my own house. Unfortunately we are on a time scedule, as we only have so much time to replace everything before we don't get reimbursed for it. So hopefully we find a house soon. We do have our eye on one or two... Stay tuned!!!
So, here are just a few pictures of the fire...


So, it happened just after midnight on August 1, 2008. The firefighters were on the scene pretty quick as a Highway Patrolman was the first car to come across the scene. They were in the middle of nowhere on I-5 in Central CA.


The firemen started pulling all our stuff out of the trailer so they could get to the fire and put it out. Our stuff was pulled down onto the on ramp and evertime a big semi would pass it would blow stuff all over the place.


Our friend showed up to help clean up our stuff and help David haul it back to Fairfield -where we lived. He was a huge help. My dad and David went, I think 36 or more hours without sleep. It was rough on them. When they first started rummaging through all the burnt stuff they only had a tiny flashlight. When Lance showed up he brought big lanterns. He got the call from David at 1:30am and didn't hesitate to wake up his kids -his wife was at a conference- and drive out to help them, 2 1/2 hours away.


Doesn't look like much, but this is what was left. Most of it burned, it smelled so bad! After David, my dad & Lance went through everything and pulled out anything they thought was salvagable, CalTrans came and scooped up everything with a front loader and put it in a dump truck. While they were waiting for Lance's bro-in-law to show up with a trailer -to haul everything back to Fairfield, truckers would stop and start going through our stuff! Unbelievable.



As I look at some of the pictures, especially when I was creating my 'list', I would say to David "why didn't we keep this? It doesn't look too bad" and he would say "you don't remember the smell." The smell was really bad. Fortunately many of our photos were salvaged, along with a few other items that we feel very lucky to have. All in all, we are grateful to have what we have. We love where we are and are grateful for the changes that have come in our lives. The fire has made us stronger and we truly feel it was a blessing in so many ways.

Here is hoping the next year is full of fun changes and exciting adventures!