Excitement I could live without...

Here's the past 24 hours in a nutshell:

around 3 pm, yesterday - Olivia came running in telling me there was a huge cloud that "looks like a bomb". We went out to see it and it was massive black, billowing smoke. I didn't think much of it, since we had heard sirens already and we assumed it was a large building on fire.

4pm - turned on the radio, and found out there was a forest fire a few kilometres away from us

4:30 - I'm starting to get concerned when I hear that a couple houses have gone up in flames, with people escaping in cars with flames following them

5:00 - hearing of road closures and wondering if Daryl will be able to get home from work. His cell phone battery was dying and I couldn't reach him.

6:00 - Daryl's home! Later we heard the road must have closed just behind him. He could have taken a different route, but it would have taken a lot longer and by this time I was thinking about packing.

7:00 - That's it, I'm packing up. Neighborhoods are being evacuated that are very close to us. I can hear people being interviewed on the radio and they can see actual flames.

8:00 - excitement is dying down. Most of the neighborhood is out on the street, taking pictures of the smoke...people are on their roofs to get a better view.

10:00 - from the front porch we can see the smoke is now bright orange, then 15 minutes later the orange colour is gone and the smoke is diminishing. Thought we'd sleep with the door unlocked since we don't have a doorbell.

Slept mostly peacefully all night...comforted a scared child...looked out the window to make sure everyone else's vehicles are still there too and we didn't miss the evacuation call. :-)

6am this morning - hearing of new evacuations. Fire marshall is still declaring the fire as "out of control".

8:00 - packed a few more things. I was in a hurry last night, and just grabbed a few photo albums, photo cds, etc. This morning I added old notebooks (with details of the kids in them), a few more photos, my knitting, and each of the girls packed a back pack. Olivia had a nervous, crying breakdown thinking about what if our house burns and her desk won't be there when we get back.

9:00 - nothing feels normal. We have to drive Daryl to the airport later and I think we will take all the things we have packed and head to some friends' house for the weekend. We've had 2 families offer their homes to us. I don't want to risk having to pick up kids out of their beds in the middle of the night tonight, by myself.

10:15 - now what? Guess I'll keep doing laundry and tidying up in case the house burns down. Just kidding. But I am in the mode of leaving for the weekend, and that means I need to get organized since I don't want to come home to a state of disaster.
So...DON'T WORRY about us - we will be going far from the fire. And we have plenty of friends who are making sure we are well cared for.
Have a good weekend! :-)