Scariest day of my life!!

The weekend started out so great! Friday we went to Moses Lake to go camping and boating with our friends Debi and Cory. I used to work with Debi and Cory lived with us when he was in Law school at gonzaga. They live on the west side of the state so we met them there. Landon was able to do some wakesurfing again. He loves it!

 Unfortunatly on saturday I ended up with a terrible bladder infection so I had to make a detour to the Urgent care for some care and meds.....I was back on the water by early afternoon...Meanwhile the kids continued to have fun...

 Debi and Cory have 3 kids, lyla is 4...Landon won't pose without making a weird face or posing funny....

 they had an ice cream social at the campground...

 Luke had stopped at the local grocery store in moses lake and sent me this picture...Gross! I don't like leftovers from my own house...so buying 'leftovers' at the store!?...no thank you!

 Luke even went tubing...

 The campground is about 50 yards off of I-90 which is a major freeway and we were sleeping in a tent...I don't think I slept much both nights due to my lovely bladder infection and an slowly leaking air mattress....By sunday morning I was exhausted and was looking forward to getting a good night sleep in my own bed...

 Trying to get a family selfie

 Debi and cory had to get home sunday so we headed home around 1:00...we drove into spokane around 3 and saw this...It looked like it was coming from the direction of our house!

 we turned down our road....and it seemed a little closer...

 I read on the news that it was called the Yale Rd fire...so I mapped where that was compared to our house...we are the blue dot...Seemed pretty far away.

 Luke jumped in the razor and drove down our road to see how close the fire was...This is the ridge behind our house by a couple of miles...

 

He came back and said it was closer than he thought, but we should be ok. Just in case I decided to load some valued items. I grabbed the kids baby books, picture albums, our bank stuff and small safe along with my external hard drive that I keep all my photo's on. The kids saw what I was doing and decided to grab the things that were important to them too... Of course we needed landon's Iron man suit...some piggy banks, stuffed animals...and josie packed the cat food!

 They had started a pile in the mudroom too....not sure all this made it in my car...Ha Ha...

 Luke had been at our nieghbors house and I came outside to look at the fire....as I came outside luke came driving up our driveway super fast and said that we needed to Get Out!!

 It was like a scene out of a movie...Burning embers were falling from the sky, you could see the flames and black smoke just across the street. The kids jumped into my car and only had one of the cats...Then we couldn't find Walter...So the kids are screaming and crying...the fire was coming so I ran into the garage to find the cat....When I found him I literally opened the car door and threw him in. Luke found walter and also tossed him in the car. Luke drove the razor and Carli's mom drove our truck...We drove with rudy and carli to the freeman school to watch from afar....I took this picture right before we left..

  this video captured luke saying he was 'freaking out'...as he grabbed walter and put him in my car..

This was the view from the freeman school...The black smoke you see is coming from where our house is. Our neighbor across the street pulled in and was hysterical saying that their place was on fire and that velda...the old lady that lives in the house too refused to leave and she had to leave her in the house! So at that point when we heard that their house was on fire we figured that ours was next...I can't explain the gut wrenching feeling of watching what I thought was my house burning down.  Josie was crying and hugging me...I don't think landon really understood what was going on..He was busy playing with rocks in the road.....We then got evacuated from the school so I took the kids and animals to carli's parents house a few miles away. Luke stayed in the distance to try and see what was happening.....

 My friend Kris lives by our place and had been watching...She sent me this text....Probably the most relieving text message of my life!

 I came home as fast as I could with the kids both in the front seat...cats and the dog and all our valued treasures piled in the car. It was so crazy to see all that burned and so amazing to see that our house was still there!!! this is the road we live on...

 There it was....the best sight ever....our house!!!

Luke took a video of a plane that was dropping water on the property. My friend said that he was watching it from a different angle and said they were dropping water directly on our house at one point!

 I pulled up to our friend Denny with a tractor still working on building a fire line all around our house. The fields were just harvested last week thank goodness, so the crops were short. The farmers saved a lot of houses by cutting fire lines...they were helping before some of the fire fighters were on scene...

This is the house across the street from us. The one who said that velda wouldn't leave....Well, the fire dept made her get out. the house was saved, but they lost their barn and a bunch of stuff around the back of the house....

 we went back to where luke had taken the original photo of the canyon on fire....here is the before and after

 We decided to stay the night at our house sunday night...little did we know that we were still in the level 3 evacuation zone....I slept very little that night....so much for that good nights rest I was looking forward too:) this was a fire map of evacuation notices...we are within the red line...

 Unfortunately Poor Josie had to have her root canal done on monday morning at 8....After a stressful evening and staying up late for her I took her anyway....She did so great. I was so proud of her. She was in the chair for over and hour and a half...At one point she asked the dr. if it was ok if she fell asleep! of course she brought puppy with her:)

 Monday afternoon we went for a drive around the area to look at the fire damage...This is looking down our road...Our house is on the left....the road acted as a fire line.

 This is just the area where luke had taken the original photo of the fire coming from the canyon...this was a house and a shop!

 This plane was dropping fire retardant all day monday and sunday night. My friend as a ring of fire retardant all around her house where they dropped it to save her house.

 This crew was from Mt. Hood in oregon. they said they were 'bringing the world' to the fire...

 One of the helicopters taking off to get more water.

We are still in a level 3 evacuation notice...which means 'get out now'...Not sure why. The fire is maybe a mile south of us...I guess if the wind picked up and headed this way we would be at risk. Still sleeping with one eye open....I took this picture this morning...The smoke has been pretty terrible...

 My parents came into town on monday to check out the fire damage and say hi. They took josie with them when they left...Landon got some one on one time with my parents over spring break, so they gave that time to josie this time. Today they went to Banks Lake to get away from the smoke...there is a huge fire by my parents property at the lake too....I forgot to pack her life jacket....so Josie got to wear the big orange one in the boat! Her tooth is doing fine and she seems like nothing every happened...Now we wait until September and they will do the cosmetic work on her teeth so she wont have a black front tooth!

We are so thankful that our house is still standing. It is so scary to think you are losing your house. It makes you realize what is important...and how much stuff you can fit into a car in 10 minutes when you have to evacuate!! There have been 10 houses lost, the fire is still burning and they say there is 0% containment. So we hope for no wind and that the fire stops soon. Definitely the scariest day of my life!