Day 10

Yes, it's Day 10 of no Daddy. Paul was on the list to start demobilizing to come home. And then "something happened" and they are now on their way to Corona to protect homes there from fire. He has no idea when this will end. I also heard the weather dude say that there is a chance for slight Santa Ana conditions to come back. I think I'm going to lose my mind.

And did I mention, there's no school again today!! Yes I know we are blessed because we have our home but I'm sooo tired.

And now this:

"My dear boy," answered the Dormouse to cheer him up a bit, "why worry now? What is done cannot be undone, you know. Fate has decreed that all lazy boys who come to hate books and schools and teachers and spend all their days with toys and games must sooner or later turn into donkeys"

A Little Normalcy

Trick or Treating at the Animal Park

We went to the Wild Animal Park yesterday. They were re-opened and doing things for Halloween. The kids did a scavenger hunt all over the park and then got a handful of candy for their prize. They also made bats and ghosts in the new Discover Station area. The park was very empty. That was great. We wandered around slowly and lunch there. We watched the elephant show. Sunita didn't want to do the show the trainer was asking her to do. She made up her own. She walked along the balance beam and got up on the big tree stump all on her own. The trainers didn't know why she was doing this but it was fun to watch how her mind was working. We saw the Cheetah sisters being fed and then relaxing.

I like the new tram better. It's not as long but it's much closer to the animals. We got to see the devastation from the fire too. They literally stopped at the fence lines. The Animal Park has an amazing fire prevention system.

All in all it was a good day. It was so nice to be out. We are coughing a little more today though. Just that little bit of exertion I guess.

Base Camp Visit

We went up to Irvine to visit Daddy at the Base Camp for the Santiago Fire Strike Teams. Paul has been at the fires since Sunday morning. He's been at Santiago since Tuesday with no breaks. They drove directly to Irvine from Malibu. They were set up at Irvine Regional Park. What a great park. We can't wait to go back under different circumstances. A base camp is like a little city. They have food trailers, shower facilities, laundry, everything. They were even making shave ice today for the guys (and gals). We saw some guys playing horseshoes in there black firefighter boots and shorts-quite a look. A father of triplets who shall remain nameless stole borrowed an Aqua-Cycle, another firefighter and the chief talked the mini-train engineer into giving them a ride and two firefighters were seen riding through the park on horseback. Seems like a good 'ol time, huh? Not really considering that the guys had just come off a 24 hour shift. They can still be mobilized on their "off" time. If they're lucky, they have a cot to sleep on. If they're not there's a lot of lumpy ground and hard pic-nic benches. The OC Zoo is within the park so we got to walk around in there. They were closed but letting the firemen in. We saw a mountain lion. He/She was huge! It was nice to see Daddy. We hadn't seen him since last Saturday. We're not sure when he'll be home. There was a briefing this evening. This fire is heading toward the city of Corona. It's burned all the way across Orange County. And it just doesn't want to stop. Pray for rain!

This Evening

Eerie pictures of the moon this evening.

This one just breaks my heart. These are Kieran's "most favorite things" that he put together in case we have to evacuate.

Pictures From This Morning

"Mommy Why Is The Sky Orange?"

It looks like a cool fogged in "June Gloom" morning but it's all smoke. This is horrible and so scary. My friends are scattered to the wind (that would be the Santa Anas), I don't know where my husband is, my neighborhood is lined with evacuees. San Diego has 250,000 people evacuated, lost 750 homes so far and 145,000 acres. I think we still have only 1 fatality. We are waiting and wondering if the Rice fire will make it into the San Luis River bed and down into Oceanside. No doubt the Marines will try to stop it at Pendleton-Hurah! We haven't heard much about it because the Rancho Santa Fe area is so bad right now. Smoke woke me at about 2:00 am. I watched the news for awhile then and there is now a fire burning in Temecula.
The weather man is saying the wind is calm right now. Pray that it stays that way so they can get the tankers in the air.

Prayers for San Diego

These are pictures from our back yard in Oceanside-Looking south.

It's really scary down here for lots of people. My friends were evacuated this morning. Most of the schools in the county are closed. Except ours-the kids are pissed about that. We don't know where Paul is right now. He was still in Malibu early this morning waiting for a new assignment. That could be to stay there or come down here.


It's very smoky even here in Oceanside. I could see the glow of the flames this morning before the sun came up.

Ta Da!!! Irish Curls

Not bad for a first try at the whole head.

Red Flags At Morning Firefighters Take Warning

Most people fear the middle of night phone calls. I fear the early morning phone calls. I knew when the phone rang this morning and the caller i.d. said it was Paul that he wasn't at the fire station. I know so well now that I answered the phone, "Where are you?" rather than, "Hello". And of course the answer is a location. "Northbound 405 heading to Malibu." Malibu is on fire again. If you read down to "Shopping center on fire" you'll find out exactly where Paul was at 10:00 am. You'd think after this long I'd be used to brush fire season, but I'm not.

A Little Reel

Just a little bit of practice for them.....

....and for me.

This is how we make Irish curls. Hopefully we'll get a good result in the morning.

To Curl Or Not To Curl

This is my first try at making Irish curls. I only had time to quickly do a pony tail. I'm going to try the whole head today. I won't buy a wig (yes most of the girls wear wigs) until I know Kendra will stay with dance for a while-a long while. But it might just be worth the $85.00 for my time and Kendra's pain. It takes a seasoned hair curler about 2 hours to curl a girl's hair. And another 45 minutes or so to unroll it the next day before a competition. We'll see if Kendra can sleep all night with curlers in her hair.

This is a wig close to Kendra's hair color. It would require tying her hair down close to her scalp and putting the wig on. Hmmm, almost three hours up and down with curlers, sleeping on them and maybe getting a not so great result or forking out $85.00. I know what my decision would be and I know what the money keeper's decision would be. Oh well, maybe it will be fun to watch a movie and curl hair in the hotel on Friday night before the competition.

Mick knows best?

"Kids are different today,"






I hear ev'ry mother say







Mother needs something today to calm her down








And though she's not really ill





There's a little yellow pill







She goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper






And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day.





It's dinner time. "Kyle, where's Kieran?" "He's climbing the shed." "Whaattttt!?!"




Kieran did this all by himself, then called me to take pictures of him. Yes, very impressive. It's the taking pictures while trying to control my urge to yell something along the lines of, "don't run with scissors", "you'll poke your eye out with that stick", "if Johnny Milligan jumped off a cliff....." All those things somebodies Mother said.



Kieran is amazing. His brain works in mysterious ways but he exhausts me. Thank goodness for Guinness and Preference by L'Oreal.

How did WE survive childhood?

I didn't have access to three tv's, leapsters, Game Boys, or a PlayStation. I think we have every Lego and K*nex known to mankind. I've stepped on that many. There are bikes and scooters and billions of crayons. Toys pouring out of a room dedicated to just toys. There's a dog, a cat and a brand new kitten.

6:30 am and Kyle announces he's bored. There's a hard and fast rule that no one is allowed to be bored before Mommy has a sufficient amount of caffeine.

Paul dragged the bored ones to the "hiking park". The rangers let them hold Mr. Pibb (a tarantula found in the soda machine) and feed a 4 foot long gopher snake. My girly girl dropped a tiny innocent mouse into a snake's cage. Yuck!! If she has nightmares someone is going to have a lonely night on the couch.

And this is where Kyle and the Leapster became friends again-For the rest of the day. Mushy brain boy!

Kendra and Kieran were forced to be creative by the evil Mommy!

That's a motor speedway.