Fathers' Day Visit: Day One Was a Real Scorcher

Jeremy, Robin, and twenty-month-old Autumn were the first to arrive. Frank picked them up at San Francisco's airport mid-morning on Wednesday June 11th and drove them back to Livermore while I waited at home. The front door swung open and the first thing I heard was the "thud-thud-thud" of little feet; forget that "pitter-patter" nonsense. Autumn immediately spotted my welcome display of Thing 1 and Thing 2 on the red wing chair and charged over to snatch them up and show them to me. I was in Oklahoma just twelve weeks ago (see post for March 29, 2014) and what a change! Autumn is no longer a "stranger-danger" hesitant baby. She made clear at her entrance that this robust, chatty toddler was in charge here. I have no picture of her arrival to post because they all turned out blurry!

Thing One and Thing Two from Dr. Seuss' classic book The Cat in the Hat was the theme of
this weekend's double granddaughter Autumn and Vivian visit.

The first order of business after they arrived was lunch. With the two hour time difference between OK and CA they were starving. We sat down in the breakfast nook and as I gazed out the window I saw a thin plume of smoke and then... fire! We are experiencing a drought here and the grass open land beyond our backyard fence is very dry tinder. Our lunchtime entertainment was watching a small grass fire. We settled in Wednesday afternoon and watched Autumn explore her new domain. Frank and Jeremy went off together for "model train night" at a local railroader's garage here in Livermore. We had sausage and beef lasagna for dinner. Autumn, who is at a stage where she "doesn't eat meat", practically inhaled it. We awaited for Carrie's arrival from her drive up from Southern California with two-month-old Vivian and Snoopy.

When Carrie arrived at about 7:30 pm she let Snoopy out into our backyard, hurried into the house setting Vivian in her car seat down at the first available spot, and rushed to the bathroom. It seems in her 7.5 hour driving adventure she would not leave either Vivian or Snoopy alone in the car so she could go pee. Carrie selflessly waited til she got here. She admitted that the 32 ouncer she bought at a Starbuck's drive-through was not an extremely wise decision. Vivian flashed me the biggest smile while her mom was "occupied" and was a very happy baby as I extracted her from her car seat. My set of the real Thing 1 and Thing 2 was now complete!

As we sat down in the kitchen nook and gazed out window what did we see but ... FIRE! Again! This time it was nearer our house but luckily across on the other side of the creek. This grass was bigger, involving bushes and trees, and ran into the evening. I took some photos from the upstairs window.

Snoopy is on guard, even against the fire in the not-too-far distance of this photo.

I took this photo with the frame of the guest bedroom window showing
to give a sense of scale and distance for the fire.

Zooming in shows the fire was quite extensive but
we did have the natural firebreak of the bike path between it and us.

Just before nightfall, Jeremy and Frank took a walk over to the action area and Jeremy took some photos. We three women folk stayed home with the two babies. The smoke smell was quite strong and the fallout from the ashes fairly heavy so we stayed indoors with the windows shut.

Fireman battling flames.

The fire truck on the bike path is visible.

I think that is water being sprayed off toward the left.

Our cul de sac of five homes had a constant stream of traffic from lookie-loos trying to gawk at the flames and smoke through the space between our house and the neighbor's. We were to learn the next day just how far reaching the fire had been.

Our usually quiet street became like a high traffic flow rotary in Boston or Washington, DC.

Thus began our stretch of company with two arriving granddaughters and two fires on the very first day. Fire photos dominated granddaughter photos on this day when sleeping arrangements were being set up and folks were decompressing from traveling. My son Dan and my sister Maxine had yet to arrive. Here was the schedule for the upcoming days.

From Friday night 6/13/14 until Sunday afternoon 6/14/14 we had our peak guest count of seven.