House project

We have been making a lot of progress inside the house in any of our spare time. 

This is what we started with for a mantle. Just a raw piece of wood. 

We also picked up 2200 sq ft of sod to lay in the backyard

We did some rough sanding on the mantle, cleaned up some of the bark and put a little more char on it. Then we put a few coats of polyurethane on it.

Top

Bottom

We started working on the trim also

and finished up the painting inside

and got some of the trim put up also. We arent going to do the baseboards until we get the floor finished

We have started sanding on the floor and have it half done also

 Stained vs unstained

 I love all the character in the floor and it looks so much better in person!

BBQ for Sam

Sunday we spent the day getting all our fire trucks put back together, working on things at the fire station and programming radios. It was still a fire filled day. My Aunt has a niece (on her husbands side) that just moved to Utah with her girlfriend Sam and her son Mason. We first met Mindy and Mason when we went to Ohio 2 years ago. Then they came out here to visit us and fell in love with Utah. Not much later she met Sam. After some planning and talking they decided Utah was where they wanted to be! I can imagine its quite a culture shock! They said they cant believe how awful drivers are here and how fast they drive hahaha plus how many people have flipped them off. Gotta love our drivers. 

They have only been in Utah a week or so and Sams birthday was coming up. We had never officially met Sam but had been Facebook friends with her. The family decided to throw her a welcome to Utah and the family bbq birthday party. She was pretty surprised! 

Mom smoked ribs, everyone brought a side dish. We had ice cream cake and the kids ran wild. It was family, Todd and Jana, Dave and Betty, Phil, Justin and his daughter. In our 'family' it doesnt mean blood relations to be family. Its who is a part of your life. We did it usual driveway style!

Kennedy had been playing with her friends and was SOAKED before we came up so we made her change. Well when we got there all the kids were in grandmas pool. So she just swam with her clothes on! Then after dinner they all had a water balloon fight. 

Justin spent all dinner blowing up water balloons for the kids

 and it turned into a lets all get Justin fight

Hes a trooper with UHP but we still like him anyways hahaha

 Kennedy and his daughter McKayla playing in the pool

 Parker

Kennedy

It was nice to just relax for a little bit.. and then we got paged out on a small fire that night ha!

Portage Fire

So as we were headed to East Canyon... again.. and almost to Morgan.. again when another grass fire came in. This one was in Portage. We laughed and just kept driving. We made it to camp and relaxed maybe a whole 30 min when my dad called Todd and asked where in the hell we were because the fire had blown up on them, he was bringing in air attack and he needed us 3. The power had been out at East Canyon for 2 days.. the kids had swam their little hearts out and we were going to go home in just over 12 hours anyways. We all talked about it and decided since resources were SO strapped from the Willard Murray Hill fire and now there was another big fire we probably should just pack up camp and head home. So we did.

We got home, KayCee wanted to stay (which was perfect) so she watched Kennedy. Chirs picked up Taylor, Todd picked me up and we headed to Portage by 330 Saturday. They had the majority of the lower level flames knocked down by the time we got there 2 hours after it started. The fire had spread up the mountain side instead.

 They had a helicopter PJ7 out of Morgan. They had a pumpkin (the big orange pool) set up with a tender filling it so the helicopter could dip out of it.

 We went to command. Chris was over the North Division. We were tasked with quickly driving around and delivering food to the people working and then joining Chris. You burn A LOT of calories fighting fire for an hour or two. Replenishing those calories and keeping your stamina up to keep working is a big deal. 

 The 'road' we are on is one the county dozer (who contracts for wildland fires)  hurried and cut around the fire as a stop line.

Our job as the North East division was to climb this mountain. We had 3 SEATS (planes) and one helicopter working on making a line around the fire. Our job was to hike up along the burn edge, work the line and tie in with the air attack to secure the line.

 It was pretty steep

 One of the SEATS doing a drop. They had to fly right over the point of the mountain and try to drop the retardant down the hill.

 My helicopter selfie

 We are in radio communications with the air team but with the helicopter it helps if you tie flagging to your tool and show them exactly where you need a drop and how you want it. 

This is Chris directing them in

 and Todd doing the same. This is roughly 300 gallons of water. The pilot has his door open on the bird and is hanging out partially as he is flying the helicopter in and watching you so he can see where its dropping. When youre close to the area you stop work and keep an eye on the bird just in case. Which makes it great for taking pictures! Then as soon as the water or retardant drops you go to work. 

 We had a crew of 3 with us 4 plus a sawyer and his crew all working the north east end.

 Taylor

 The view from almost the top.

 Thats I-15 down there at MM 399.

 Top of the mountain

 Sawyer

 Chris and Taylor

 We got the perimeter secured and hiked back down right before dark. These are spot fires and torching trees from the bottom.

We worked that fire until about 11 at night.