Last Tuesday, I was taking it easy, playing with the kids and reading.  I hadn't been online since I checked my email in the morning, and so I was surprised to get an email from a friend warning us about a fire in Black Forest.  

Black Forest is only about 2 miles or so north of us, and so I was curious as to what was going on.  I checked out facebook and it was all anyone was talking about, and so I walked out my front door and saw a haze of smoke.

Then I turned around and saw the real smoke.  It was terrifying!  And very close, so I turned on the news to check things out.  Luckily, at this point, it wasn't too near us, and so I went about getting ready for having the sister missionaries over for dinner.

Even though I wasn't too worried at this point – I was sure they would stop it before it got too far, it stayed in the back of my mind all during dinner.  However, when we were having dessert, the sun dissapeared for a moment, and when I went in the back yard to check it out, this was my view.

Now I was really worried, and I couldn't wait to get the news on again to check things out.  It was about 7:30 pm, and as I watched, the evacuation line for the fire kept moving closer to our home.  It seemed like this fire was never going to stop until it made it all the way to us.  I was trying my best to be calm about it all so I didn't worry the kids, but Lily was old enough to understand on her own just how real this was, and so she was freaking out.

As it got closer to bedtime and the fire was still making its way toward us, I made the choice to get out.  (When the sheriff in charge say that if you are anywhere close to the evacuation lines – which we were – that you should just pack up and get out now, you listen.)  The problem was, I was terrified, even though I couldn't show that to my children, and all I wanted was for Kevin to be there to help me make decisions and such.  In fact, all I really wanted to do was call and tell him what was going on, but he is on the other side of the world, and so that wasn't an option.

Once I decided to leave, I went around the house and finished videotaping every room (something I had started earlier, when I noticed how close the fire was). Then I got out the duffel bags and gave one to both Lily and Derek, with instructions to pack clothes and a few things they wanted to take with us.  (Derek ended up with a duffel bag full of toys.)  Then I started packing up a few mementos in my room, but my need to get out, outweighed my desire to think through things clearly and get all the things I wanted to save.

I did call my parents (who happened to be camping and had no signal) and Kevin's parents, to let them know what was going on.  I also let one of my sisters know what was happening, so that she could inform the rest of my family and ask them to pray for us.  That was when my mother-in-law swept in to help me out, by finding us a hotel room.  You see, as much as I knew we needed to go somewhere, I hadn't even gotten to WHERE we could go.

I was just finished throwing everything in the car (and I mean throwing) with the kids' help, and had just gotten poor Arthur to stop crying, and I was about ready to set the alarm system, when the phone rang.  I couldn't imagine who it could be, but I almost burst into tears when it turned out to be Kevin.

What a tender mercy from the Lord, as I really needed to talk to him.  It turned out that he couldn't sleep, and when he got up and found out what was going on at home, he realized the reason why.  We only talked for a minute, but it gave me the strength to keep on going.  And I needed that strength, especially as I saw the flames over the golf course as we drove away to the hotel.

I knew we had made the right choice to get out, as I saw Lily visibly relax, the further we got from the fire.  We got to the hotel, and I prayed that all the stuff in our car would be safe.  I got the kids into bed, and then I realized all the things I had forgotten – simple things, like my contact case and more clothes, and bigger things, like my gun.  I had a really hard time sleeping, and was evenmore grateful to be away, when I saw that my whole neighborhood was changed to the pre-evacuation zone, with the mandatory zone only being less than a mile from our house.

The next morning, we got up and checked out of the hotel, and I drove back toward home.  I had made a list of things that we needed instead, especially if we were going to be away from our home for any length of time.  Since the evacuation boundaries hadn't changed again, I had a friend watch the boys, while Lily and I went back to the house.

As we drove closer to home, the views of the smoke and the fire – as well as it's proximity to our area – were terrifying, and I realized that once again, I was shaking.  

I really didn't know what to do after this.  At this point, the winds were beginning to shift to the North, blowing the fire in the other direction, but our area was still in the pre-evac zone, and the smoke was awful.  Things could change in an instant, and I wasn't sure I wanted to play the waiting game.  And the power was being finicky, going off and on.

While I tried to decide what to do, I decided to do something normal with the kids, like going to the library and returning our books.  Then we went back to my friend, Natalie's, house (she had watched the boys for me), since her house was out of the evac zones, but just barely.  Talking with her, I tried to figure out where I would go, and what I would do.  She was heading up to her mom's house in Denver to escape the smoke, and offered to have us come with her.  And so, although I didn't know what would happen next, we were on our way to Denver.

Poor Arthur, who hates the car, was having a really hard time with all the driving.  He screamed the whole way there, and I guess he had lost his pacifier some where along the way, and sucked on his blanket instead until he fell asleep.  Poor guy.

When we got to Natalie's mom's house, the exhaustion was beginning to catch up to me, but I had stopped shaking finally.  She and her mom took all the kids swimming next door, while I fed Arthur and tried to rest.  He refused to sleep, but instead decided to practice a brand new skill of rolling from back to front.  And he was especially adorable, which helped me think about something else than my home and the fire.

I couldn't escape it all together however, because the winds pushed a bunch of the smoke all the way to Denver.  That, and I was getting constant text updates on my phone from my neighbors, most of whom had left and were wondering how things on our street were.  I guess the looters were already out trolling the neighborhoods, and there was even a man pretending to be a fireman who was going door to door telling people to leave.  And then they sent a picture of the helicopters getting water from the golf course pond right behind our house.  It was surreal.

We stayed in Denver that night, a little too tired to go back home and deal with the chaos that was still going on.  The fire was still raging out of control, and was 0% contained.  And although it was going a different dirrection, it was so volitile, I was very nervous about going back – especially seeing that we would have to live with our van packed and ready to go until we got the all clear.  That said, I went to bed that night, fully intending on going back home to weather the craziness.

When I woke up Wednesday morning, I didn't feel right about my descision though.  Kevin happened to call me, and he really wanted me to just take the kids to Idaho.  I desperately wanted to avoid that long drive though – poor Arthur had screamed just coming the hour to Denver.  

I knew it was the right thing to do though – for Lily, who was still very upset, for all of us to escape the smoke, and for Kevin, who was worried sick about us and could do nothing to help.  And so, I made the descion to go to Idaho, and I arrived at 10:45pm at my in-laws.  I was so exhausted, but all I had to do was see Lily and Derek curled up in their Grandma Valerie's arms, to know that I had done the right thing.

We stayed in Idaho a week, and I kept tabs on what was going on at home.  For quite a while, the fire was still 0% contained, but finally, with the help of hard working firemen and some small rainstorms, they finally started to make progress.  

Sadly, by the time the fire was put out, 502 homes were completely lost, making it the worst fire in Colorado history.  It is heart breaking to think about all those people, and it makes my heart hurt to think of our beautiful forest burnt.  I had just been there the week before, and it was gorgeous and overflowing with beautiful wildflowers.  It all so sad.

There were miracles, however.  One of the miracles was the Black Forest LDS church building.  The week before the fire, the Bishop of the Black Forest Ward, had been inspired to have the youth do a service project to clean up all the pine needles and debris around the church.  The fire burnt to the property line, but the church was saved.

And I was very lucky, because unlike some, I got to come home.  I almost cried when I came back inside my home and knew that it was safe.  I had dirty dishes still in the sink from dinner the week before, and I had food that had to get thrown out, but I was so happy to still have my wonderful home and felt overwhelmingly blessed by Heavenly Father for looking out for us during this unexpected adventure.