I'm so glad your family is all safe, and that their home survived! It's hard to believe on several levels, but it almost looks like they had fun at the dentist's office!

I love how the dentist's wife is holding aloft a toothbrush in the one picture. "We may have evacuated our homes because of wildfires, but by God we'll have clean teeth!" :)

Wow, what a great story of their experience - with all the tragedy on the news, it's good to have the humor.
Nice to have dentists as neighbors, particularly with the snazzy office!

I did not know your sister lived in SoCal. I am glad they had someplace to go and the good humor to deal with it gracefully! And we know that if they didn't grab their toothbrushes on the way out, they were covered.
Be well.

"Bogart the sleeping bag" Heh. Good one. Looks like sister and fambly truly made the best of the situation.

What a relief that your sister's house was spared and everyone is well. For what it's worth, I greatly admire your family's approach to a crisis. I TRY to embrace that philosophy, but seldom with as much success. Thanks for a very thought provoking post!

Great attitude for your family. Worry enough to do what can be done and then forget it because it won't do any good anyway. And humor can salvage almost any situation. Great that it turned out as all right as it could and was an adventure for the kids.

I hear you on the Flicker Thing. I grew up in central California in an old wood farmhouse. We had a continual battle with the flickers to keep them out of our attic. The only thing that worked was to run out when you heard the banging and throw something at them. And then nail metal over the holes they made. Good luck!

I like the idea of nailing metal over the flicker holes; if there were enough birds pecking holes a person could end up with a house that looked like a pine cone. I used spackle to fill in the woodpecker holes in the old siding. Kind of looked like the house had acne or chicken pox. Not attractive.

Hooray for survival in the face of those horrid fires and for smiling with clean teeth while making the best of it.

My first thought on seeing the pics: "I wonder if Cuzzin C was directed to swish and spit the wine." My second thought was, "Man, that's some snazzy bedwear for a wildfire refugee." Of course, both those thoughts followed the "Whew, I'm glad they're safe" one.

Nights here in Mongolia are now dipping below zero. Some of us are secretly wishing California would share a little fo that fire. Just a little, mind you.

I'm so glad that your sister's home survived! Things here were pretty intense for a while, but I love your family's attitude (there was a little of that going on here; we had a huge spaghetti party with our evacuees -- classy wine included) -- I'm going to have to cultivate more of that!

I'm dying for more on the flicker story here. Is this a cliffhanger?

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed the swanky bedroom attire. :-)

I'm very glad your sister is OK!!

A story to amuse you (I hope)... The house I spent most of my growing-up time in had cedar siding on the back. The area has a lot of woodpeckers. You can imagine what started happening once we moved in. At the time my dad volunteered as a starter for swim meets. One night, as a woodpecker was doing his thing--at 2AM--my normally mild-mannered dad got so mad that, you guessed it, he went and got his starting pistol and fired it out the window. Woke the neighbors, scared the crap out of us, but it was several days before the woodpeckers came anywhere near the house.

Took me a few years to develop that attitude, I call it my "stuck-in-traffic philosophy of life". Goes like this: you're stuck in traffic. You can (as almost everyone around you is doing), swear, cry, pound the steering wheel and cuss. The traffic doesn't move. OR, you can sing along with the radio, knit or read. The traffic doesn't move. But instead of being worn out, hot and sweaty, frustrated and nursing a bleeding ulcer -- you've turned a heel, thought up a new dance move or disappeared into somewhere exciting for the duration. Yes, HOORAY for your sister et. al., snazzy white satin-looking sleep duds &c. And that dentist? His actions constitute the very *definition* of "mitzvah"; the thin English definition is "good deed". Such actions are rewarded - some call it "karma" (and behold, their home is safe!) Thanks so much for sharing all that, m'dear, and please thank Sis for the pictures.

Thank you. I laughed till I cried, reading that. We weren't in the fires, but we knew people who were and we were holding our breath. Thank goodness for the funny memories your fambly gets to take home, and thank you for sharing them.

Yes we Third Culture kids truly know how to adapt to anything! It is such a tremendous talent to have especially in the face of such bad circumstances.

I'm happy that your sister is passing on your family's great attitude about dealing with tough times. And I love her dog hogging the sleeping bag. (Maybe it is a hint he'd like his very own for their next adventure or sleepover.)