Fire & the 4th of July

This week got a little wild thanks to a careless track hoe operator on our East mountains.  This is what we could see from our front yard around 2:30/3:00 P.M. Tuesday afternoon.

If you look close you can see the flames.

It moved so fast up the moutain.

  Shortly after it started I had to run Isaac to the Orthodontist where we could see this out the window.

   And while we were at the Orthodontist, my neighbor and friend went to the new park in Alpine and sent me this photo at the same time.

The whole thing was so scary.  Homes were evacuated, a barn burned down and several homes were lucky to remain.  Greg was actually one of the first people to get to the area and actually helped the police officers go door to door banging on doors tellling people to get out NOW!  That was pretty intense for him and he spent the rest of his day and night helping keep people from interfering at the Command Post.  You wouldn't have believed the amount of people driving into our town to just catch a glimpse of the chaos.  Isaac and I even saw a near car crash because people just weren't paying attention to anything but the mountain.
   This fire burned steady for two days.  Here's a view the second day from the Cemetery.

One of the helicopters helping out the second day.

   There were several planes and helicopters helping with the fire and one helicopter pilot who single handedly saved several homes and people who was apparently just incredible.  I tried getting a photo of the planes that were flying right over our heads in the neighborhood but my phone camera wasn't quite up for that task.
     So while all this chaos is going on we're still attempting to celebrate the fourth of July.  Here's a few photos of the boys having some fun with chalk, red hair spray, etc.  As you can imagine, it's very dry here so Alpine put a ban on all fireworks so we had to come up with some alternative activities for our neighborhood "Sidewalk of Fire" a.k.a. "Mountain of Fire".

Mark and Isaac were very patriotic.

RED!!

McClane stayed as close to the drinks as possible.  He couldn't get enough home made rootbeer.

Just a few of the neighbors and friends that came to eat and celebrate together.

Barbecue station.

Just because she's CUTE!

McClane posing!

McClane after a gallon of rootbeer and at least one cupcake. (Yeah, he knows how to party!)

   So in between the fun I took more fire photos and could hardly stop watching the moutain.  This is what we could see from our backyard the afternoon of July 4th.

   And then that night it really lit up like you wouldn't believe.  I didn't get any photos of that though because it got too dark and my camera wouldn't work but it was natures own fireworks and it was specatcular in a sad kind of mesmerizing way.  Thankfully on the third day the Lord showed some mercy and the rain came, more than expected and it did much to help extinguish the flames.  The fire is still only about 50% contained at this point, five days later, but we haven't seen any more flames and only small tendrils of smoke.  And the Lord even allowed several pine trees to remain on the mountain and several green pastures so the mountain isn't a total loss.  Now we just hope the rain doesn't fall too heavily causing mudslides in the coming months.

And just for kicks here's a few photos of McClane that I also took this week.

Would that he could actually get the key in and take himself for a ride!

No nap leads to an easy bed time!

  Now we look forward to Kayli finally coming home!!