Crafting in the Dark before Evacuation

This is not our house....but it looks like it could be.  We have not needed to evacuate our pets, yet, but we have 6 cat carriers ready for as many as we can stuff inside without them squabbling too much!

Hi, Friends.....

As some of you realize, my granddaughter and I have evacuated our house because of the raging wildfires surrounding us.  I hope the rest of the family will join us tomorrow.  We lost power for 4 days....but that is much better than the projected 2 week outage that we had feared.  Our house is mostly out of danger now, but we have neighbors who are still in very high-risk areas.  This has been extremely scary and we owe an incredible debt of gratitude to the courageous firefighters and to our neighbors who have been on the lines fighting to save our community. Some literally have been very close to losing their lives to the flames.   Our entire community and the town of Kamiah in the valley (besides other areas) would have been totally in ashes without their help.  How can you even begin to thank people for that kind of dedication????

During the power outage before we evacuated, my son, daughter, granddaughter and I made small thank you cards to be placed in the firefighter lunches that were being prepared each day by the community.  Here are some photos of us crafting in the dark, with headlights and flashlights for illumination.  (Sorry the photos are not very good quality...taking pictures in the dark isn't that great!!!)  We big people included handwritten expressions of our gratitude, but Andrea, age 4 (nearly 5 years old), helped with cutting the cardstock to size and stamping the sentiments inside.

My chair is vacant, since I am taking the photos.

  

My daughter, Betsy, and her daughter, Andrea.

 

My son, James, who also has worked like crazy to help secure our property.

Here are our cards all in a pile.  Some of the 4 yr old stamping is a tad bit catty-whompus!  :)

These extremely small tokens of our thanks can never approach expressing our appreciation to these brave people for risking their lives for us.  We are humbled and so grateful to the Lord for His protection.  So far our house has been spared.  We don't know what the next few days will hold.  We appreciate your prayers for the safety of our communities and for that of all firefighters across the West who are giving such dedicated service.  

We can never repay you brave people, but we give you our undying thanks.

<3 
Janis 

Thank you for the honor of entering this project in the following challenges:
1. Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Kids Summer Vacation Challenge  

2. DL.ART Thankful Thursday Challenge #162 - Thank You
3. Little Scrap Pieces - Show it Off Saturday Linky Party