~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!

~The Remodel~

So...my kitchen is finally back together, except for the baseboards, which we still haven't done, but that's ok. It's been a fun project and every time I come down the stairs in the morning, I'm so glad that we actually did this. It looks so good and I'm so excited to make the rest of my house look as good. When they say that home improvement projects are never ending, they're not lying! :)

The Before Pictures...

Kitchen

Dining Room

The Demolition


Dexter...what a good helper!

Finally ready to start the tile


First tiles laid

Kitchen tiles are finally down...

Dining room waiting to be grouted!

Dexter chilling while we do the front entry way

The Finished product...except for the baseboards of course :)

~Tile~

Oh my gosh...we're finally done! Anyone who is looking to tile themselves, just remember things. 1...it's going to take a lot more tile then you expect. Even if you bring in the measurements to Home Depot, and they get you with their tile expert...they're wrong...you'll probably need twice that. In our case, 3 times that. 2...take the amount of time that you think it's going to take you...and double or triple that as well. ha! Everytime that we tried to start actually laying down the tile, we realized that there was more prep work to be done. Even after we laid most of the tile, we realized there was still more stuff to be done. 3...when people tell you that walls are never straight, don't dispute it. Even if the walls look perfectly straight to your eye...they are not! The faster you accept this, the less headache you'll have. I've suffered enough headaches for all of you. :) Overall...it was a TON of work, but it looks fantastic! And I mean...FANTASTIC! I love it! the only downside is that now I want to do more stuff to my home...like carpet, kitchen cabinets, etc...but that will have to wait. For now, we're taking a break on the home inprovements and just resting...possibly for a while. But we'll see. I'll post pics in a bit, but since I don't have my camera with me, they will have to wait.

~Vegas Baby~

Yes..I'm alive, Still as busy as ever, but I figured that this last week was worth blogging about. Ever since I started with World Financial Group, I've been told by everyone that I absolutely have to go to Convention. I never really understood why, but after hearing all the great things about it, I couldn't help but get excited to experience it myself. Randy, however, was not so much enthuse (probably because he didn't realize that he'd actually be going to the workshops with me, he thought he'd just be able to read a book by the pool all day...yup..he was wrong!). But, my excitement for the week was high, and I couldn't wait to go. So Tuesday night we made the trip down to Vegas. It was a great drive, we drove at dusk so we were able to watch the sunset, which we haven't done together in WAY too long. Wednesday started the festivities, and it was non stop running since the start. But...it far surpassed my expectation. The speakers were absolutely amazing. Even Randy was getting excited about it. We were both exhausted from the trip down, and not really getting any sleep while we were there, but I think it was impossible to fall asleep listening to these people. The convention was 3 days and amazing doesn't even begin to describe it. Friday night, though, we decided to skip out on a part of it (mostly because we planned things before the convention schedule was up) and went to see O. If you haven't seen this show...it is a MUST see! It was absolutely phenominal! My parents were in town because they were coming back from vacation so they went with us. Saturday, we went to breakfast, and then met up with my brother and his friends (who were down there as well) and went to lunch. I found it pretty amusing that we all planned a trip to vegas at the same time, and didn't really know about it. Anyway, it was a great week and I'm so glad that Randy was able to be there with me.

~Too Busy to Blog~

Mostly the name to this post pretty much sums it up. Right now I'm actually at work...blogging in between phone calls and other stuff. I know...riduculous...and it's about to get worse...as far as the busy-ness goes anyway. But I'm alive and well. Extremely busy but loving every minute of it. And there's some pretty exciting stuff to post when it's done. It's what I want to spend All of my time doing right now, but I must contain myself and get my work done first. Hopefully it will be done by the end of the month and then I'll post pictures of our newest adventures.