Fire, Work, and Life

While I do still have a ton of pictures from our camping trip to post, I thought I'd try to update on what's been going on around here. First, while I was trying to add pictures, the blog server wasn't accepting them. It might even eat this post, as it's eaten my last three entries too. Second, there was a fire here in the park that called both Eric and I into working more hours than usual. Eric was called out to fight a fire in the Basin that they managed to put out in record time, with only about 38 acres burned, and no structures threatened. Credit is being given where it's due, and the park staff that responded so fast to the fire made a huge difference on getting it contained quickly. Also, Eric thinks perhaps a bit of divine intervention, as the wind tended to blow the fire into the rocks and ridges instead of toward the campground or up Telephone Canyon, and made their job less difficult. The fire was caused by high winds snapping a pole, downing live power lines. So the fire isn't considered natural causes, but there isn't any one person who started the fire. I was called to work extra hours at the entrance gate to help spread information to visitors entering the park. Nothing nearly so exhausting or dangerous as what Eric was doing, working overnight on a fire line. His big perk, beyond the overtime and hazard pay? He finally saw his first black bear in Big Bend. It walked serenely up a ridge that goes up through the fire, surveying the goings on. It disappeared over the side of the ridge when it noticed observers.

Awyn has either been teething, or fighting off a cold. She was snotty at the beginning of the week, and was choking on the snot, making her throw up and have other issues. She seems to be doing much better, but she's getting weaned at night, no more night time snacks. Those seem to be the worst for her, and I'm tired of changing all our sheets and pajamas multiple times a night. It's amazing, she stopped getting sick the first night we cut them out. But the drawback is that she's a bit dehydrated. She won't really take a bottle, and I've been at work, so she couldn't nurse. So I have to give tons of credit to Katrina, who has spend half of her spring break at my house taking care of the kids, and managing the impossible feats of not only feeding Awyn and getting her to keep her food down, but actually putting Sam down for naps. She's a terrific girl, and I know the kids love her. I think she enjoys getting to be big sister/auntie to them.