Parsons 411: May in a nutshell

Well thank goodness for the I-Phone, or I may not have anything to show for this year.

My goal of dragging my big camera around with me more is now next year's goal.

Here is May.

Graham had his pre-school Mother's Day tea.

He has been so lucky to have two of his very best buds in his class for the last two years....who also happen to be littles of two of my dear friends, so it works out for all.

Graham and (little) Addison

swimming with buddy Brayden.

Two peas in a pod, these two are.

So sad they will be at different schools next year.

Addison had her Daisy troop field trip to the Ice Skating Rink.

This was the same week we had a heat wave, so I believe it was about 95 degrees out, but it was fun for them to pretend it was cold and bundle up a bit.

California kids.

We took advantage of the heat wave and found ourselves here a lot.

We heart La Costa.

I've obviously been doing my job when I find them like this at 4pm.

More La Costa fun. Addison was grateful that I documented her crown before it popped getting in the car 2 minutes later.

One thing I will miss SO much about California is the color you find year round on the trees.

This month, it's these beauties.

They are my absolute favorite.

And these were left over from April's tree.

We've had such great weather, there has been a lot of time spent outside soaking up the sun.

May Grey came way late this year.

And as I said, we have spent a lot of time here.

Most date nights and date days are here....thanks to the childcare.

When you don't have family around to help, La Costa is where it's at.

There have been beach days

and lots of pool days

and then there was this day.

Graham and I were in Target purchasing our replacement car seat from our accident in Houston.

I took this picture and sent it to Andy for an opinion.

Right at this time I'm taking this picture, a firestorm was starting outside just a couple of minutes away from us.

i got out of Target and saw smoke, and was a little alarmed since there had been a fire on the news the day before about 20 miles from us.

What I saw at first looked like there might be a house on fire way in the distance.

As I kept driving towards home, I started to panic because it was just getting bigger and looked to be coming from the general area of our house.

When I got very close, I saw that it was just north of where we live and exploding in size.

I raced home and turned on the news, all while calling Andy and friends and trying to decide on whether I should go pull Addison out of school.

We still didn't even know where it was coming from, what it was, or where it was headed.

My neighbor took this picture on our street to give you an idea of what we saw.

Scary, right? It looks like it was so close, and it was, but it was still a good mile and a half away.

As I watched the news I could not believe what I was seeing.

A 50 foot tall wall of fire that stretched about a quarter mile long was crossing the 6 lane street that is the main thoroughfare where we live. It was right by the gym that I was supposed to have gone to a class at that morning but at the last minute had decided Target sounded more appealing.

The news showed the wall of fire go right by homes and we started to receive news that some were burning but had no idea how many.

I could see orange flames for hours outside our bedroom window in the valley below.

Thankfully for us, the wind was blowing the firestorm west, new fires started to pop up all day, and you just didn't know where one was going to be next. Around 1pm, I went and pulled Addison out of school and started packing to evacuate.

We never got an official evacuation notice but the line was about a couple blocks from us, and I had just never seen anything like it. The guy across the street was starting to hose off his roof.

I called Andy and told him to get home.

As the day went on, the black smoke turned to white, which is supposed to be a good sign, but every so often you would see a ball of black and think another house was burning.

Like this. And then the winds changed and instead of going west, they started to go East.

I just can't imagine what it was like for those neighborhoods in the midst of it.

The work the firefighters did was nothing short of AMAZING.

They were able to save SO many houses, schools, businesses, etc.

By evening, I felt like we were in the clear as far as evacuating.

There was an eerie smoke filled sunset that night.

After three days of fires, we were able to drive around a bit and get an idea of the damage the fire closest to us did.

We went to one of our favorite parks, where both of my kids have had birthday parties and the entire canyon below it had burned as well as some houses and the recreation center.