Surrounded By a Ring of FIRE

Here's the wilfire story from my point of view. Earlier in the morning, Eden called us saying we should get together. But she said that she had a few chores to finish up and her brother, Noah had to get his hair cut, so when they were done with those things, they would call us.

So I was on the computer for 3 hours, and when I looked at the clock on the computer, I started to wonder why it was taking Eden so long and why she hadn't called me back. And it was almost time for me to go to work. So I turn around and look out the big windows in the family room.

It was orange and black outside. It was so thick, it looked like it was raining. I got all excited because of the rain. But I went outside to see if it was really raining, and it wasn't. It was really dry and hot, and the air burned your lungs. I hurried and called Eden's cellphone asking her if she knew anything about the fire, where they were, what they were doing.

She replied in a voice like she was trying not to cry. She said that Cove Fort burned, and Kanosh (she lives in Kanosh) was evacuated. Then we all started to panic. Mia and Noah started screaming for mom. And of course mom and dad weren't answering their phones! I called the Mitchells, and the Holleys, and nobody knew what was going on, except Sam had to tell me the story of his friend Brendon working down at the Subway in Cove Fort and his escape story that didn't help me very much at that moment. (But I forgive you now, Sam!)

When I started to think about everything, it really started to scare me. You could smell the smoke inside of the house. I had 2 little kids, and I had a car, but I couldn't drive it (legally, anyway). Mom couldn't come back to get us because the freeway was closed. So I called the Walls, and Sister Wall told me everything I needed to pack up. They were so prepared. They filled all their cars with gas and replaced their tires. But through all of this they were very calm. They said we could stay at their house with our stuff in case we needed to evacuate. They lived across the street from a fire fighter so they were very updated on what was going on.

I'm so glad I went to their house because we ended up making pizza, and "playing" tv and such things that made me almost forget about the fire. Larry even told me he was planning on me coming into work, because the freeway was closed and it was really busy. But I told him I probably couldn't come in. And I was feeling all guilty because I supposed to be at work, but Jessica W. helped me put it into perspective that I was the oldest, and without my parents, it was responsibility to take care of my family.

After things started to clear up, and nothing had happened yet, me, Tashi, and Jessica W. went to Sam's house to juggle with him on his front lawn. While we were there, his friend Brendon showed up, and Sam got a text that there was a pioneer dance in the barn, and nobody was there so we should come. So we all went to that, and hung out at the north park until it was our curfews. We were all so tired from the stress, but it felt like the fire threat had been a different day. And it ended up that Larry's closed anyway. So it was a very adventurous day for me. Talk about a lucky day - 07/07/07! And this was so big, it was on CNN!