a crazy saturday!!

these two pics are at our house but with my phone!

a friend took these 3 pics of Elijah when they were out
riding around on Sunday and he was checking the "hot spots!!"

Wow, what a crazy Saturday, but what else should I expect!!! Haha! It all began mostly normal. Terry was scheduled, willing and ready to do a "wife project." Information gathered from older son of "how to do it," tools, materials and he was off to accomplish putting the back splash up in our kitchen area. I monitored it a bit and he was getting along just fine, not that I could do much as far as helping but it looked like he had it all under control. I had a few errands to town, so off I went and after grabbing some "to go" eggrolls from a little chinese place I headed back to our farm. Traveling along, I checked on Terry and he and the littles were all doing great at home. I asked what everyone else was up and Terry gave me the run down, Elijah was dirtbiking with a friend, Caleb, Daniel, Anna, Bethany, Micah, Andrew were all out at teh guys land working. All was well. As I got off the interstate and headed East to our house I could see smoke in the air, hmmmmm, anytime I see smoke as I am driving straight East, I know its our direction. I am now 2 miles form our road and I give the people a the land a call but of course service is far and few for cell phones, so I call Terry and just say something like, "they were not going to be burning today were they?" He had told them not to but u just never know. Now I am bout a mile from turning off the state highway to go to our house and the smoke is so huge, so East, so like it could right where there land is. I called Terry and said, I'll drive out there and make sure all is ok. Well, I top the next hill bout 2 miles from our road still going east and wow!!!!! Smoke, smoke and more smoke, black and billowing out in the south pasture of somebodies land. Only one firetruck on the side of the road at this time. The wind was coming out of the South. Hmmm, I am thinkning I really hope they keep that contained! Well, since I have already gone this far I might as well pop in at their land and tell them for sure "dont burn anything!!!" They are fixen to come home for some lunch so I head back. I am thinking as I drive back towards home, "wow, the smoke is way worse it seems." I get back to the place I had seen the pasture on the South side on fire but in say 10 minutes, something happened....the fire had jumped the road, it was blocked off now, flames were 40-50 high sweeping trees up and I am sitting on the road watching. Anna in her car comes up behind me as they were heading back home from being at the land, and here we sit watching the flames/fire fixing to take out its first house. The folks living there were all standing around and then suddenly they were all flying trying to get everyone out of the driveway. I yelled out the window and told Anna to back up and turn around and go back to the next mile and turn North. She wasnt too sure bout turning North because the fire was blowing North and we would have to go in front of it now to get home. We went North. Anna drove ahead but I stopped and waited for the guys to see me at the road to signal them to turn here and head home. they saw me but they sat there a while and watched. I went ahead but Anna was no where in sight. Now on a dirt road which in our area every mile is a section road so I was looking for the mile intersection to turn on but it was not distinguishable. And what I thought was the mile, it looked more like a driveway. Sooooo I drive and drive thinking the next mile will be soon, but for your info sometimes contry backroads can turn into other roads and so after driving and turning for at least 7-8 miles, I am lost!!! And!!!!!! ......billowing smoke is on the horizon AND I am very low on gas, like almost on empty!!! AND cell phone service is NOT GOOD!!!! I finally stop at a higher place on the road and try to call everyone in my family but to no avail!!!! I do finally get Terry after what seemed like a lonnngg time, he asks where I am and of course Anna is already home!!! "I have no idea where I am!!!!" He starts asking me about north, south, east and west and I am gently screaming at him that this is not the time for a lesson!!!!!! I tell him I will head back the way I came, or so I thought!!!! Finally I see humans!!!! I ask this old farmer where Luther road is and he says go up there, turn here and turn there!!! Oh, yea, for real!! But I do and ends up it leads me back out to the highway where I really started from!!! Meanwhile when i had talked to Terry he said he was leaving to come find me, I dont know exactly how he thought that was going to happen cuz I didn't know where I was. So he is driving along the dirt road and meets up with a tanker truck, a guy is standing beside it and he pulls down his mask and its Elijah!!! He asks " WHAT ARE YOU DOING??" Terry tells him I am looking for your mother!!!!! Elijah said emphatically, "you need to get outta here!!!" I finally was able to call Terry and tell him I made it back to the highway. He found me and led me home through the back way because the roads were blocked off. So what started as a checking on my children at about 1 pm, ended up having to be rescued and I did not get back home til 3:30 pm! Of course getting home brought on a while new concern for Elijah and what was happening about 2 and 1/2 miles from our house!! A raging fire but it was surely taking out all that was in its path. What we could see from our house was frightening much less being right at the edges of it like Elijah and all the firemen.
The fire was on national news, helicopters were dropping water, it was outta control. Eighteen fire departments came and 3500 acres charred! Elijah did not arrive home til 4:30 am Sunday morning, his face and hands black from smoke. A lot of prayers prayed for that boy as I lay in bed! So you can see it was a crazy Saturday!!!! And Terry even finished the stone backsplash in the kitchen. He did not get the grout in, ran outta time! It makes it look more "kitcheney."

Sunday, Elijah had "hot spot " checks to do. Billy, took our family out to eat after church as a "thank you" for living with us and working for Terry on teh Ada job the 7 months, so we ahd a good lunch and fellowship with him. He is heading back to Mississippi in a week.

So today, Monday, we have a winter snow storm advisery!! 14 inches predicted! I am sad! But others are glad! Thursday it was pushing 75 degrees....PERFECT!!!! So we had a heat wavem raging fires now a blizzard is predicted........i still love oklahoma!!!!

Hope you all have a great week! Gotta get this crew up and going. Micah and Andrew gotta go get wood, I gotta get gas for the generator and some animal food!!! We have some coughs around here so thats no fun.

tumble marble back splash, didnt Terry do a great job!!!!
it looks like rough rock!