Here's the boys with a fish. And here's Faith with the first fish she has ever caught.



It was the only one that got caught today. Faith and I both had a lot of bites. I got most of mine whenever I set my pole down to get something for the boys, then I'd pick it up and start reeling and discover that my cheap reel had started shedding line in all directions. So by the time I got it all untangled the fish was always gone. Oh well. I decided to buy a new reel on the way home. Found a nice one for $30. Then I walked into the aisle with the fishing poles and saw the EXACT same reel ON A POLE for $21. I don't get it either. So I have a new pole now. On the way out to the lake Simon said "Hey, I saw a cow climbing on top of another cow! What are they doing!?" I didn't even know where to start with that, so I just played dumb. For those of you who like music you should go to youtube and search "Crayola Doesn't Make a Color For Your Eyes" There are two videos there, one by Kristen Andreason and one by Sometymes why. They're essentially the same band, but kind of different. Anyway, they're both pretty amazing. Make sure you watch both of them. It's pretty cool. That's about it. Oscar's sick, he won't eat, and both of them have been eating grass and throwing up all day. Faith's going to the vet to get them some medicine. Hope everybody's doing well.

I'm home! The boys were outside when I got home and Dylan kept asking me "What are doing here? Do you want to come inside?" It was pretty funny. Nothing much happened yesterday, I did all my laundry and got repacked, I wanted to go to the county fair today, but they jacked all the prices up this year so it would cost $30 to get in, and frankly the Ferry County Fair isn't worth $30. I think we're going fishing instead. I'll make sure to bring the camera so I can post some pictures later. Hope everybody's doing well.

After 17 days I'm leaving CA! I'm going to Redding, CA today, getting a hotel room, then going to see the new Star Wars movie. Then I fly out tomorrow morning at 0800, and land in Spokane at 1430. Then it's a 3 hour drive to get home. My time has worked out perfectly just like it ALWAYS DOES, so I get back on my days off, which means I don't get any paid days off. 12 years in fire and it always times out so I don't get paid days off. That's a bunch of crap. Oh well. At least I'm coming back on my 3 day weekend. One day will be sent sleeping trying to recover from only getting about 3-4 hours of sleep a night for the past 14 days. That's about it for now, hope everybody's doing well.

These pictures were taken from the fire camp a couple of days before I got to the fire. Pretty neat. Last time I was in this area was in 1999, and I woke up at 3 in the morning to trees torching on the edge of camp and a mad scramble to get everybody out. I'm still on the Iron Complex. I'm working swing shift now, from 11 am to 330 am. Which means I get to sleep for about 4-5 hours before it gets too hot to be in my tent. I'm working in Communications, which is entirely different from what I usually do, being that I work in fire camp for the day instead of out on the line. I mostly answer the radio when people on the fire call into camp for supply orders they need on the line, and all in all it's pretty boring, until today. First somebody found a loaded, burnt gun in the fire, so I had to get law enforcement to send somebody out to pick it up, then there were two new fires that started down the road, then the helibase called in the most panicked voice I'd ever heard on the radio with an emergency broadcast to say that one of the helicopters had lost an engine, but would try to make it back to the base. I ordered and coordinated all the resources sent to where the helicopter would have a "hard landing" (they don't like to say crash), had to listen and make sense of everything about 15 people standing behind me were ordering to send out there, and talk to the helibase manager trying to get all the information about how many people were on the helicopter, how much fuel it had, updates about it's current location, AND I had to stay calm and try to be a reassuring presence to the people on the ground so they would think everything is alright and would end well. I know it makes me feel better when things are going to hell and the person in dispatch is staying calm, I just never knew how much they really wanted to freak out too. Anyway, all ended well, the helicopter landed safely, and when I looked at the clock what felt like hours later only 14 minutes had passed since the orginal call. Pretty fun, overall looking back I suppose. I think I'll probably keep working in various positions in Communications when I can, but I'd still rather be on the line. That's about it, I've got 9 days left til I go home. Hope everybody's doing well.

I'm in Northern California on the Iron Complex. I'll be home sometime at the end of August, so there will probably be nothing new until then. I got put on night shift, so I got to try to sleep in my tent today, it was 112 inside the tent. Didn't get much sleep, but hopefully I'll be in an air conditioned building tomorrow. Hope everybody's doing well.

Not much has happened this week. I jacked my back up at work and spent the week lying on the couch while Faith took the kids over to friends houses so they would quit practicing their WWF moves from the top of the couch onto me. One of the other supervisors will be back to work on Tuesday, so hopefully I can leave on a fire assignment, probably back to California, as that seems to be where most of the action is year. All the fires in the Norhtwest are only lasting a few days, while fires that started in June in CA are still burning. That's all for now.

We went on our first camping trip on my days off this week. We forgot the camera. We found a great camping spot next to a creek that was only about 8 inches deep where we were, so the kids could play in it. Dylan had some issues with sleeping in the tent at about one in the morning, saying he wanted to go home, but we got through that. We found a great patch of huckleberries the next day. Simon and I picked about a quart. I was letting Simon carry the bucket and he tripped and dumped them all out, so we had to start all over. I fed a huckleberry to Oscar, he ate it, watched me intently for a couple of minutes, then went over to another bush and started stripping it of berries. Then Arlo picked up on it and started eating them too. We went back to camp and made huckleberry ice cream, which the kids picked all the huckleberries out of. Oh well. We camped another night, but I had to work the next day, so I left at 5:00 to get to work. That's about it for excitement around here. We're going to go again next time I get some days off I think, we'll make sure to bring the camera.