A Summary of Most of August

Most of August has been kind of a blur.  With Eddie being gone for a large chunk of the month, the boys and I made do the best we could.  We survived and did actually manage to have a little fun while Daddy was gone.  I didn't want the boys' last few weeks of summer break to be a total bore.

We took some pictures before Daddy left.  I had actually bought these matching shirts at Janie & Jack for them to wear at the beach, but I wanted to see them in them.  We have a little tradition of having matching Janie & Jack shirts every year.  Sadly, Evan is probably reaching the end of being able to wear clothes from there.  

Me and my big baby boy.

And me and my little man. 

Daddy and his boys enjoying their last day together before Daddy left.

A few days before Daddy left, Evan finally lost his third tooth that had been loose for quite a while. We were actually sitting in a doctor's waiting room when he extracted it himself.  I wrapped it up to ensure it made it home safely to be put under the pillow for the tooth fairy.  We actually forgot to put it out the first night, but the tooth fairy did come back the second night.  We are very thankful she forgave our forgetfulness.  Evan has been slower at losing his teeth, and I have been okay with that as I have been able to avoid the infamous snaggle tooth pictures for more of his young life. This was his third tooth on the bottom.  His top two front teeth are beginning to feel loose so I am expecting we'll be singing that infamous song by Christmas.  Yep, you guessed it..."All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth" made famous by those adorable (annoying?) chipmunks.

Little snaggletooth.

The tooth fairy was pretty generous.  It was the smallest bill she had.  

The Sunday before Eddie got called to go out west, he was expecting to receive the call so we made an errand run to Target to pick up some necessities for him and us.  We have also been picking up back to school stuff whenever we see good sales throughout the summer so Evan got some new shirts from Old Navy.  Brody just enjoyed playing in the store.

Silly boy riding the Old Navy dog while sporting his new shades.

After dropping Eddie off at the airport on Monday the 4th, we stopped to try to watch the planes taking off.  There is an overlook, but it is way on the other side of the airport so I didn't drive over there.  We saw some neat planes at the Air National Guard base but got run off by airport security from watching the planes take off from this spot.  Too bad because it was a great spot.  Haha!

I think the boys and I ate pretty good while Daddy was away.  I made us some pretty yummy meals for breakfast, lunch and most of our dinners.  I made breakfast for dinner one night with eggs, bacon and cheese grits.  Evan could not get enough eggs and just kept saying how much he loved them.  They were just scrambled with some cheese added to them.  I made myself some yummy salads and also some yummy smoothies for us all.  I have been enjoying making smoothies for breakfast this summer.  We did eat out a couple of times for kids' eat free special nights or with Papa.

My yummy salad with avocado and strawberries.

And a yummy blueberry smoothie.  Evan loved this one.  He wasn't crazy about my orange smoothies because of the pulp.  

Brody sporting a milk or yogurt mustache.  I forget which.

Out to eat at a little barbecue place that does a kids' special once a week.

Evan asked for onion rings although he didn't eat many.  

We enjoyed our last summer movies, Walking with Dinosaurs and Rio 2.  Both movies were a lot of fun.  I was pleasantly surprised by the dinosaur one.  It was both fun and educational.  Brody loved it so much, he came home and played with his toy dinosaurs that day.  He is definitely developing a real love for dinosaurs just like his big brother.

He was so cute talking for the dinosaurs like the dinosaurs in the movie.

We enjoyed lots of cuddling time in the big bed, and both boys slept in our bed most nights while Daddy was gone.  I like having them close to me.  We took pictures to send to Daddy to make him jealous.

Cuddling with my monkeys.

Brody was being silly sticking out his tongue.

Brody and I also enjoyed our daily naps.

Being silly at nap time and not sleeping.

And finally, we hit the road to the beach after Mommy performed the arduous tasks of getting us all packed up and loaded in the car.  We stopped only once in the Fort Mill/Rock Hill area of SC to get cheap gas and eat lunch at Sonic (and get a yummy milkshake for the road).  The boys were so great on the drive.  They didn't even watch any movies.  Brody slept most of the way, and Evan played his Kindle.  We made excellent time and used our knowledge of the beach traffic to detour around it and made it to our resort in record time despite being passed by many "speeders" along the way.  I figured I passed most of them with our detour because they spend a good 30 to 45 minutes in the backed up traffic going into Myrtle on the most heavily traveled route.  That is our little "secret."

I had to promise Brody a ride on this little horse to get him to eat his lunch.  

So that catches us up until our beach trip last week.  I can't believe August is almost over.  I have been a very slack blogger this month!

Beach Ready

Only one more sleep until....THE BEACH!  You may already know that our family is a beach loving family and that we look forward to our yearly beach trip all year long.  This has been a particularly long summer of waiting.  For some reason, we planned our beach trip for the very last week of summer.  Ugh...remind me not to do that again because the waiting has been killing me.  Unfortunately, we got a little sad news a couple of weeks ago when Daddy got called up to go help fight wildfires in Oregon.  While it was an "opportunity" he couldn't pass up, we were sad that it meant he would likely miss nearly all of our vacation.  The trip has been booked since early this year, and we couldn't exactly postpone it since Evan will be starting back to school the very next week.  Sigh.  It looked like the boys and I would be heading to the beach for a week by ourselves.  The days since Daddy left have been a whirlwind of good times and some not so good times.  Life as a single mom of two boys can be rough at times, especially when a certain three year old gets in a very bad mood and refuses to nap.  Of course, there have been good times too cuddling in the big bed with my two little men, tickles and laughter, and other fun times.  While it has been a pretty exhausting week and a half, we have been anxiously awaiting our days at the beach.  The boys don't expect Daddy will be joining us until next Wednesday.  Won't they be surprised when we actually get to pick him up from the airport on Saturday?  Yep, Daddy just got the news that he gets to come home early and doesn't have to miss the majority of our beach trip.  While this still means I have to load us up and drive us to the beach by myself, it also means we only have one night alone at the beach before Daddy joins us.  It is a true blessing, I tell you!  I am not telling the boys because I just can't wait to see their surprised faces!  So for now, our bags are mostly packed, only one load of laundry is in the dryer, the beach gear is loaded in the car, and I just have to get these boys fed dinner and in the bed before loading the rest of our bags and ourselves into the car tomorrow.  Yay!

For now, here is a little testament to our fondness of the beach through the years.

Evan's first beach trip

We didn't make it to the beach this year but a cool dip in a mountain stream satisfied Evan's need for the water and sand.

Evan's first beach trip where he actually could enjoy the water.

The first of many family pictures on the beach.

Brody's first trips to the beach.  He was a beach bum from the start.

A special trip for us all despite our sad circumstances.

We look forward to more great memories being made this year!

Summer Fun # 11 ~ Gone Fishin'!

One of our summer bucket list items was to go fishing in our little neighborhood pond.  Evan has loved the little neighborhood pond since we first moved here in 2009.  It is a great shady place for walks or just sitting on a bench and enjoying the sights and sounds of nature.  It really doesn't feel like you are in a city when you are walking around this little retreat.  Last year, the neighborhood did some major renovations to the pond and really cleaned it out and added some new landscaping.  It was never terrible, but it really looks nice now.  The pond isn't very deep so it is doubtful that it could ever support any substantial fish supplies.  Likely, you won't catch anything but turtles or maybe an occasional snake.  The boys and I don't really mind since I wouldn't really enjoy the whole touching the fish thing anyway.  Instead, we just use it as an opportunity to practice putting our artificial bait on our lines and casting and reeling.  Evan has really improved and can cast his line perfectly.  Brody is using Evan's old rod so Evan advanced to my old fishing pole that never really saw much use before.  Eddie made me buy it when we were dating because we had a tradition of meeting his church friends and family at a lake for a camping and fishing weekend every summer. I do think I caught my first fish on one of those excursions.

The boys lead the way to the pond.

The little pier was also added with the newer renovations.

We spotted some little tadpoles swimming by the shore.

And a turtle

We tried fishing from the pier but due to no place to sit and the railings being too high for casting, that didn't work very well.

Brody trying out his little rod.  We purchased this for Evan because it had Diego, his favorite old cartoon character, on it.

Evan using Mommy's big pole.

Reeling in his line.

I just love watching boys learning to fish like little men.

Evan casting his own rod.

One cute thing about Brody's little pole is that it came with a little fish to attach to the line.  Little ones love that they always "catch" a fish.  

It was a lovely day for fishing.

Love that Evan was helping Brody.  Daddy didn't come with us this day so Evan was being a great big brother.

Looks like a pro.

He looks like he could sit there all day waiting for the fish to bite.

Brothers fishing together.  I see years of fishing together in their future.

Brody wanted to try out the big pole.

This one reminds me of one of Evan from back in 2009.

Two and a half year old Evan fishing.

After fishing, the boys had to stop at the playground for a little bit.

They built this new playground a couple of years ago as well.  Lots of nice changes to the neighborhood in recent years.

He was a little nervous going down the big slide.

Pretending to be an ice cream store clerk.

Time to swing.

Happy boy.  He wanted to swing in the "baby" swing although he can swing in the big swings.

Do all kids at some point like swinging this way?  Evan was pretending he was flying.

Resting on the slide.

Little monkey climbing the jungle gym.

Go West Young Man (Blogging from the Fireline)

I have not had the chance to go out west or help fight wildfires for about 4 years.  Sherry and I discussed that this year was a good time to start back since our kids are a little older and she is not working or attending school right now.  I began the process of getting everything together to fight wildfires, and I placed my name on what we call the "GOOD TO GO" list at the beginning of July and began the waiting game for an assignment.  The western fires had not made a significant push until just the last week and a half.  On Sunday, August 3rd, I saw several positions for which I am qualified get posted to the "UTF" list.  For those of you who are not in the know, "UTF" stands for Unable to Fill by the federal government so that means they call up for outside sources.  I anticipated a dispatch order that day or the next and began the process of gathering clothes, gear, and making sure that as much of the duties at home I had to do were done.   Sunday came and went with no call which I thought was due to our state's dispatchers not working on the weekend.  Monday morning, I called our Central Dispatch and worked out the problem that had kept me from leaving on Sunday, and by 12 noon on Monday, I had an assignment and was Oregon bound.  I had been to Oregon is 2008 to help fight three different wildfires and thus I knew the area and the fire behavior that they experienced there.  I received my orders and my flight information and had everything packed and read to go.  I spent a couple of hours with the kids and Sherry, then it was time to head to the airport.  Sherry, Brody, and Evan dropped me off at the airport, and we said our goodbyes and then I was off on my journey.

I first had a long flight from Charlotte to Portland, OR.  I then had an hour and thirty minute layover before flying to Redmond, OR.  I landed at 11 p.m. or 2 a.m. my time and immediately ran into a fellow firefighter that was having problems.  Evidently, he had traveled from New Mexico and didn't have a ride to the fire that he was going to, and the car that he had a reservation for was there, but they wouldn't take payment over the phone.  He was out a ride and a place to stay.  I gave him some advice and then he decided that he would go to the same hotel that I was staying at and get a room for the night.  I finally got to bed at 3 a.m. Eastern Standard Time or 12 pm Pacific Time.  The next morning, I was picked up by a local driver and driven 3 hours northwest to a fire camp setup just outside John Day, OR.  The fire is called the South Fork Complex which encompasses two fires, the Murderers' Creek South Fire and the Buck Fork Fire.  To date, the fire is 41,831 acres, and yesterday we had some good fire activity.  Tomorrow, I will be doing a recon flight of the fire in a helicopter to get a better overall view of the fire and how much progress we are making containing it.

Not to ramble but my position on the fire is Situation Unit Leader.  My duties include managing the GIS specialists who make the maps of the fires (on this fire there are 3), supervising Field Observers who go out on the ground and scout the fire out (we have 3), supervising the Fire Behavior Analysis and Incident Meteorologist, completing required forms and paperwork to ensure that everyone knows what the current status of the fire is and if there are any critical needs.   I will be on the fire for 14 days camping out and assisting the suppression efforts.  I will also be missing most of our family's beach vacation to Myrtle Beach, SC.  I will fly to meet Sherry and the boys on Wednesday, August 20th.  I will get one day on the beach and then get to pack up and help bring everything home.    Below is a link to the website with information about the fire that I update daily.

http://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/4042/#

My home for the next 14 days.

Good Morning.  Nothing like the smell and haze from a wildfire to greet the day.

The Incident Meteorologist getting ready to release a weather balloon.

The fire decided that it had been quiet for long enough and was ready to make a run for it.  It burned an additional 6000 acres yesterday.

The fire is really burning actively in this picture.

Smoke blocking out the sun.

The smoke column going up and blocking out the sun.

A heavy helicopter with a bucket going to aid the fire fighters on the line.