Author: Kyle

It’s not like anything else happened today, right?  I had taken Tuesday and Wednesday off work to accompany the kids down to school.  It’s been a tradition in the past for me to have the whole week off, but complications with scheduling didn’t allow me to do the whole week this year.

Yesterday, we got to go meet all of the kids teachers at back-to-school night.  Jeremy was our first repeat teacher, Mrs Peterson.  We liked her when she taught Ethan, and we’re glad she gets to be Jeremy’s teacher.  Tyra has Mrs Nelson this year, and when we went to her class, we explained we were concerned about Tyra’s focus and learning issues, and she said she would look out for them.  Ethan has Mrs Cunningham this year; we don’t know much about her, but Ethan typically gets along well with his teachers.

So, Rebecca pulled a surprise on us by having a little baby during the night.  At back-to-school night, she actually started having contractions, but didn’t tell anyone.  Now I got the joy of waking up early (is it really waking up? I’m not even sure if I got to sleep..) and getting the oldest three ready and out the door.  Surprisingly, all the kids were awake by about 6am and ready well before 7, which helped.  Lunches made, breakfast fed, backpacks on, and the younger kids were all loaded up and ready for the first-day walk to accompany our three full-time students!

Gotta show off the younger ones as well, since they made the trip down…

Each month, our cub scout pack does a Pack Meeting, of various exciting activities. All of the meetings were planned well in advance, back at the end of last year, to give plenty of time for arranging them. This month,the plan was to hold a Medieval Faire for the scouts and their families. Unfortunately, Rebecca wasn’t feeling well, and the kids were being really disobedient, so I took Ethan and everyone else stayed home.

Brother Hacking is one of the Wolf leaders, and he really shined this time. He single-handedly constructed all of the activities for the faire. We had a crossbow shoot, jousting, catapult battle, mace battle, plinko game, bean bag toss, and a castle wall attack. Of course, the different activities were safe for the younger audience, like the crossbows were only rubberband guns shooting dull wooden bolts. I was personally impressed with the plinko board, which Bro Hacking put over 600 nails in for the paths down.

Each of the scout leaders was in charge of a different event, so I was placed over the mace battle. This was a competition between two boys (or girls, as scouts’ sisters came as well), standing on a circular platform with a rounded bottom. Each competitor stands on the platform, with a ball-and-chain made from a long wooden handle with a leather strap attached to it, with a leather-wrapped ball at the end. Harmless when hit, but still could knock the hat off you. Literally: there were large cardboard hats each person would wear, and the object was to knock it off.  So, I got to monitor the kids of all ages attacking each other. It was a blast watching the different boys compete, and only somewhat unexpected to see some of the kids get more into it.

As I was on the Mace Battle the whole time, I didn’t get a chance to see the other booths and what happened with them, but assume they went well. I wish I could have seen the others in action, especially that Plinko board. I can’t imagine having spent so long doing it.

Father’s and Son’s Campout! Yay!

At least, that was the overall impression I got from Ethan and Jeremy, ever since we left the last campout. They asked if we could go again, and every so often throughout the year, would mention it and ask if we were going again. I never said we wouldn’t, and as time came closer, we made plans to go again. As luck had it, earlier in the week all the kids had turns throwing up, and I was afraid we wouldn’t be able to go. However, as Friday rolled around, Rebecca was the only one feeling ill and she okayed our leaving her for the night.

Last year was off in the picturesque Hobble Creak Canyon, in the shade surrounded by hills and trees, with the typical outhouse (hole in the ground) toilet for facilities.  It was over an hour from our house to there, with a good portion of the drive just getting from the freeway to the campground.

This year, our ward opted to go with a campsite at Willow Park, a local state park off the Jordan River, about 20 minutes from our house, where the Girl Scout and Cub Scout day camps were also held at. The distance was one of the best perks about the location; the campsite we ended up with was in a grassy field with no trees around, although we did have a covered pavilion with tables to sit at.

I got off work early to get home and pick up the boys, then on the way to the campsite, we stopped off at Wal-Mart and Smiths to get some camping food and supplies (another perk of the location is it’s within a mile of both stores). We then arrived and set up our tent on the vacant southern portion of our campsite, and then the boys started playing with the other boys who were there.

One of the other fathers arranged a “Ladder Ball” competition, as he brought a few sets for people to compete on, and that went on during the light (and into the night). We ate whilst the competition went on, and my turn finally came as dusk was coming. Unfortunately, with the park’s location being so close to the Jordan River, that brought mosquitoes, which quickly attacked us all. Bro Whiting (whom I was playing against) graciously let us use some bug repellant wipes, which we quickly rubbed on our exposed skin, so we kept the bug bites to under ten apiece.

The game went on well past dark (we had lanterns and car headlights to see the playing field), and a campfire burning bright. Around 10:30 at night, we heard Taps played on a bugle from a neighbouring campsite, amongst the trees – must have been a scout group? After some more general hanging out at the fire, roasting marshmallows, I convinced the boys to go to the tent so we could get some sleep.

Last year, most of the fathers sent their kids to their tents, bringing portable electronics to watch movies on. I didn’t want to do this, this year, so I had our kids just in the tent and tried to get them to sleep. However, being past 11 at night, I didn’t realise I was one of the early ones to do this. Most of the other boys were running around wild, coming up to the tent and making noise well past midnight. I guess I was one of the stricter parents there? Then, as luck would have it, our tent was next to a group of gamers, up well past 3am playing Magic. (the only reason I knew the time was I heard one of them comment as they walked back to their own tent.)

In the morning, some of the men started making the standard camping fare of pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs, and hash browns, with orange juice to drink. For some reason, Ethan and Jeremy weren’t overly hungry, and I only ate a minor portion of it. Immediately following this, about half of the group packed up and went home. However, we decided to go exploring some of the paths first, so we went walking along the Jordan River and found some animal paths along some of the woodsy areas (I can’t call it a forest, as they were just some random trees). Eventually, we finished exploring and came back to the campsite, where most everybody had packed up, so we put the tent away and went home as well.

At work on Thursday afternoon, I heard a few coworkers talking about a fire across Utah Lake.  I went to see where it was at, as the direct line to our home was across the river and then over the mountain.  Going to the Window, it appeared the fire was on the northern point of the mountain separating Eagle Mountain’s city center, and the west side of Utah lake and its surrounding communities.  It was relatively small and only putting out a small amount of smoke.  I figured it wasn’t that bad, and would be under control shortly.

However, driving home, it became more apparent as to how widespread the fire had become, and how close it was to our house.  On a typical day home, I drive on Pioneer Crossing, through Saratoga Springs, then onto a back road into the Ranches, passing the Silver Lake community.  However, due to the smoke, I felt it would be better to take a more roundabout path home.  I drove through the main Ranches entrance instead, then joined up to the road I take home.  In the distance, to the south, I saw the mountain the fire was on.  It was directly south of the way I was driving.  As the road curved, the mountain was still right there, belching out smoke and even close enough to see the flames.  Helicopters were constantly flying overhead, dropping water down on the hot spots.

Continuing the drive home, into our secluded little valley, the fire was actually right to the east of the road and our homes.  I couldn’t help but stare at it during the drive, shocked at how much it was spreading and consuming everything.  It was up on the mountain right above the end of our street (I’m glad we’re a bit more inland than that area).  I got home, which had a perfect eastward view of the active part of the fire, and called the kids outside to watch it.  It was only about a mile and a half away from our house, though up the mountain a ways, so the chances of spreading down didn’t seem likely.

It remained a consistent point of topic in our home and neighbourhood, as many people were out on the street watching it, just like us.  It felt weird; surreal and fascinating, but not really frightening (to me, at least), to have a massive fire raging so close to our house, yet we just stayed in the comfort of our home, assuming and expecting great people to be out there, working to prevent it from spreading to critical areas.  We learned that there’s an explosives factory less than a mile from part of where the fire raged (I assume, on the other end of the mountain).  They were putting extra effort into preventing the fire from getting there.

On Thursday afternoon, it was decently spreading and we saw helicopters working to dump water on it.  Thursday night, it was even greater, and in the middle of the night, I saw a number of vehicles driving up towards the fire zone.

By Friday morning, it had spread even more, and the helicopters were back, along with some fire planes.

A large number of houses north of here had been evacuated, and we didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger.  However, on Friday as the fire kept spreading on our mountain, I wondered what it would be like to lose our house and all our possessions. Strangely, after losing the hard drive and coming to the reality of not having much of that content anymore, I felt like it wouldn’t really matter if we did lose the contents of our house, as long as our family was safe. I know, yes, it would be difficult to overcome it, but we would do it.  Fortunately, we didn’t have to evacuate, and the wonderful heroes fighting fires did a great job of keeping it from spreading down to our homes.

Rebecca said she wanted to go shopping for my Father’s Day gift. She explained, “I can get it at Wal-Mart, or maybe at Bed Bath and Beyond.”
My response was, “If it’s not something you need to buy at Best Buy, I don’t think I want it.”

It turns out she got me a rice cooker to replace the one we had with a broken lid. Well….. I don’t think it has enough bells and whistles. It needs a bigger screen.