wildfires are (not) over yet

even though life for us and people we know has returned to normal (i have been back to work since thursday), the wildfires are still burning in the county. the harris fire is about 70% contained, and the witch fire almost 90%. there are still 3 other fires burning in the county, and since the Santa Ana winds are expected to pick up again within the next couple of days the fire department is still on heightened alert. i took the picture above last friday while driving towards the wild animal park. neighborhoods that have experienced damage from the fires are generally inaccessible by people not directly affiliated with those (home owners, security personnel, contractors).



one of our pumpkins withered away during the heat created by the Santa Ana winds over the last couple of weeks. i guess we started the carving too early. luckily, there are 2 more pumpkins out on the porch ready to be turned into jack o' lanterns. J enjoyed the halloween parade at his friend's house, along with all the good food and games. a good ending to a week that did not start that great at all.

Helpers at Qualcomm Stadium

The fires in San Diego are getting out of control. at least that's what we are hearing on radio and TV. the witch creek fire ('das Hexenbachfeuer') burned through many thousand of acres north of Rancho Bernardo, destroying many homes along its way. 300,000 people have been evacuated since last night from those areas, including Rancho Bernardo and Poway. no work, school, or kindergarten for any one of us today or tomorrow. M had to evacuate her home in Rancho Penasquitos and we took her in early this morning. late afternoon we gathered several cans of food, a blanket and a towel, and J picked out two of his stuffed animals to donate to the children that will be spending the night at Qualcomm stadium. we then drove down and dropped off our things, together with many other San Diegans who dropped of mountains of food, water and bedding. we all hope this will end soon.

Marble Run, Swingset, Fires and Insidious Pipes

We had an eventful weekend. Saturday morning we left for Campo in the East County to ride the pumpkin express. We were joined by J's friend O and his parents and grandma. We enjoyed the ride and also the pumpkin patch which was set up in the museum railroad's exhibition hall. J really enjoyed decorating his pumpkin. we took the scenic route 94 back to San Diego (Not that the drive out the I8 is not scenic). we were briefly considering camping out in a small town called Potrero, but luckily we did not. that night a large wildfire started in the area, fueled by the hot and dry Santa Ana winds that were blowing throughout Southern California since mid last week. We are watching the news as the events unfold, with 2 large fires burning in San Diego County, and many more in LA County.



Sunday was a day filled with work and play around the house, interrupted with a quick trip to the Y for swimming and lunch at Rubio's. i made some progress with the swing set, while Julian helped paint the ladder that we are adding to the set. He became a little overconfident when sticking his arms into the *telephone piping* his Papa was planning on adding to the swing set. when he realized that his arms got stuck and i was unable to pull them off, i feared for a minute that we would have to take him to the hospital to cut off the pipes, but luckily i remembered that we had used soapy water before to remove a ring. a couple cups of water and his arms slid out the pipes, although not without tears of desparation on J's end.

Pumpkin Patch

We had a lot of fun at the Pumpkin Patch this weekend. J rode a red wagon into the patch and picked out two - one will have the word 'BOO' carved out and the other will have a face. At the patch in Ramona, a small town just north of San Diego in the local mountains, they also had a petting zoo (mountain goats had their own little playground), a corn maze, a corn cannon and lots of different types of pumpkins and gourds on display. JK tried the corn cannon, which must have been quite fascinating to J since the next day he set up his own one in the backyard using a pen and a couple of sidewalk chalks for support. the other thing we picked up that day was a bale of hay (rather, straw) to use as stuffing material for our scare crow. After we had gotten back home J's friend A came over to help with making the scare crow (as well as tearing apart the bale and spreading the straw all over the backyard).