~The Fire~

I'm not going to lie...I find it slightly amusing that my next post is about this, when the last post was about how beautiful the city I live in is. But, it was a pretty big event here and it changed a lot on how I think about things, and what's really important in life. So the sunday before last, Randy and I went to dinner at my parents house. Everything was pretty normal, but we found that it was pretty smoky in the area. Not really thinking too much of it, we left to eat some food. Down by my parents house, the smoke was like 10 times worse then it was by our house, but we didn't really think too much of it, until of course, we began our drive home. We hit about 11400 south and at that point, we saw a lot of smoke, and some orange shading just at the mountain top. By the time we hit 12600 South the flames were visible. At this point, we realized that this fire was way worse then we thought it was. When we got home, we couldn't see the flames anymore, but there was still a definite orange glow just above the mountain top. Randy and I decided to walk around the neighborhood and see if we could see the fire any better. Around 8pm, the flames came above the mountain top and began to jump down the mountain. It moved pretty quick. Around 9pm the fire department evacuated the neighborhood just to the south of us, about 3 streets, and a lot of the people in our ward. At this point, Randy and I thought it was inevitable. We were going to be evacuated, we just didn't know how long it would take. We came home and began to pack some stuff. Obviously we took all our pictures and tried to get everything that couldn't be replaced. I have to tell you...trying to pack up your entire life in 1 car is not the easiest thing I've ever done. Randy kept telling me that I should take what I could and that everything else was being condemed to burn. Like that made it any easier. After we were done packing, we went around the neighborhood and asked everyone that we saw if they needed help getting out. Most were already packed, or weren't planning on taking anything so that made things easy. Around 11pm, the flames had reached just above the bottom of the hill (just a few blocks from us) and we decided that it was better for us to leave rather then get woken up at 3am with a mandatory evac. I have to tell you...leaving our house was like the hardest thing ever. I had no idea whether or not I was going to be able to ever go home again. With the flames as close as they were when we left, anything was possible. We got to my parents house for a very rough night of sleep...it's pretty hard to sleep when every time you close your eyes you see your house burning to the ground. I woke up around 4am, after not getting to bed until about 1am...and couldn't get back to sleep. Then Randy's family started calling around 5am, so that made things even harder to sleep. Now obviously our house didn't burn down, but we both mentally prepared ourselves for that reality. In the end, we really had everything that we needed. We had our memories, and each other. If we would've had to start over from scratch, it wouldn't have been the worse thing in the world. I am very grateful that we didn't have to go down that road, and even more grateful that I have a husband who can always remind me that as long as we have eachother, we're at home, no matter where we are. Ok...since you are all waiting...here's some pictures. We stopped taking them after about 8:00 so when it got really close, we didn't get any pictures of that.

From our bedroom window


Down the street, just as the flames came over top of the mountain side


The Flames...

~Herriman...Oh how I love thee~

Ever since I have moved up to this area, I have absolutely loved it. I know to some people it seems to be out in the middle of no-where...but I love the small town feel right by the big city. Not to mention to amazing views, morning and night. The other day Randy and I were going out to dinner when we saw this...And you wonder why I love this city so much!

~Pride~

I have mentioned this before, but I pretty much use this blog as my journal so...whenever I have a thought or something that I feel needs to be written down, I blog. Lately I have found myself in a rut, I feel like I go to church and am "mormon" on sundays, but I find that during the week, I don't spend much time studying my religion, or drawing closer to my savior, who has given me everything. I made it a goal this week to change that, and to spend at least a half hour every day studying the gospel, and learning as much as I can about it. This includes reading the Book of Mormon, but also relating it to my life today. My posts in the past have not been overly religious, but I feel that religion is such a big part of my life, and that I shouldn't be afraid to share my beliefs with others. While I was reading today, there was a verse that struck me. I was in 1st Nephi, reading about when Nephi asked to see what his father had seen in his dream, and to understand more fully what that dream meant. The spirit asks him questions about the great and spacious building, and Nephi see's the building fall, and how great the fall of that building was. Nephi finds out that the great and spacious building represents the pride of the world. And this particular verse says "Thus shall be the destruction of all nations, kindreds, tougues, and people, that shall fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb." This struck me as I began thinking about where our country is heading, the direction and how everyday we seem to get further and further away from what is really important. Trying to take God out of schools, and allowing ourselves to be so caught up in the things of the world, that we forget about our God, and in essence, turn against the 12 apostles of the Lamb. I wonder if this is not a direct prophesy of which way our country is headed. As a country, we are very prideful, we know that we are the powerhouse of the world, yet we forget that the reason for that is becuase of our faith in God. As we strengthen our belief that we got where we are on our own, the Lord will stop blessing us. We have already taken a huge blow as far as our economy goes, every day it seems to get worse, and not better. Every day more and more people loose their jobs and are finding themselves in financial hardship because they didn't listen to the prophets when they were told to get out of debt, and to make sure they were working on their food storage. I can't say I'm not one of them. I am working really hard to get out of debt (almost there), but as for the food storage, other things have taken precedence. So I wonder how much better of a situation I would be in if I gave up some of the worldly things to follow the prophet more fully. I find it amazing when I read a book that was written thousands of years ago and yet the messages in them are still so relevant for today!