Micah

Throwing balls, blowing kisses, and pinching strangers.

Eating dog food, digging holes, and playing in the mud.

Boot loving, truck driving, and stick wielding.

You fit into our family perfectly, blue eyes and all.

We wouldn't have you any other way.

Happy Birthday to our new two year old!  We love you!

Scorched

Between our house and the shop we have a little patch of pines that have been there since Joe bought the property.  I love looking out the window every morning and feeling like I truly am waking up in the forest.  I know it sounds corny but it is nice to look out and see trees rather than dirt, asphalt, or another building.  I mean, I would take a beach or mountain view any day, but since I do not have those right outside my back door, I enjoy the woods.

See what I mean?  It is a lovely view (as long as I don't let myself think too long about what types of critters live in, around, and under those trees).  Unfortunately during the course of the fire a few weeks ago some of our trees were left scorched.

The entire row of trees next to the shop drive were scorched and now their needles are turning brown and falling off. Joe says that he does not know if they will survive or not. We will have to wait and see and may end up having to cut that row. I am hoping that they will live because I really do enjoy my view of the trees!

Now just as springtime is getting here and everything else is turning nice and green, when I look up from under my trees all I see is brown...

...when I should be seeing green.

The really interesting part (to me) is that the trees did not start turning until more than a week after the fire.  I woke up one morning and was shocked to see that they were dying.  I called Joe to the window to show him that our trees were dying and he said, "Denise, do you not remember the fire?"  Well of course I remembered the fire, but it had not even touched the trees and I had no idea that just the heat alone from the fire would do that much damage to our trees. 

As I was pondering the fate of our trees another thought came to me.  Just as that fire did damage to our trees that it did not even touch how much so does sin that is just between one person and God do damage to others around whom it seems it has not even touched.  And just as the damage to our trees did not show up until later, how long will it be before the damage from sin rears it's head in those other people?

Anyway, that is my deep thought for the year...

Granny Faye

Granny Faye has had a rough few months.  During the period from Thanksgiving to Christmas, I think she had eight hospital stays.  After the New Year, she finally got out of the hospital and stayed down at the beach with Aunt Jeanine for a few weeks.  Anyone who knows Granny understands how much she dislikes the beach, but she knew that she needed to be with someone since she was not able to completely take care of herself anymore.  As much as she understood that she needed help, she still wanted to come home.  Sooooo, Wednesday afternoon Granny got to come home...sort of. 
Granny is splitting her time here with us and her own home.  She comes here every evening and has supper here, watches the kids play for a while and spends the night in the room we have set up for her.  She gets up in the morning, has her cup of coffee and goes home to her house about mid-morning.  She is at her house for most of the day, having friends over or going out for lunch and then she returns here about five that evening to repeat the process over again. She is enjoying her freedom while at the same time still being taken care of and having a sense of security at night.
So far it has been going well.  It is definitely a bit more difficult than I imagined it to be, (mainly the cooking without salt and meeting her dietary needs) but we are all adjusting well.  The kids are loving the fact that she is here and I love the fact that my kids get to enjoy their Great-Grandmother.  She certainly keeps things interesting!
I am grateful for this time that we get to have with her.  I am also more than grateful for a husband who has accepted my grandmother as part of his life and loves her just as much as we do.  Joe has supported Granny being here from the very first time it was mentioned and indulges her crazy whims just as much as he does mine.  I am praying that we can continue to care for Granny while still allowing her the freedom to enjoy her life on her own for a long time.

Panic

This post is just a warning for all of my friends and family.  If you are ever in an emergency situation...DO NOT CALL ME!  It is not that I would not want to help out, it is just that I am no good when it comes to keeping a level head in emergency situations. 
Case in point... a few weeks ago when we had the fire, I ran outside to fight the fire not even wearing shoes!  Not a smart move.  Then in climbing in and out of the big trucks in order to move them, I climbed right over the fire extinguishers that we are required by law to keep in the trucks and did not even think to use them.  I'm not sure I would even know how to use them if the time came and I remembered to try.  My hands were shaking so bad at that point I don't know that it would have done much good to try anyway.
My hat goes off to all of the firefighters, paramedics, and other emergency workers out there.  They do a job that I would never be able to do.  I never thought of my job as a mother of three active boys and wife of a crazy truck driver as calm and quiet, but compared to what some do with their days, my life is a piece of cake.  So I think I will be sticking with my day job and leave the adrenaline rushes to everyone else.

Influenza

 This little fellow has not been feeling well lately.  We all had taken flu shots, but Jonah can't take them because of his egg allergy. We tried to be very careful with him, but he got sick anyway.  He started running a fever last Tuesday night and I took him in to see his pediatrician Wednesday morning.  They thought it was strep at first but that test came back negative, so they tested for the flu.  Sure enough it came back positive for Influenza B.  I have never seen a child so sick before.  His fever hovered between 102 and 103 even with alternating Tylenol and Motrin around the clock.  He refused to eat and would barely drink.  What he did drink came right back up as soon as he got it down.  This Tuesday was his first day fever free and he still has a really bad cough from it, but is starting to get back to his normal self. 

If I ever wondered about the effectiveness of flu shots, I no longer will!  It is amazing that none of the rest of us got sick with all of the snot, puke, and other germs that were flying all over the house this past week.  I can guarantee that my family will continue to get our flu shots every year.  I would hate for anyone to have to suffer through this flu if there was a known way to avoid it.  Hopefully next year there will be a flu vaccine for Jonah that is not grown in eggs or maybe we will not have to worry about the egg issue at all!

For now I am just glad that this little boy is feeling better and that Influenza B is behind us!

Fire

Saturday was an interesting day for us.  I was sure that it was going to be a busy one as Joe had work to do at his parent's house, Noah had a birthday party to attend and Jonah was in the middle of the flu.  The plan was for Joe to go to work, Mom to keep Jonah at her house, and me to take Noah and Micah to the bowling party.  Unfortunately (or so we thought at the time) the birthday boy got sick and the party was cancelled.  That meant Noah went to work with Joe and I planned to stay home in my pajamas to take care of the two little ones.

Just after lunch I was getting ready to put the little ones down for a nap when I saw heavy smoke out the back window.  At first I did not think much of it since I had a fire going in the fireplace and the wind was blowing pretty strong.  Then I realized that no matter how strong the wind was blowing, my little fireplace was not even capable of putting out that amount of smoke. 

 I went to the side door and what I saw nearly took my breath away.  The next door neighbor (privacy fence side) was burning trash in her back yard and the fire had gotten away from her.  It was barreling across the field straight back to our old house and shop.  I first called Joe to tell him to come home so he could help me get it out.  My next call was to my Mom to help me with the babies while I fought the fire. 

 I ran out the door (neglecting to put on shoes or a bra), threw the kids in the van and sped down the dirt road back to the shop to try and head the fire off with the water hose.  By the time I had gotten to the shop the wind had picked up and the fire was crossing the fence line to the front yard of our old home.  We now use that home for storage and part of Joe's shop.  I turned on the shop water hose but the fire was too hot for me to get to the front of the old house to use that hose.  (Remember that I was barefoot!)

 Realizing that there was no way that I could put this fire out myself I tried calling 911 while I started cranking up the big trucks to move them out of harms way.  My crazy phone decided at that moment to act up.  Since I could not use the keypad I tried using voice recognition to dial 911.  My phone has a hard time recognizing the numbers I say even when my voice is not laced with panic, so it really had a hard time understanding me while I was screaming numbers at the top of my lungs.  Finally the phone started ringing so I thought it had gotten through.  It rang a couple of times and then a woman's voice said, "Walterboro Pizza Hut, May I help you?"  At that point I wanted to throw my phone into the fire.  I needed a fire truck, not a pizza!

By this time the flames were already on the front porch of the old house and I decided that it was not worth risking my life or the lives of my babies (who were still sitting in my van) so I sped back up the road to the house to remove them from danger and to call 911 on our home phone.

 On the way up the drive I heard sirens coming and then I saw Joe pull into the drive.  I quickly filled him in and he and Noah headed back to the shop so Joe could try and slow the progression of the fire.  Then the wind shifted and the fire started coming across the field in the direction of our current home.  I saw the fire engine but it pulled into my neighbor's yard instead of mine. (My guess is that she is the one that called 911)

 Our firefighters are all a volunteer force so I grew up with most of them.  I drove over and told them they need to get to my yard because the old house was already on fire.  The second truck pulled into my yard, but stopped at the corner of our current house because the fire was threatening to jump the drive and catch our privacy fence on fire.

 The smoke was so thick that they could not even see that we had structures (the old house and the shop) in the back of the property that were already in danger too.  I finally got their attention (imagine me screaming and jumping up and down, bare feet, wearing my pajamas, and looking like I hadn't had sleep or a shower in three days...I did have a kid with the flu) and they realized what I was talking about.  They headed back to the shop to find that Joe was making a valiant effort, but a garden hose is not exactly fire fighting material.  My Mom showed up at that point and she stayed with the boys while I ran inside to find a bra and some shoes!

The firefighters helped Joe knock the rest of the flames down and we all assessed the damage.  Many of them said that they had never seen a mobile home get that close to burning and not be totally destroyed.  The fire charred the front porch, broke out the front windows, destroyed the front door, warped the metal siding, and melted the vinyl underpinning.  Inside the house you can see around the door and window where the flames literally licked the inside of the house but save for a little smoke, nothing else inside was damaged.

After the fire was out and I thought things were calming down, one of the firefighters called me over and said that he was going to have to call an ambulance.  I looked over to find Joe being led away with a firefighter on each side to a truck with medical supplies on board.  We figured it was best for the boys to not be there when the ambulance arrived, so Grammy and Pa took the boys home to their house and I stayed with Joe while they treated him for smoke inhalation. After resting for a while with the oxygen, he felt much better and we were able to send the ambulance away empty.

It could have been so much worse.  So we lost our front porch, it can always be rebuilt.  None of us were seriously injured.  Although the fire came within feet of the shop, it did not touch it.  If it had someone could have really gotten hurt with all of the diesel fuel, propane cylinders, and acetylene tanks we have.  Had the party not been cancelled, no one would have even been home and we could have possibly lost everything we owned.  God truly was watching out for us Saturday.