Snowman Time

So we finally got a decent amount of snow on friday so laura and I took andrew out to attempt to make a snowman since that is all he has wanted to do for a while. It was a fun time, Laura and I did most of the work while andrew was removing the snow from the trees with a stick.

After we built the larger snowman we played in the snow for a while, but andrew decided that we should build another snowman so we went back to the front yard and started to make another snowman, but it ended up as just a baby

Whirlwind

Well lets just say that holidays have been a whirlwind so far. Lots of stuff with my family and such. My sister and I are watching my nephew during the week since he doesn't have school. So he is keeping us both busy busy...so the craziness is still going on.

Anyway here are some pictures of our skating adventure this afternoon

Just thought I would post to wish everyone a very merry xmas!!

Xmas to me is one of the happiest times of year... I remember as a child I would listen to xmas carols for weeks before xmas and then on xmas eve after we had gone to my Grandparents and Church I would come home and lay in my bed to wait and see if I could hear santa coming in the house.....if I feel asleep I would wake up and wonder if I had missed the big guys visit.....so I would get up and sneak out of my room to check on the xmas tree....and I was always so excited when I went to the living room and saw all the piles for each of us that santa had left. I would go back to my room and wait until it was late enough to go get my parents...let me tell you some of the hardest hours of my life. Sometimes I would even wake my sister up to let her know that santa had come.

Well that is just a little memory of mine that I thought I would share with you. I want to wish everyone of you that reads this blog a merry xmas. Also I got a little lazy this year and didn't really send out xmas cards....so if I didn't send you one... I am sorry but I still love you.


So Have A Merry XMAS everyone!!

Xmas sweater

My sister is going to a xmas party this weekend (a guy I used to work with is having it), and it is one where you are supposed to wear a crazt sweater and well she asked a co-worker if she had any and this coworker got all excited and told laura about how she had a ton of them at home and well this is what she brought in. Best part of it was her co-worker was proud of all her sweaters...she didn't realize that the purpose of the party was to make fun of the sweaters.

Hopefully laura has fun and is still in one piece when she flies home on sunday

hmmm

not much is new with me. I am liking life not working. I have started going to the gym here in Hibbing again and I convinced my mom to join and come with me some of the time.

Well there area bunch more classes offered there now so I convinced my mom to go with me. Soo we went to a class tonight and it totally was not what I expected. The class schedule called it a CRT class (cardio resistance training) Iread the description and thought it would be fun...resistance training and cardio.....well well well little did i know that it was pretty much a step aerobics class...and those of you who know me well know that I am not a big fan of aerobics.... basically I am not coordinated and think I look funny doing it. But I survived it and I think my mom got a good workout so I will prob go again but we will see

we had xmas at my grandparents this weekend and it was crazy as always...this year was different than in the past and there were tons of girlfriends/boyfriends there so it was like I didn't know half the people at a family gathering.

Hopefully I finish my xmas shopping soon. I hate trying to find gifts for my dad. he is of no help and always says the same thing.... "Socks and Underwear" well today I looked in his draw and he does not need either he still has packages of ones we have gotten him in the past that haven't been opened. so now I am trying to come up with ideas anyone got any for me?

Charlie Brown Xmas tree

So every year around xmas my dad goes out into the backyard and finds a xmas tree for our house. Alot of the time I will go with him and help him pick one out...he only allows certain trees to be cut so this year he went while my mom and I weren't home.....and well we kind of ended up with a not so big tree. It looks much better now that Andrew has decorated it but at first it was a little weak looking. But now it is good just not as full of a tree as he normally gets...

I wanted a picture of andrew and the tree but he got bored with decorating after he caught me moving some of the ornaments that he had placed and told me he had better things to do than be in a picture

Last night we went out for my brother's birthday and while we were at the restuarant when the food came andrew says to the waitress. 'You know what you have the best fries in the whole world.' it was pretty funny at the time.

Vroom Vroom

After 12 hrs of driving yesterday I made it back to Hibbing. yipeee!!! It was a nice day for driving, so that was good. Then today I drove back down to Duluth with my mom to go xmas shopping. I was afraid that I wasn't going to survive that adventure...but I did. We got to the mall early and since it was sunday the mall wasn't packed yet because of all the church goers. But lets just say we went to target in the afternoon and it seemed to me that all the crazy zoo animals had escaped their cages and ran to target.yes it was packed and with all the loonies!! So I think I am just about done with all my shopping...but I am lucky and don't have to may people to shop for.

I must say I ma glad that I don't have to drive anywhere again for a while. I have done lots of traveling the last month and my car is pooped out.

Today is my brother's 24 birthday. So happy birthday Scott aka George!!!!
Guess I don't have a recent picture of him so this one from 2 years ago will have to do!

On my way home

Well my time here in Michigan has come to an end. I am headed back to MN tommorow morning. It was great to come and get a chance to see everyone all at once. Thanks for getting married when I could come, AJ. I am sad to leave:( Everytime I come and visit I have so much fun catching up with everyone, eventhough are lives are so much different than they were than when we were in school. Now intead of parties, random boys and such there are babies and husbands to hangout with. Plus new jobs and travels to talk about. Sitting on stephies couch sunday morning after the wedding kind of reminded me of sitting on the Alph gam couch after a night out in houghton. All in all it was great to see everyone.

Hopefully I will get a chance to come visit everyone again another time this winter. Or of you need a break you can all come visit me anytime you want in MN. I have no big plans as of yet this winter so everyone should come and visit me sometime

little piggies

well I am here at Laura's house and when we got here last night casey had some pigs to move....so I volunteered to go help him. It wasn't to bad.....the pig all behaved and well now they are off to a better place......dinner plates.

Anyway i am hanigning out with laura for a couple of days before I head back to MN. I am sure that G will keep me entertained.

Wedding Pictures

This past weekend was a blast. I am so glad that I drove over to MI for the wedding and the chance to see everyone. It was good to get the chance to catch up with everyone and hear about their busy lives



AJ and JR both looked wonderful and I think everyone had a blast at their reception

I got to stephie's friday night, where we had a wonderful dinner prepared by stephie and then we just chilled on the couch and watched G try to get hazel to leave her alone. Then while I was sleeping on the couch casey came home and let me know how potent he is and that if I needed his services to let him know. He was a very talkative drunk that night so it was quite amusing

Saturday morning we all wasted time on the couch and barely made it to the church on time. But we were there to see the very beautiful ceremony. Then with 3 and a half hours to waste before the reception we went to stephie and jay's and started the celebration. We may have started a bit early since we were all feeling pretty good by the time we got to the reception hall. But never fear we all made it through the night and had a blast. Thanks to Cat for driving us all home.

Of Course I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted to but here are a few of them. Enjoy

Carli Ann Henry

I have made it to Michigan and finally got to meet jen's little girl Carli.
She is super cute and just learned to smile so she likes to show off her new smile..but not for my camera.

Speaking of camera's. I took mine to the photo place that randi told me about and they toldd me what I thought.... the focus is stuck. So I have to send it in to canon and they should be able to fix it...the only thing about it was that I couldn't find my reciept and I was about ready to flip out when... I decided to go to best buy and see if they could look it up...... and well the guy got me a copy of my receipt. So camera problem solved.

Grrrr

my digital camera is not working properly and has not been working for sometime. It wont focus properly and I am so sick of having blurry pictures. The sad part is that it is less than a year old and it was an expensive camera to start with. I want to take it in to get it looked at but I have no place around here to do that...plus I am afraid they are just going to tell me that there is nothing that they can do. I my previous camera (same brand) worked wonderfully until it got stolen. I have tried everything I can think of to fix the focusing prob myself. I have even had my friend jake who knows lots about camera's look at it......grrr I don't really want to buy a new one but I think I am going to have to.....to bad I didnt like taking pictures so much... I want my camera back

It has been raining here all day and I am sad because I really wanted to go for a run today....I haven't ran at all since I have been back and I am feeling like a lazy ass.....oh well I really need to go and join the gym again but I am waiting til after I get back from MI so I don't waste money cuz I am not going since I am out of town

I really wish my camera would work!!!!!!!

This, that and the other thing

Today I was in walmart (since it is the only store in hibbing) and well I was getting ready to check out and well I ran into Andy McDowell aka Swiss the bet sig from tech(he is origanilly from hibbing)....and well the crazy thing is that he lives in Hibbing again and is married and has two kids....it was crazy seeing him there with a wife and two little kids crazy

I also got my haircut today so that was a little excitement... I can't believe the gossip that goes on around the hair place I should just go hang out there all day and I would know everything about everyone

I am getting excited to drive over to MI and come see everyone. I am hoping that I have good weather on wed......as long as it isn't freezing rain I can handle it

I want to post some pictures but don't have many new ones... i realized I didn't take nearly as many pictures this year as I have in the past but for today I am posting two of my favorite pictures that I have taken..yes I took both the jellyfish are at an aqurium that i went to a couple of years ago. and the black and white on is up in Northern Wa anad the waterfalls are running off of a glacier

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Hope Everyone has a good thanksgiving!!
Eat lots of turkey it will make you feel better!!!!
Or at least that is what I say!!

Im home

Well I have made it home finally!!!! and this is what I pretty muched looked at for the past few days. I am slowly unpacking my car and then getting ready to do nothing for a few days.

Difference Between Friends

Sorry about some of the language but a friend sent this to me and I had to share it...also some of my tech friends may fit into the firefighter friends category

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Tell you not to do something stupid when drunk
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Will post 360 degree security so you dont get caught

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Call your parents Mr. and Mrs
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Call your parents drunk as hell and tell them about the fat chick you tried to pick up

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Hope the night out drinking goes smoothly, and hope that no one is late for the ride home.
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Know some wild shit will happen, and set up rally points and an E & E route.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Bail you out of jail and tell you what you did was wrong.
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Will be sitting next to you saying, Damn...we fucked up...but hey, that shit was fun as fuck!"

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Cry with you.
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: laugh at you and tell you to put some vagasil on your pussy.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Borrow your stuff for a few days then give it back.
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Steal each other ' s stuff so often nobody remembers who bought it in the first place.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Are happy that someone picked up a one night stand and leave them alone.
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Will Low Crawl naked into the room with a camera and hope for the tag team.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Know a few things about you.
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Could write a book with direct quotes from you.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will leave you behind if that ' s what the crowd is doing.
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Will kick the whole crowds ass that left you.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Would knock on your door.
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Walk right in and say, "I'm home!"

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will try and talk to the bouncer when you get tossed out of the bar.
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Will man up and go after the bouncer for touching you on the way out.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will wish you had enough money to go out that night, and are sorry you couldn't come.
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Will share their last dollar with you, drag you along, and try to steal free drinks all night

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will take your drink away when they think you've had enough.
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Will look at you stumbling all over the place and say, "Bitch, you better drink the rest of that shit, you know we don't waste..That's alcohol abuse!!!"

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Want the money they loaned you back next week.
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Can't begin to remember who owes who money after taking care of each other for so long.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will say "I can't handle Tequila anymore".
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Will say "okay just one more" and then 2 minutes later okay just one more".

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will talk shit to the person who talks shit about you.
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Will knock them the fuck out!!

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will tell you "They'd take a bullet for you."
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Will actually take a bullet for you.

CIVILIAN FRIENDS: Will ignore this
FIREFIGHTER FRIENDS: Will repost this

So So So......

I have been meaning to udate this for a while....anyway thursday was my last day of work until April!!!!!!!!! Well Technically I will work during before that but I will be at training so that doesn't really count.

I wasn't totally sure when I would be getting laid off so I decided to not visit anyone on my way home this time. I also wanted to make sure that I made it home in time for thanksgiving. Plus I would like to be able to spend time with people I stop and visit not just sleep there and then take off right So sorry if you were hoping for a visit from me....hopefully I can visit lots of people in the spring

In case you are wondering where I am well I am currently in Fort Morgan, Colorado. I left CA yesterday so I am making pretty good time.

Hopefully I continue to have good weather tommorow....adios

Andrew's Halloween

Here is my nephew's halloween costume....I cant remeber what he said he was but I thought he had a pretty good costume.

I am excited to get home and spend a little time with him.....he is always cracking me up in one way or another

long time no picture

Since I haven't posted any pictures in a long time here is our crew photo for this year...it was taken in the grand canyon at the begining of the season and lets just say most of the guys didn't look quite the same by the end of the season

well after looking at the photo it is pretty blurry opps

Holy moly!!!

This week has been much busier than I had anticipated. This perscribed burn has been taking up most of my time. Today is the first chance I have had to come up and use the computer...it is crazy how early it has been getting dark these days.

I am glad that I got a chance to read everyone's blogs today. It seems to me that lots of my friends have been having some bad days and I just wanted to say that I am here for all of you and have been thinking about you. I know that well all have those days when things aren't how we want them to be. I can for sure say that I have them. anyway I just want you all to know that I love you all.

In other things some stuff at work had been bugging me and it is better now that the seasonals have left. But without saying to much all I know is that I was raised with certain beliefs, morals and values and no matter what I am going to stick to those no matter what other people think and if that makes people not like who I am for doing what I believe is right well f@*k them....that is what I say. Anywas thanks mom and dad for teaching me to stick to my beliefs and doing what I know is right...even if the majority of the crowd doesn't think so.

well even though it is early I am beat.....walking all day and burning things up takes it out of ya.

Its supposed to snow tomorrow we will see what happens!!1

where have I been

Here aer a few things that I need to update everyone on

Q. So Amy where have you been the last week?

A. Well last week we ended up doing a prescribed burn in the park form mon- wed and then we pushed the lay off date for the seasonals back until friday so that meant we had our end of the season party on Thrusday night. Then friday I headed down to Santa Barbara to run a half marathon.

Q. How did the end of the season party go?
A. Well fun was had by all...we drank a little had a big bonfire, drank a little more. watched the end of the season slideshow and then finished the night off drinking

Q. How was the Half Marathon?
A. well since I didn't really feel like running 13.1 miles since I have been burning and then had a big party where not much sleep happened I was planning on it being very painful. but it ended up not being that bad. Laura and I went out wanting to finish in under 2 hours and we did just that finished in 1 hour 59 minutes. The last two miles were the hardest but in the end it ended up being a good time. I think 2hrs for 13 miles is pretty good especially since I didn't train at all to run it and I havent ran that far since college

Q. So what is in store now?
A. Funny you should ask. I think that they are going to have the 3 of us senior firefighters go and help with a burn for wed til sun should be good as long as it doesn't rain. Then I will be working until the 16th and then I should be layed off

Q. What happend when you get laid off?
A. I am heading back to MN and should be there for thanksgiving.....then I am heading over to MI for AJ's wedding and after that who know

Well I think that is the quick and dirty of where I have been the last week. Thank you for your time

In the news

So I am sure you are all wondering where I am since the news of the big fire in Southern CA yesterday. Well I am here at home. We are on days off so we will see what happens. It is very sad to me that four people died trying to save a house. We are always told that it is just bushes and houses and to protect ourselves first. I can't say what happened to them but I wish they would have gotten out of there before the s#$t hit the fan, but yesterday was a sad day for us wildland firefighters. There is still one guy in critcal condition in the hospital. I hear that he has burns over 95% of his body. I am hoping that he survives but it is going to be a rough uphill battle. I am not sure if i was that burnt that I could make it.

Anyway here is my plug for the day. There is a wildland firefighters foundation so if anyone has a little extra money laying around that they would like to donate it is an excellent cause and they do more for wildland firefighters than anyone could ask of them.

Currently the offical layoff date is nov 2nd for the seasonals unless we go to a fire somewhere. So it is going to be somewhat of a busy week trying to get everything ready for the end of the season

The end is getting nearer.......

...........or so I hope. It is getting into late october and we have been in station for quite some time now. We are doing all sorts of little projects around the station but mostly I have been working on our end of the season slideshow so I have been going through all sorts of pictures picking out the best ones and putting them together into a slideshow.

Most likely the seasonals will have 2 weeks of work left or if the weather stays nice like it has been then there is a chance that it will be 3 more weeks for them plus 2 more for me. I am hoping it is sooner than later. there comes a point when you can only spend so much time in station. If we go to more fires great I will work till when ever there aren't any fires.... (well I should say till fire danger or the possiblity of doing perscribed burns end cuz there are no fires now) So basically we are all counting down the days although we don't really know when we will get laid off.

Here I am burning up a tree that has a marker on it saying that it is a wildlife tree and to not damage the tree. Opps!!!

In other news. my good friend Nick, who I have worked with the past few years is coming home. Nick took this season off to go to Iraq to be a contract firefighter. He has been on a military base near bagdad since june and was supposed to be there for a year, but for many reasons I ma not sure of all of them yet he has decided to come home. I am glad that he is coming back because it means that I wont have to worry about him as much.

Here is paul conducting a burn out operation. It is always fun to light things on fire especially when they burn up good like this fire was!

Snow

Well It snowed here yesterday. Just a little bit and it was all gone by early this morning. It was kind of a suprise because we didn't think that there was going to be a storm. and right now it is cold nad I think that my fingers are going to fall off.

Tommorow is friday for me. Yippee!!!

There are santa anna winds predicted in LA so that means there can be a high fire danger down there. so you never know. my fire season may not be over yet.

On Monday we went out to a fire that has been burning in the park for quite a while (it is one that they just monitor and let it do its thing) anyway I was excited because I got the chance to cut down a couple of pretty big trees. One was about 28 inches in diameter and the other one was 26in. My cuts were good so I was happy since it was the first time this year that I got the chance to cut anything really big.

The best part is that the saw that I was using had a 36 inch bar on it so with the power head of the saw it was close to 50in tall so that means it wasn't much smaller than me.

Here is a picture that I found....I don't think I was that happy that I was having my picture taken

My Weekend

Eventhough I had to work today I thought that I would write about my weekend. Lets see... Thursday night I ended up haning out with the folks that work on the engine here in the park. Normally they will come down and hangout with us but we went up to one of thier houses and ended up having a good night. We even ended up convincing jake to do a "hot lap" around the General Grant tree on the way home so that was fun.

Friday I headed down to fresno to get a couple of things that I needed hopefully I won't have to go back for a couple of weeks but we will see. Then friday night we watched a show on the history channel called into the fire that my boss was featured in. It was a pretty decent show talked mostly about structure bros but thats ok. While we were watching it we ended up having a little wine party...which was kind of weird cuz it was me and a handful of guys all drinking wine. My sis ter got there around 11:30 or maybe a little later and she got the chance to take the dust of her pool skills although she scratched on the 8 ball so my team won. Jake had a friend visiting also and she is a fire dancer so she danced for us....that was pretty cool.

Laura and I had planned on going for a hike yesterday but we woke up and it wasn't very nice out...but we still were all about it so we drove over to the trailhead and started to hike but soon discovered that tourist are crazy drivers and then after we started hiking the fog just kept getting thicker and thicker so we hiked for a while and then decided that it wasn't worth it cuz we couldnt see anything more than 5 feet in front of us. All in all we hike about 8 miles so not to bad. It was a fun night I even took her to the local pizza place so she saw the prize citizens of squaw valley.

Tomorrow is my dad's birthday so happy birthday dad!!!!

Toothless

Well Andrew has lost his front two theeth. I hear that the tooth fairy has visited him and brought him $3.oo. The tooth fairy must take inflation into account cuz idon't think that I made that much from her

Colombus day

Well today is colombus day and the only reason that I know that is because I got today off. Yes there is a good reason for federal holidays. Most of the time we work holidays so it was kind of unexpected to get today off, but that is what happens when the fire danger is low. so because we didn't have to work today we had a little gathering last night. It was a good evening. Except the amy that likes to kick people after she has had a couple of drinks came out. Yes I was introducing everyone to "my sidekick"


So I have mentioned that we have these crazy ravens where I live, and well they have been eating everyones wipers and other rubber things from peoples cars and well I thought I was safe. That it until I went to use my wiper yesterday.....those bastards ate my wiper..... But don't worry we have a plane to get rid of them and it may involve the use of a bebe gun

I have become addicted to grey's anatomy. I bought season two on DVD and I can't stop watching it.

Lastly here is a picture I found the other day.....it is me at the grand canyon with Brighty the mule.

Photos from the Day Fire

Well here are some of the photos that I took at the day fire. I hope that everyone enjoys them...I may post some on the blog not using the slide program for those of you who have slow internet connections.




Anyway no much else is new here. It has been a little chilly in the park and I am trying to guess when we will get our first snow. My guess is when we get the next storm

Jen had her baby

For all of you that know jen b, jen had a little girl on Sept 28. Her name is Carletta Ann. I must say that jen is on brave and couragous woman. She developed what is called help syndrome (very uncommon) and had to have her baby 2.5 weeks early.

I talked to jen today finally and i must say she has quite the story to tell about the arrival of her little girl. It even involved Jen getting a helicopter ride. But don't worry mom and baby are both at home and doing well.

Once again I must say congrats to jen. Love ya and miss ya. you are a champ!!!!!

A Few Photos from Oregon

Some may call me crazy

Well a bunch of us were talking about running a half-marathon in the begining of Nov and I have decided why the heck not. the best part is that I convinced my sister to do it with me. The funny thing is that since we haven't been in station much the past few months we haven't been running a lot. the good thing is that I did run 7 miles yesterday so that is good. Plus I train at 6500 feet when then half marathon which in Santa Barbara is at zero feet so that should give me an advantage.

The weather is getting wetter and cooler here so fire season is slowly ticking away so my training for hte half marathon may end up happening.

Also the ticker at the top of my page is an aproximate date that that seasonals will get laid off I will still have to work after that but I just like to think that the end is near

Back in Station and this time it may be for a while

Hey all. I am back in station. We put the Day fire out......well the 4000 other people probably helped some and I am pretty sure that the rain put the final touch on it.


Anyway we cam back on Oct2 which is a very important or should I say meaningful day to me. For those of you who don't know on 10/2/04 I lost a good friend of mine when an accident occured on the perscribed burn we were woking happened. Anyway Dan was an awesome person and eventhough I only knew him for a short time he touched my life in a way that I can never explain. He is missed by all and I know that I will always remeber oct 2 for the rest of my life.

It was pretty cool we came home on the anniversary and got to see dan's mom and bro, who I still in contact with and treasure as friends. We had a big old party that night...dan was one who liked to celbrate life so that was what we did.....fun was had by all... It was super good to see matt and dee.

Well I am off tommorow until sun but we are still available for fires so that means I can't go anywhere (sorry sis) I have a bunch of errands to run and computer catching up to do so I will finally get some more fire pictures and stories up

Fire 21

well we have been dispatched to fire #21 for the season. We are leaving shortly for the day fire, it is the fire that is down near L.A. so you may have seen it on the news. It has burning for a while and continues to grow since the winds keep changing directions.

Good news is we are going to a fire
Bad news is that it is in posion oak country....oh well it was bound to happen

I still haven't had the chance to talk about my fire run to oregon or post pictures but I promise I will do is on the next days off. I have some good stories to share so I will do that when I get back

well off to do a few last minute things before we leave. Ill be back to posting in 14 days or sooner

More Birthday Photos

Birthday Fun!!

Andrew turned six last friday and he came over last night to celebrate his birthday with his Grandparents and Me. We had a good afternoon.... He has grown a ton since I have been gone...he is going to be taller than me before I know it. I got to pick him up from school and he looked all grown up carrying his backpack and lunchbox. The school where he goes has all day everyday kindergarden so he is full on in school mode.

The funiest thing is when he opens presents he knows when they are clothes. My mom got him a new outfit and well shakes it notices the it doesn't make any nosies..then before he touches the paper he says "is this clothes".
me: "open it and see"
he tears of the paper and notices that it is just a box......doesn't even open the box just pushes it aside. goes for the last present and sees it is a toy is super excited.

It was super funny!!

Blogger is being stupid and wont let me post other photos so there will be more to come. Hopefully

Big Changes for my little town

Wel So I am at home and of course my parents asked me if I could go to Walmart for them today and well on the drive there I noticed all these changes.

We have a new movie theater...so instead of the crappy 3 screen theater we now have a state of the art 8 screen theater with the nice seat according to my brother

The news Lowes is all done and ready....just needs to open to the public

According to my little bro they are going to build a wallgreens in town....boy are we advancing

and here is the best one of all
we use to have 2 hardees and one of them closed a few years ago and well someone bought the building and turned it into a liquor store...but they didn't change anything on the outside so it still looks like hardees complete with the drive through window and everything. I am curious to see what the inside looks like.

The leaves have started to change here and I love being able to see the leaves change again..even though it is only for a couple of days.

my nephew is coming over tonight and we are going to celebrate his Birthday. he turned 6 on the 15th. It has been raining all day and i am kind of wishing it would stop.

I really want to post some pictures but the internet at my parents house is so slow that I am scared to. But my mom has finally entered the modern age and is going away from dial up next week.

Time to frost the birthday cake

Well well well

Yes I am still alive. I just spent the last 20 days up in Oregon on a bunch of fires. It was a good run and I have lots to talk about but it may have to wait for a while. SInce we worked 21 days straight we have 4 days off unavailable for fires so I bought a plane ticket and flew home to MN for 4 days. SO yep I am in MN right now.

It is kind of weird being here but I am glad that I am here. Best part is that my dad has no clue that I came home. He has been hunting all weekend so when he gets home later today he will be a little suprised I think. Well I will write more about our fure run later just wanted to say that I am still alive and well

So Frustrated

Sorry I need to vent....How can it be that states are in a state of emergencey because of fires and here I am on one of the best fire crews in the nation and and I am sitting at home.... I don't get it. Everyone I work with is frustrated with us not being on a fire....we are sitting around doing nothing..... I just don't get it. I have a feeling that we are being kept in Southern CA because they don't have any other crews here right now but they also DONT have any fires burning either. But the stupid celeberties have there super houses that need to be saved if a fire by chance starts so we stay here stuck.....grrrrrrrr I hate the politics of my job I hate it.

I just keep sitting waiting for the pager to go off and it doesn't. So frustrating. It makes your days off not even enjoyable because you are always waiting for a fire call and you think one is coming becauses they have called in the military, crews from australia, new zeeland and canada so you think that they would use american crews.

ok I am stopping now because if I don't I will go on for hours because I am so sick of the politcal BS that goes on.

ok So I think I will post a couple random pictures to make this entry better

First picture is of my nephew and me last christmas. He has grown a ton since then and he keeps asking me when I am going to come home everytime I call him. He says that it is time for the fires to be over. He should be starting Kindergarden here any day now. Funny thing is that is will probably have the same kindergarden teacher as his dad did. crazy!!!!




The last two are photos that I have taken here in the park. One is a black and white of a waterfall...I can't remember its name and the other is of a sequoia grove during a perscribed burn.

grrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!

I am sitting here waiting and waiting to get a fire call. it is frustrating to be sitting around while you know that there is work out there that needs to be done and you want to get in on some of it. I have no prob sitting on my rear all winter but this is day #3 in a row off and I am running out of things to keep me busy.

We all thought we were available for fires yesterday but it turns out we weren't. It would have been nice to have been informed of this so we could have gone farther away than 2hours but whatever.

Last night some of the guys and I watched Clockwise Orange or at least that is what I think it was called. anyway it was this way weird movie from the early 70's very weird. I am not sure what I thought of it.

Well hopefully we get a fire call soon otherwise I may be living in one of your garages this winter so that I don't have to live in a cardboard box cuz I haven't made anymoney.

Holy Marijuana!!

So where I work has one of the largest ilegal pot productions in the country and that is because there are a lot of steep drainages and other places the growers can hide it. But the park has a huge force that is there to try to find the gardens and then get rid of them. They Find the gardens. law enforcement goes in they cut down all the plants, haul it out and then burn it somewhere.

Anyway before we left for our last run the engine crew came down with a truck of ours and said there was a tarp in the back that we could keep. So I tell my boss and he tells me to go ahead fold it up and store it with all the others. So I walk down to the truck start to pull the tarp and notice this smell........I was like I smell pot wtf so I pull the tarp more and all these leaves start falling out and I can see where there is residue on the tarp. Im like what did they use the truck for. So I fold it up tease some of the guys with it and come tp the conclsion that they used our truck for a drug bust. Turns out there were a lot o plants in this garden.

So that was interesting. Then we head up to N. Cal to a fire and Northern CA is known for having a large production of legal marijuana for medicinal use. So there was a spike camp (which is a fire camp that isnt the main camp of the fire but has food, portapottys ect) in this town way up the mountian so we drive up there and our boss tells us pretty much everyone in the town has a perscription for pot and sure enough it was growing in just about everybody's yards....it was pretty crazy to see

in other things the guy that died in the car accident wasn't on my crew and I didn't really know him that well just met him in passing

I ended up being lazy on my day off and going down to the lake with the wife of one of my bosses. We tuck here little girl sarah down the water and it was tuns of fun. Sarah is almost 2 and loves the water. she is also a very pink baby I will have to get a picture of her to post cuz she is super cute

Tommorow we go back on the board for fires I am hoping to end up in the northwest or montana I have never been on a fire in Montana so I want to go there

Its Been Awhile

But I am back...actually I have been back for a couple of days but haven't had a chance to update. We went up to a fire in Northern CA, which I will talk about later, but ended up leaving our assingment early because a guy that works on the fuels crew in the park was killed in a car accident last week. We came home so that we could attend his memorial service and there is one thing that I ask of everybody.....please please always were your seatbelt. If "Q" had been wearing his seatbelt he could possibly still be here with us rather than ending his life at 22.

Anyway all of you that read this are very important to me and I don't want anything to happen to any of you and days like to day make me kind of sad.

I get tommorow as a paid day off so hopefully I can get some pictures posted. The last run was interesting since we never even saw the fire that we were originally dispatched to. We saw fire came and spike camp and some cold black, but we never even worked a shift. Long story that I will tell later but we did see some interesting stuff which I will talk about when I post pictures

well Ill write more tommorow when it is light out and i can see my computer keys.

One little fire

Well we went to a little fire on Tuesday morning. it wasn't far from here well actually it took a while to drive there but by air miles it wasn't far. There wasn't much excitment except that I felt horrible. There as been some sort of Bug (cold/flu) thing going around our crew which we like to refer to as the hiv and well I just thought I was havinga bad day on mon and feeling sore from lifting weights the day before but on tuesday morning I realized that actually the hiv had hit me and it hit hard. It was kind of like the flu when your body just aches and you can tell you have a fever and you want to curl up and die. Then it turned into sore throat and a cough. but if I was smart I would have taken a day off work but I am not that smart so I toughed it out and felt like I was going down the whole time. but now I am feeling better

well we spent today in station and it is frusrtatin cuz there are a lot of fire burning out there and we want to be fighting them. Hopefully the call will come soon. But if it doesn't I have the next two days off.
well time to go hang out with some of the guys....a beer sounds tasty

Ever had one of those days .......

where all you want to do is cry.

Well today was one of them for me.......it started off when I slept like crap last night and just escalated from there. Nothing seemed to go my way and things just kept frustrating me all day. Then I was missing all of my friends and family and that made things worse. Sometimes I just hate being so far away from everyone and today was one of those days. I really wish that I could just go back to houghton or MN when I always had friends and someone to talk to around...yep that would make my day today.

I just don't know sometimes. I like my job but it is hard being far away. I wish I knew more people out here besides the people I work with but I guess when you work all the time it is hard to go out and meet anyone else. Plus it all guys at work except fot Maura (she helps keep me sane)so that makes days like today even worse since I don't really have anyone to talk to.

Ok enough of me venting. I just needed to get a couple of things out.

What made my day today

After working all day getting fire ready today our boss gave us a great suprise. He made PT optional in the morning. yipeee. Most of the time on mondays we run for 1.5 hours and I wasn't really looking forward to it since we hadn't been running much lately because of so many fires. So I won't have to die on a run up a big hill. Instead if I so choose I can run whatever I please. We will see if I decide to get up and run or not.....who know we may have a fire by the time I get up to run.

In other news I can't remeber if I mentioned it on here or not but my little sis passed he Physical therapy boards so that is a huge relief for her. Congrats Laura!!!!! hope the one on sat went as well.

In case you don't hear from me for a bit it means that I am out on a fire hopefully making myself a little money

Winters fire line cutting

here is a video clip of us constructing indirect fire line and then burning out the area. Enjoy. hope this works!!

I was driving the truck you see at the end so I wasn't actually cutting line with everyone else.

Fires o my

Well we have been pretty busy lately. I just hope that it keeps up. Anyway after a run to Nevada where we saw lots of cows, grass, sage brush, jackrabbits and fire oh yeah lots of thunderstorms and even some hail (although that was only at the beginging of the run). we just had three days off. I didn't do to much exciting...drank a couple of beers with some friends that I hadn't seen in awhile, watched me, you and dupree...good flick....I laughed a lot....and went to puppy classes with maura and her puppy lilly. It was a good few days off.

We become available for fires monday morning eventhough we have to work tomorrow we are unavailable so we can get a bunch of stuff done in the office. We are now at preparedness level 5 which is as high as it gets so basically it means that we should go right back out again on a fire becuase resources are limited.

lets see what highlights do I have from the last run....not many that I can think of right now it was a long run and I have forgotten everything in the last couple of days.

oh yea some of you may have heard a about a burnover that occured to some other hotshots. well they are all doing fine. We were on the way to that fire but we got turned around and sent to a new start....so we not involved in the accident, but we did spend the next two days on that fire.

Pictures

here are some pictures from this run to Nevada......I hope you enjoy


share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8AbNGTVmzbNGGQ

Im back from nevada

Hey all!!! I have made it back from spending 16 days in nevada on a bunch of fires. It was a long run. we were on 4 fires during htat time oh wait I take it back it was five fires. anyway I will write more about all of them later. All I can say is that I saw a lot of sagebrush and grass burn up, and even got hailed on one day.....but hey it is all in a days work. Now I am on days off and not doing to much. I am spending the day today down in fresno I am thinking of seeing a movie but I am not sure which one...either me you and dupree or maybe the new will ferrell movie.

Anyway thats all I got for now I will update more later....heres one picture for now

So you may wonder.....

Why I am currently not on a fire.... I know that most of people who may read this have seen the news lately and all that they can talk about is a wildfire in Southern CA. So why am I not there? Well there are a couple of reasons why we may not have been dispatched to the sawtooth fire.

1. The fire is on California State land (CDF) and well to be quite honest they tend to run things differently. CA has a lot of prisioners and nothing to do with them, so they make fire crews out of them. yes there are lots of CON crews here in CA. We run into them quite a bit, but when a fire is on CDF land they tend to use all the con crews that they can get so sometimes they don't use as many other crews as a fire on forest service land would

2. We were on days off when the fire started so we didn't get dispatched. They may have more than enough crews to staff the fire but becuase of the fire behavior they may not be able to stop it no matter how many crews are there working

3. They want to keep some crews available in case any new fires start.........

Ok so those are a few reasons why you see huge fires on the news and I am not there. it is all a game of waiting and sometimes luck when it comes to getting dispatches.

In other things i am enjoying having days off. If we don't get a fire today we will have had 4 days off and it has been nice. I visited laura for 2 days and have done nothing at all the last two. well I guess I did laundry and cleaned my cabin.

So I have finally posted pictures of some of the fires that we were just on. The first picture is of the Twinsprings fire. we were positioned away from the fire while the commanders aka our bosses decided how to attack it.

Next is the same fire at night, we were trying to figure out where the best place to stop it was..but the rain did it for us.

Finally is roberto taking cover from the rain.

Mother Nature hates us.

So here is what happened on our last run. (the short version)

well we got dispatched to a fire in St. George Utah and as we drove into camp you could see the smoke column building out to the west. So we were all excited because we thought that we would get to see some fire behavior and it would be full of action. You could also tell that there were thunderstorms in the area and after a yummy dinner of salmon we all went to be with hope of having a good shift in the morning. .......but as our luck would have it I woke up arond 12:30 to rain. so I put on my bivy sack (a gortex sack that goes over your sleeping bag and keeps you dry) and hope that it quits raining soon. Well I was not in luck, it rained all night and not lightly hard...plus it was joined by high winds and lots of thunder and lightning. The worst part was that it was hot out and well the bivy sacks aren't very breathable so you sweat to death when it it hot out. so needless to say the fire was pretty much done when we got there....just mopping up and cold trailing left but it gave us work for a couple of days

Well we leave Utah and head to another complex in Nevada...get there and are told that we are staging for the day. Which means sitting in the truck and waiting. So around 4 we got a new start. New starts are the best becuase normally the fire is moving and you get a rush from going out on a new fire. Anyway we get there and us and 3 other shot crews are trying to catch the fire but not having much luck...wind has other ideas so the fire keeps getting bigger. there were lots of thunderstorms around so the wind was doing funny things. Anyway we realize we aren't going to catch it and the IC (guy in charge of the fire) decides to bed the crews down since we had all worked 18 hours. he wants us to get sleep so we can work in the morning.......but wouldn't you know it right before we start hiking back to the trucks it RAINS...and parks the fire where it was at......

while still on this complex we are coldtrailing the fire from the night before when we notice smoke not far away...turns out it is new start. So we are hoping for something to happen...either it burns over the ridge and joins the one we are on or we get called to it, but did that happen nope guess what happened....thats right it rained......but we still got to go work on this fire the next day

So then we head for a fire near death valley. on the drive we stop for lunch and when we go to start the truck up it sounds like it is about to explode and well woudn't you know it we melted the starter and of course it was sunday so no mechanics were avilable so our bosses come up with a plan to shuttle us the 100 miles to the fire. well we get to this next fire which was buring nicely and in a high risk area (it was on department of defense land where they used to test all sorts of stuff) anyway our boss leaves to shuttle the rest of the group and what do you know it downpours on us....we only had 1 truck for like 14 of us so we all couldn't fit so a group of us stood under an awning while it dumped a good 2-3inches if not more on us.

After that we staged for a day and then headed home. now we are waitng for the next one. there is a huge fire down' by LA but I don't think we will go there. I am guessing they are keeping some crews available in case something else starts.

hopefully I will get my but in gear and get some pictures posted soon

Im back in computer land

Just a quick update:

we made it back from a run to utah and nevada (Ill talk about that later). We worked a bunch of days in a row so we got yesterday and today off (paid!!). Since we aren't available for fires I came down to my sister's apartment. Laura just moved in a couple of weeks ago so I hadn't seen her apartment yet. It is a pretty nice place. it is small but nice....the kitchen has some funky countertops but oh well. she is only about 2 blocks from the beach so that is pretty cool. when you leave the apartment you can see the ocean, plus she has just about everything you would need within a couple of blocks. well I guess target it farther away than that.

I am leaving here later tonight because I have to be back within two hours of fresno tommorwo since we go back available for fires. anyway I will update with adventures from the fire shortly

Well I didn't have to wait long

We got another fire call already......yipppeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No station work( at least for a couple of days). We are leaving bright and early Sunday morning for a fire in the great state of utah. It will take us almost all day to get there so hopefully it will still be there when we arrive. We couldn't leave tonight because we were to close to hitting our 16 for the day so we leave tommorow.

I am glad that things are starting to pick up. it is sad but since we only work six months you gotta get as much work in as you can and as Danielle said you can't beat OT and Hazard pay.

oh yeah here is me and my flute I made out of licorce. I know I am a goofball.

stay tuned for more fire updates.....for anyone who is interested I think we are going to the Bull complex but I might be wrong

Newspaper picture

try this link to get to the picture that was in the newspaper....I am not sure if it will work or not but it is worth a try. the heading is wrong we are in Sequoia national forest not park...oh well what can you do

http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/59723.html

Back from the Smith fire

Well we are back from our last fire. We were on a fire called the smith fire...it was about 4 hours away from here. It was up in a wilderness area on the Sequoia National Forest. since it was in the middle of nowhere they helicoptered us all in and on the first morning there was a bunch of photogaphers taking pictures and well I made the front page of the local paper....ok really just my backside made it in the paper....there was a picture of us loading the helicopter and I was the last in line so well you can see my bum and my pigtail braids. We basically finished putting line around the fire and mopping up. It was pretty steep where we were and it was also sandy so our legs got a workout hiking up and down the hills. we also ended up "spiking out" which is staying over night on the fire, not going back to fire camp....sometimes spiking out can be a pain other times it is just fine. this was one of the times that it was just fine...except that the crews that were on night shift decided to walk right by where we were sleeping....oh well we got to work our days off so the more OT the better

it is crazy here in the park because of the holiday weekend. the tourist are crazy and I try to stay of the roads while they are here. Anyway here is a picture of the flight helmets the park helicopter makes us where when we fly on it...otherwise we just were our normal helemetson flights

tic toc the waiting game is no fun

well we just spent 2 days on a little fire here in the park. it wasa good fire but we are still waiting to go to a fire away from our station. It is hard to see all these fires on the news and know that we are just sitting around doing nothing. It can be frustrating at times just doing little projects around the station. oh well I guess it is just part of the job. Who knows how they decide who goes to what fires.

in other news the weather here has been really wierd. It was super hot and now all of the sudden it has been really humid and not as hot. I just don't know.

Well that all I got for now...hopefully I will have some pictures of the last fire next time I am on the computer

To dam hot

So it is way to hot here lately. yesterday it was 107 in fresno way to hot. It normally doesn't get to be that hot here until july and august. Here are somethings that I discovered when its that hot out
1. it takes a long time for the air conditioner to fire up and by the time it starts to get to a resonable temp you are at your next destination
2. my sterring wheel was so hot that I thought my hand was going to get burnt
3. I went to use some deoderant that was in my car and well it was all mushy and melted
4. hot weather normally leads to fires but we are still here in station (which kind of sucks)
5. this hot weather is supposed to last until thursday. the sad thing is that it isn't even the hottest part of summer yet

on a positive note I did get the chance to take my kayak out again today so that was a good adventure.

Stephies wedding pictures

Well here are some pictures from stephies wedding. The first two are of stephie as a very beautiful bride. I can't believe she is still smiling after tons of pictures and being out in the heat.


The third picture is of all the bridesmaids, plus stephies neices.


I am very glad that I got the chance to make the trip to Bad Axe to help stephie and jay celebrate and also it gave me a chance to hang out with everyone else.



And of course I picture of the sparks family to my blog. Casey is all dressed up had to add a and not tending to farm animals so of course he has to be on my blog....georgia was a very good baby all throughout the cemremony and reception so I am sure that she made her parents very happy.


Hopefully I will get a chance tommorow to add my pictures online so that I can send them out to people.