December 26

Tyson had two basketball games in Salt Lake Monday for his Aggies team. Greg took him to them while Kaden and I stayed home and did some errands. I needed to make a salad, take some stuff to the DI, run a gift over to a friend having surgery, and go and do some work in my classroom. Kaden was a big help. Greg and Tyson flew into town a little after four, and we took off to a Brown family party in Blackfoot that my Uncle Bob and Aunt Cathy host. The party was a lot of fun. I love to get together with family and visit. There were also a lot of very talented people performing. As we were enjoying ourselves, we started getting a large number of calls, texts, and pictures from concerned family and friends. I guess someone had been lighting off flares somewhere near our house, and one of them had started the riverbanks across from our house on fire! A lot of ash was coming down and the flames were getting as high as 20 and 30 feet. Becky Hodge called me. As she was turning down our street the ashes were coming down like snow. She wanted to know if there was anything in my house she wanted me to get out in case the fire continued to be out of control. I thought and thought....the only thing I could think to have her grab were my blog books and computer because of the pictures in them. I guess that is good that I knew the really important things, my family, were not in danger, and everything else is just stuff and can be replaced. I was really concerned as I saw pictures, but so thankful that we were all OK. The fire was within about 50 yards of our home. We have an amazing fire department and neighbors and friends. One of our neighbors, Knud Friedel, even brought his tractor down and was using his disc to turn the soil to cut down on fuel for the fire. When we got off the interstate to come home, we could already smell the smoke. There were ashes all over our driveway and around our house, but everything was fine. I was concerned about the smoke smell in the house, but it wasn't too bad. We had to sleep that night with the furnace off to keep the smoke smell out, but we are so very blessed. We are so thankful for our amazing friends and neighbors and community.