Things are slowly getting back to normal here in San Diego.  There are talks of the Chargers actually playing at home on Sunday.  Most of us want that to happen, as it would show the nation that San Diego is truly America’s Finest City, and we are able to prevail over natural disaster.  It would also boost spirits!

I am going back to protected posts again, most likely writing one later this afternoon.

But first I wanted to pass on some “words of wisdom,” which I hope none of you ever have to use.  You don’t always get a chance to grab important items in the event of a natural disaster, but if you can, here are some tips.

• Family history you want to keep.  This includes pictures, albums, and jewelery.  You don’t have to be the Rockafellers, but even I have some jewelery that used to belong to my great grandparents.


• Medicines (for yourself and your pets).  You would be surprised with how many people don’t take this with them!


• Changes of clothes (don’t forget your underwear too!)  If you have a baby make sure you also take diapers and wipes.  That is often forgotten.


• Toiletries.  This is also often forgotten.


• Important documents.  This includes birth certificates, marriage certificates, social security cards, passports.  Then there are other important documents you should take with you, that I learned about this time around.  Take copies of your bills, your insurance certificates, if you own your residence take your deed.


• If you do have a pet, make sure you take their food with you.  If you have to go to an evacuation center take some nonperishable, ready to eat food with you, as well as water.

Some places carry disaster kits you can purchase, which has food items in it.  We have talked about getting one as we live in Southern California… although our earth quake faults are not as active as the ones to the north of us.

Something my mom and I learned a few years ago from the fires that hit Pine Valley.  Residence didn’t have enough time to take things with them when they had to evacuate, and people lost everything.  For those of us that still have negatives for our photos, keep them at someone else’s home.  My mom and I traded negatives a long time ago.  Now that things are mostly digital, it may not be a bad idea to back up your pictures on the internet.  Some of the sites you can use are www.costco.com , www.snapfish.com , www.cmphotocenter.com .  You could also swap CD’s with your photos on them with another family member.  That way you will not lose your photos and your negatives/CD’s.

It also wouldn’t be a bad idea to make copies of all of your important documents, and have another family member store them.  Especially those of you who live in tornado alley.

Finally, for those of you who own your residence.  Make sure you update your insurance broker every time you make improvements on your home.  We haven’t done it yet, and we plan on doing it when we renew our policy in February.  Four years ago during the Cedar fire many people found they were underinsured, as they hadn’t notified their insurance companies of all the improvements they made.  Also, their home value was insured at a lower rate, not the current market value.  Those of you who are renters, it would be a good idea to have renters insurance!

Hope this information is helpful.  Again, I will be going back to protected posts, with my first one going up sometime later in the day.  Meanwhile, thanks for everyone’s support and positive thoughts during this challenging time in San Diego County.

Before I tell of the events of the last day or so, I should let everyone know that we went home last night.  Everything is fine, just lots of ash everywhere!

Shortly before I wrote my 3 am update on Tuesday morning, we had been outside assessing the situation.  Most of my neighbors in our cul-de-sac were also outside, and we were all discussing what to do.  It was kind of nice, and it made me enjoy living in our neighborhood even more.

Of course I couldn’t sleep, even though we had plenty of helpful, caring, neighbors who would have made sure we got out in time.  We had the TV on, and we were watching the news closely.  Finally around 5 am it was announced that there were mandatory evacuations for Sunnyside/East Bonita area.  We consider ourselves to be Eastern Bonita, so we decided it was time to leave.  As we were throwing the last of our things into our cars, Guinness tried to grab his bed!  It was as if he knew we where leaving.  He didn’t grab his food dish, because that was already in my car with his bag of food.

We left around 5:30 am, and got to my dad’s house just before 6 am.  They have three bedrooms, but the other rooms were already occupied, so we got comfortable on the sofas.  Between Guinness being unsure of what was going on, and the kids waking up, we didn’t get much sleep.  Turns out my dad and his girlfriend had a total of 3 “refugee families!”  So, they had 5 extra adults, 4 kids, and 2 dogs!  We had brought food with us when we left, so we helped provide breakfast.  Around 10ish or so Brian and I both finally fell asleep on the sofas.  I got about 2 more hours of sleep, Brian got 4.

We watched the news throughout the day.  We learned that the fire had basically turned on itself due to the winds, and the air attack was very aggressive as well.  By late afternoon all evacuation orders for the Chula Vista/Bonita/Sunnyside areas were lifted.  We stayed with my dad for a bit longer and had dinner with him.  By the time we got home you could have pushed us over with a feather, we were so tired!  It was still too early for us to go to bed, and there was nothing but news on the TV, so we went to Blockbuster and got “Transformers.”  Dumb movie.  We don’t know why it got all the hype it got.

Guinness was sacked out as soon as we got home.  When we finally did go to bed we were both dead to the world!  Even my bladder let me sleep longer!  Guinness didn’t move once he went to bed as well, no pacing around the house at night!

I will be off from work for the remainder of the week, as schools are closed.  The Witch fire is still causing lots of problems in North County, so even if things clear up here, it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to go up there.  The Harris fire (the one that was threatening us) is still causing problems for East County.   We now have military air support in fighting this fire, so hopefully it will be more under control soon.  The latest news is they are hoping to have the fire fully contained and out by Nov. 4th!

Thanks everyone for your positive words and thoughts.  Just keep up those positive thoughts that the winds will help the fire fighters.

Quick update, as I am fall down tired.  We learned that there were mandatory evacuations for Bonita shortly after 5 am.  We got out of the condo within 30 minutes.  We took both cars, but left behind the motorcycles.  We are at my dad’s house, trying to catch up on some sleep.  My step brother was also evacuated, so he is here with his family and dog, as well as his neighbor and her daughter.  So it is a full house!  Hopefully we will just be here for the day, and can go home later on today.  On the news I just heard that they were able to get air support out to the Harris fire!  Yeah!  The military and National Guard is here too!

EDIT 1 Below

EDIT 2 Below

EDIT 3 Below

EDIT 4 Below (3 am)

I will have multiple updates today, as the day progresses.

This morning I got up at 6:30, when my alarm was scheduled to wake me up.  Throughout the night I woke up to howling winds, to which I learned later were hurricane force winds of up to 80 miles per hour.  I checked my computer as soon as I got up.  No new emails from work.  No school closures in Escondido.  So, I jumped in the shower to get ready for work.  When I got out of the shower I turned on the news to see what the status of the fire was.  That was when I learned that the highway I take to and from work had been shut down.  I couldn’t go to work even if I wanted to.  I also learned that there were no longer 2 major fires, there were 6!

I have been staying inside all day long.  Alternating between catching up on episodes of Survivor, and watching the news.  Things keep getting progressively worse in San Diego County.  My brother-in-law, Chris, has just been placed under voluntary evacuation.  He lives up north, in Encinitas for those who know the area. 

We also just learned that the Harris Fire is moving closer to Chula Vista.  The housing development next to my mom’s has been placed under voluntary evacuation.  She is currently packing everything up.  My in-laws live a bit further west, but are getting anxious to get home to start packing as well.  Unfortunately, not all schools were canceled today, so they have to wait until all the students have been picked up.

Meanwhile, I am sure my blood pressure is going up.  I am trying to stay calm and cool.  But I can even smell some of the smoke inside my home, and all the windows and doors are closed.  They have just ordered voluntary evacuations for a housing development called San Miguel Ranch (which is a new development in Chula Vista).  If that goes, there is nothing but kindling between us and them, even though there are several miles between us.  So, I am now in the process of gathering all of our important documents, as well as getting bags ready to be packed.  If we are asked to be evacuated, I am currently planning on going to my dad’s.  However, with the 2003 Cedar fire, he was asked to be evacuated.  So, you can see, I am a little stressed!

We can’t stay at the hotels where Brian works, as they are now filled with evacuated people.  I may have to go to my aunt’s house, she lives near the airport… we will see. 

Just pray that the winds will die down and give the fire fighters a chance to fight this!  The winds have been so strong they have not been able to use air support to fight the fire, so most of it has 0% containment.

EDIT 1

I let my next door neighbor know that we don’t have a land line any more.  The County of San Diego has set up a reverse 911 system to let people know if they need to evacuate.  It is set up to call people’s land lines.  So, she has agreed to pound on our door if she gets a call.

Brian is home, and we have gathered some things already.  If we can do it when we have time, and are calm, we will be more likely able to grab things we need that are important to us.  Including ALL of Sarah’s pictures!

Finally, I have a very odd request.  The news has been on a continuous feed since I got up this morning.  So, I am sure the prime time shows will not be on.  Can someone please tape Heroes for us?

EDIT 2

It is approaching 9 pm.  The winds have settled down a bit, but the humidity level is in the low double digits to low single digits.  In some areas it is as low as 0-1%!!  Part of me wants to pack up now and head over to my dad’s house.  I think I would sleep a lot better.  But then again, the fires are far enough away, and the reverse 911 is giving people plenty of time to get out.  More than likely I will pack up pictures tonight, and have our suit cases open to throw things in, before I go to bed.

Brian just let me know that we will put all the photos and albums in the Expedition tonight before we go to bed.  Makes me feel a little better.

Finally, Heroes is scheduled to play in our area on Sunday.  Thanks Heather for the tip of watching it online.

EDIT 3

We just had a small scare.  I smelled fire, strong, inside our condo.  We went outside to see if there was anything.  A neighbor had just pulled into their garage, and he hadn’t seen anything on his way in.  We couldn’t see anything, so we think it was just the wind blowing.  We did look to the south east, where the Harris Fire is burning.  We couldn’t see anything… not even an orange glow.  Good sign! 

If you want up to the minute information of what is going on in San Diego County click here.  I keep refreshing this webpage on a regular basis to see if there is anything new.  Especially evacuation warning.  There are two maps, one is the Witch fire, which is north of us, the other is the Harris fire, which is to the south east.  We are watching the Harris fire, as that one poses the greatest risk for us.  As you can see, they have a huge area evacuated, providing ample time to get people out before the fire reaches their homes.

This will be my last update for the night… unless anything drastic happens.  But it is now 9:40, so I am going to try to relax before going to bed.

EDIT 4 (3 am)

I woke up around 1:30 this morning, thanks to my bladder.  On my way back to bed I looked out the window, as we decided to keep the blinds open.  I COULD SEE FLAMES!  I woke up Brian.  We turned on the TV, checked out the internet sites, called the emergency numbers the news told us to call.  Finally we learned that the Harris fire had moved over Mt. Miguel, which isn’t too far, but not too close to us.  As time went on there were talks about placing Bonita on voluntary evacuation notice (the small town where we live).

Finally, some time after 2 am Bonita was placed on “be prepared” for a possible evacuation.  We went into scramble mode.  We threw all the pictures and important documents in the car, I took pictures of everything inside our condo, Brian took pictures of the inside of our garage.  The last thing we will pack is our clothes.

All of our neighbors are up, and we keep going outside to check on the status of things.  Thus far the word is it would take about 2 hours for the fire to make it to our area, if the winds continue in the direction they are going.  Most of our neighbors are getting ready to leave, as we have not been placed on voluntary or mandatory evacuations.  There is still a chance that the fire could go north east of us.

Needless to say, I am exhausted.  It is very dry and smokey, with ash falling everywhere.  The fire looks omniscient going down Mt. Miguel, with the orange glow in the night.  Even the moon is orange.  We will most likely evacuate around 4, once we have a better idea of which direction the fire is going. 

I will try to post an update on our location later.  Please continue to have positive thoughts for little wind once the sun comes up.  We need little to no wind so that the air attack can be done on this fire!

Everything looks great!  The baby was moving around so much, that the tech had a challenging time getting good pictures.  At one point the tech was trying to get a picture of the head, held the ultrasound wand still, and we got to watch the head move back and forth.  Again when the tech tried to get a profile picture, the baby moved it’s head towards the ultrasound wand.  Then the baby had it’s arm above the head, couldn’t get a clear picture of the feet since it was moving around so much!  The heart looks great, nice and strong.  The spine looks good, and so does the face (no cleft palate or lip).

So….  What are we having?

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It’s a Girl!!!

Since it was encouraged that others read this, I figured I would make just this part a public post.  Here is the conversation I had with a 7 year old boy with ADHD earlier this week:

Q: When’s your birthday?
A: June 10th
Q: Which year?
A: (With an indignant look) EVERY YEAR!

And then, here is the card my dad gave me for my birthday… after I had told him the story above:

So I am driving home from work, in seriously heavy traffic.  When I notice the driver next to me is playing his trumpet!  While driving in traffic!  Talk about tooting your own horn!

Look at what Brian found….

Some very important things to write about, so this is a public entry.  There is also a recent protected entry just after this one.

April is National Organ Donor Awareness month.  April 28th there will be a “Donate Life Walk” at Cal State Fullerton.  For more information please go to: donatelifewalk.  Brian has class that day, so it doesn’t look like we will be able to go.  Next year we can plan ahead and create a team!

Another great walk to participate in is the California Liver Walk.  This one will take place through the San Diego Zoo on May 5th.  For more information, please go to: liverwalk.

For more information on events taking place the month of April, please go to your local donate life website.  For San Diego, please go to:  lifeshare

My premium expired today.  This is why everyone on my protected list is unable to see my blogs.  I will correct this as soon as possible.  Sorry for the delay.

::EDIT::

I have updated my premium.  Those on my protected list should be able to see all of my blogs now.