Weekend withTodd's parents

Todd's parents came to visit us from Thursday night to Monday morning (10/25-10/29).

Last Friday (10/26) I went to work for the first time since the fires swept thru Rancho Bernardo. The building smelled like smoke still, and something was irritating my eyes. I went home at lunch time because the air quality at home was much better. Todd picked up lunch for all 4 of us from Rubios, so I went home and ate 2 fish tacos. Then we waited and waited for U-verse people to come de-install U-verse and re-install DSL, but they never came. There was some kind of order-input error. They said they’d call us back to set up another time to come, but they never did, so Todd had to call them again today.

Friday evening we went with Todd’s parents to Fidels for dinner. I had the chicken tortilla soup. It was so salty that it was almost inedible. I was sorely disappointed, even though the tortilla was really good. After dinner we went over to Fletcher’s Cove in Solana Beach and walked around. The sunset was really beautiful because of the fire ashes in the air. Then we went back to Carmel Mountain and went to Sports Authority, Radio Shack, GameStop, and Trader Joes to get a box of Mango Moji ice cream. Todd’s dad loved it and ate two!




Saturday morning we headed out to La Jolla to walk around. We found 2-hour parking and walked around Girard Street. They kept finding home décor shops to visit. I really like the shag area carpets/rugs for accent. It’s so modern yet so 70’s. That was fun to walk around, except that it was kind of raining too. We also went into some photography/art galleries to look around. Then we walked to the Cove (Ellen Browning Scripps Park). There were people with homemade cookies, brownies, desserts there, raising money for fire relief for the Salvation Army. Todd’s dad paid 10 dollars and got a couple of platefuls of desserts. He was so excited about them. Then we walked around and went back to Girard to eat lunch at Thai Spices & Rice. I had the Spicy Fried Rice with Chicken. It was pretty good.


After lunch we went home and chilled. Then we watched the Buckeye game versus Penn State. They beat Penn State 37-17 and it was so much fun! Then we watched the World Series and saw the Boston Red Sox beat up on the Colorado Rockies. For dinner, Todd made pasta with roasted veggies, but without garlic.

On Sunday morning we went to run in Encinitas from Beach City Café to Swami’s and back. Then we tried to go to Yogi’s for the Browns game, but the parking lot was too full already. So we went to eat lunch at Souplantation. Afterwards we went to Vons and got some groceries for dinner. We were just eating a simple dinner with leftovers and morningstar burgers. Then Todd’s mom, Todd, and I watched an old foreign heist movie called "Rififi" in which all the perpetrators died at the end. Monday morning around 8:30 am they left. It was a very nice visit.

Read More »

Good things

I got 8x10 photos from our photo session with Tara Whitney printed out at White House Custom Colors. Then I went to Michaels and bought these frames with matting. I really like the placement of the photos down the wall!

On Wednesday 10/24, I looked out the window into our backyard and saw the cute little tuxedo cat was taking a nap on our deck. So I whipped out our Canon with the 12x zoom lense and took a bunch of pictures of her. After a while, she stared at me and then she left.


I made this layout after we came back from being evacuated from the fires. Photo by Tara Whitney.

Read More »

What would you take with you?

When your house is in danger and you need to evacuate, what would you take with you? This is what we took with us:

• Important documents: passports, birth certificates, safety deposit box information, homeowners insurance policy, etc.
• All our photo negatives (2 full binders of them, from pre-digital cameras). I was so glad I had organized this at the beginning of 2006. Go me!
• All our photo albums, scrapbooks, and boxes filled with photos.
• My mom's little jewelry box.
• The Tiffany cross necklace that my mom gave me for Christmas 2005.
• Medication
• Toiletries
• Clothing for a few days
• Computers
• Personal DVDs - Buckeye games, my 2004 dance recital with Danceology, our Puerto Vallarta zip line adventure, my skydiving video, and our family videos.
• Tax documents. (They say the only sure things are death and taxes. So if I survive the fires, I need to file taxes.)
• Cameras
• Ipods
• Memorabilia, cards, and notes from my junior high and high school years.
• Box full of written journals that I've kept since sixth grade.
• Large envelopes filled with year-by-year of cards & letters from family & friends, vacation memorabilia, and ticket stubs.
• My Honolulu Marathon finisher's medal.

That's it. That was what was important to us. Nothing that would be of value to anyone else but us. Looking back, I'm totally amazed at the clarity of thoughts as we went around each room and decided what to take. I didn't really have any thoughts of "I forgot to take that" after evacuation. We were lucky we had an hour to get out. Some people saw the fires coming towards their house and only had minutes to get out. It also occurred to me that it was good that I have this blog. This is on google's servers and would still be around if my house burned down.

Read More »

Fire & Smoke

This picture was taken on Sunday afternoon, October 21st. It wasn't even the worst of the wildfires yet.

Our phone rang on Monday morning, October 22. It woke us up around 7:20. Ironically, it was the best sleep I had had in days. Our friend AJ was on the other end, telling us to turn on the TV. Apparently, the fires had swept through Rancho Bernardo in the early hours of the morning before dawn, and now there's mandatory evacuation for all of Penasquitos. We got up and got dressed. Todd went to check the internet to see what's going on. My good friend Sally called and said that it looks like we're supposed to evacuate as well. She said we can put our stuff in her garage, and stay at her place in North Park. We thanked her and told her we'd let her know if we need to stay with her. We started packing and frantically trying to find our most important stuff. Then the phone rang again. My friend Lara in Pacific Beach wanted to know if we're okay, and she also offered for us to stay at their place. It was good to know that friends were concerned for us. Since the fires were in the East and slightly north of us, we had to go west to evacuate.

We turned off the gas line to the house. In under an hour, we loaded up the Explorer and left. The streets in Penasquitos was filled with traffic. I called my manager and coworker at work and said I was evacuating and won't be in the office, and won't be online continuously. I called my Dad and told him about the fires and that we were evacuating. He was surprised that the fires got so close, and said he would get together with his coworkers and pray. It was stop and go all the way across the 56-West. We saw so many cars filled with clothing, boxes, and pets. Dogs and cats crammed into cars everywhere. Smoky haze was everywhere. After we got on I-5 North and passed Solana Beach, we could see the edge of the smoke and it was blue skies after that. There was a sharp divide between the smoke and the blue skies. It was so surreal to see it. When we got to Oceanside, we went East on the 78 and went to AJ & Meera's house in San Marcos. They welcomed us with open arms. We glued ourselves to the TV all day and watch the progress of the devastation. On of the reporters for a local TV news station actually reported right in front of his house as he watched it burn down. It was incredible. We watched TV and there was no news that the fires had reached our neighborhood, so we figured no news was good news. I work in Rancho Bernardo, and that was a different story. They showed house after house, all burned down. The hardest hit was the neighborhood right across the street from my office, Westwood. I wondered if my office would be safe, or if it would burn down or be damaged. They sent out an email that they evacuated from the office as well.

Ironically, during these two days, I felt strangely peaceful and at ease. I was with my loving husband and my best friends. I had everything important to my life with me. All the rest of the stuff was just, well.... stuff. Stuff can be replaced. People before things. I slept well. I ate well. We had Chick Fil-A sandwiches for lunch on Monday, burritos for dinner. Tuesday we had Panera sandwiches for lunch, and we bought groceries and Todd cooked a delicious BBQ chicken sandwich and green beans.

On Wednesday, we called our next door neighbors Fred and Annie, and they had gone home already on Monday night. So, we packed up our stuff again and went back home. The air smelled slightly bad, and there was dark ash and soot everywhere. But our house was totally undamaged. We thanked God for his mercy and goodness to us.

Read More »

Internet down

Our internet has been down at home, courtesy of AT&T. It is still down. I actually have lots to share on this blog, but I don't like to blog from work, and I have no internet connection at home. So, look for more posts from me later this week, when hopefully the internet is fixed at my house.

Read More »