Adventures with our little dude and little misses: Bastrop wildfire

I know everyone is aware that my Grandma and Uncle Jimmie lost their homes in the crazy wildfire in Bastrop and I've been pretty distracted during the past couple of weeks because of it, trying to coordinate getting items that our wonderful family and friends have donated to her, etc. I haven't taken very many pictures of the kiddos, but I will get Kinley's six month post up soon! In addition to my Grandma and Uncle losing their homes, my mom lost a lot of her items that were still at my Grandma's house as she was moving out and my Uncle Johnny lost all of his items as he just moved in with my Grandma. My Uncle Curtis lives across the street from them and was lucky that his house was untouched, however, he lost his sheds that had a lot of stuff in them and his Harley. I have several friends and a co-worker who lost everything they have as well. It's just a heartbreaking situation... something that you never think will happen to you or so close to home. We drove through some of my 'old stomping grounds' and it's just sad to see so much devastation. So many houses gone. Places that I've spent a lot of time at over the years. Even two weeks later, it still feels pretty unreal that this happened in my hometown and to so many people I know.

I have lived with my Grandma several times growing up, including 2 1/2 years after highschool. It's the only place that I have ever called or considered "home," aside from purchasing my own. And even though I've seen pictures and video of my Grandma's house since the fire, it was still a shocker to see it in person for the first time. Realizing that things will never be the same and sadly, that our memories are lost in those piles of rubble. Memories of happier times when my entire family was together and everyone actually got along. I can only remember a few holidays that weren't spent at my Grandparents' house and that's because we were living in Virginia. Their house was the center for everything we all did. As a young kid, I remember running down the long hallway into a living room that was filled high with Christmas presents. We would cram 20 people in the house for Thanksgiving dinner and then lay around. I used to watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy with my Grandma and Grandpa in the living room. I made pallets on the floor next to their bed and can still recall the noise from the fan and both my Grandma and Grandpa snoring. I remember playing with all of my Grandma's jewelry and finger nail polish in her bathroom and spending hours in front of her bathroom mirror just singing my heart out. We played some pretty competitive family games of badminton in the yard. I would play in their old cars all day long (dreaming about the day I turned 16, haha). We would take tadpoles from flooded areas and watch them grow into little frogs. I went crawdad fishing for the first time out there. We raced our bikes down the big hill (Pine Hill) more times than I can count. We begged to always spend the night with my Uncle Jimmie, where we played video games all night long and ate steak and eggs for breakfast. I can remember when my Uncle Curtis put his first shed up and I spent so much time over there learning how to play pool and listening to music. I hold way too many great memories there... at both houses and just on the property in general. I know there will be another house there, but I also know that it's just not going to ever be the same again and I feel so bad for all of them.

I am such a sentimental person and am pretty selfish for thinking about the things that *I* lost in that fire. I've flamed my parents before for not keeping up with our childhood memories and the few old pictures that I do have are ones that I snagged years ago. Everything else was lost over time. My grandmother, however, had a trunk full of keepsakes... notes and cards that my brothers and I had written when we barely knew our ABC's, a lot of old pictures and an old train set that she bought when my brothers were very young and I recently told her that I wanted it for Tyler. A bunch of things that I knew I would have one day. It just makes me so sad to think about all of those things being gone. About a year ago, I took a handful of old photos from her with intentions of making copies for myself and never gave them back. I am SOOOO glad I did that. I just wish I would have taken them all like I wanted to.

I think I told everyone that my family left with the clothes they were wearing and didn't have time to grab anything else. That's not entirely true. My Uncle grabbed a few guns and my Grandma grabbed a small lock box that was under her bed (I assume she saw it as she was trying to get the cats and just took it). She wasn't sure what she had in there and it took a few days before they were able to get into it because she didn't have the key. She ended up having several pieces of jewelry that hold sentimental value in there, including my Great Grandmother's wedding ring set. I am completely excited about this and am holding onto these items for safe keeping! It's amazing how important something becomes when you have lost everything.

Things are already looking up for my family. The community of Bastrop has really pulled together and has done an incredible job at helping. I'm very impressed and proud to say that's where I'm from. I have also been reminded at how wonderful our family and friends are. I am so thankful to each of you for checking in on my family and for some great donations to them. We are lucky to have such wonderful people in our lives. My Grandma is a very strong woman. She has a long road a head of "rebuilding," but she has a lot of love and support surrounding her and I know she will be okay. And I know that it won't be long before we're heading down to visit her in her new place and after we top the hill at the last stop light in Bastrop, viewing all the beautiful pine trees and area around, I'll look over at Travis and tell him, just like I always do, "This is my favorite part about Bastrop."

Our prayers are still with my family, our friends and everyone else in Bastrop who is having to start over.

Recap:

This is the first picture I saw on Facebook regarding the fires and when I realized just how serious this was since all of my family lives about a mile heading straight into the fire from this location.

This was the confirmation picture of my Grandma's house that my Uncle Johnny took while sneaking back in the area on Labor Day morning~

These are the pictures I took on Labor Day, on our way to Bastrop to offer a little help to my family once we found out their house was gone. It was an unbelievable sight, to say the least.

These are pictures that I took this past Saturday while we were down there. It's impressive to see/hear how the community has pulled together during this.

I can't imagine how long it will take for the clean-up process to happen, but we saw several people at their homes already clearing everything out and we saw several wreckers hauling off burned cars.