Safe in San Diego

It has been a crazy, scary few days here in San Diego with all the fires. Thankfully we never had to evacuate, but the fires got within a couple of miles of us, so we were packed and ready if needed. An experience like this really makes you take stock of what is important. If we would have only had time to get us and the kids out, that would have been fine. Hard, but everything in the house, and including the house, are just things. But since we were on the edge about evacuating for a few days, I had a lot of time to mull over what to pack. There are the obvious things like important documents, photo albums, diaries. But then there are the baby books - located in a different place that any album (which themselves are spread throughout the house). Or our wedding video. And how easy is it to fit a 20x24 framed picture in the van? The insane organizer in me is disappointed that it would have been hard for us to assemble all the "irreplaceables" throughout our house. I'm making a PowerPoint list of everything we would want to grab and sticking that list in our 72 hour kits, just in case there is a next time.

Thankfully no one we know lost their home in the fires. I do feel horrible for those who did. How misplaced they must feel! Our stake is having a meeting tonight trying to house displaced members. Since we have an extra bedroom, I'm sure we'll have some house guests for awhile. I'll let you know!

And since no post is truly complete without a picture, here is all the ash that is piled up outside of our garage. I'll be power-washing for a month as the ash continues to settle!