Malibu Fire Update - Tuesday, October 23, 2007

We are still stuck on campus. The Pacific Coast Highway is still closed as is Malibu Canyon, Topanga Canyon, and Kanan Road. Yesterday, we were still able to get out for a brief bit and take some back streets to Ralphs to get some much needed food. While out we took a few pictures. The first picture and this one below are actually from on campus. You can see the fire burned right down to the administration building and melted the light and burned the paint off the stop sign in the main parking lot.
These next two pictures show the damage down in Malibu next to Ralphs. For those of you familiar you will see the Malibu Yo sign on the left and see how the bank tower has collapsed. Also, you can see the standing water around the fountain left from the fire fight.

Finally, this is a picture heading back up to campus. This is looking north over the burned castle. Pepperdine is to the left of the picture and the fire is moving towards the right of the picture. For now we look to be in the clear, hopefully!

October 21, 2007 - Malibu Wildfire

11:30 p.m. on Saturday, I was getting ready for bed and I asked Tara, "Do you smell smoke?" She said she didn't think so. We went outside to check and it smelled faintly like a campground in the summertime. Tara said, "This won't be good" because the Santa Ana winds were already blowing 40 mph plus. About 4:30 a.m. Sunday, our power went out. Tara had just got up with Caleb because he called out to her and she got back into bed and said our power just went out, must be the winds or something. Right before 6 a.m., Tara got the call on her cell phone we thought would come some day, "There is a fire in the area, get ready to contact your students."

Because of the power outage and it still being dark, info was still scarce because nobody could turn on the TV. I decided to go out and listen to the radio in my car, beause I knew the morning drive/news stations would be covering the fire. These two pictures are what I saw when I walked outside...Not what you want to see at six in the morning. By 6:45 a.m. we got the call that we, and the rest of campus was to relocate to the Tyler Campus Center, which houses the Cafeteria and also is the equivalent of the Student Union building. This picture shows where we were going.



Even though it sounds a little off at face value, Pepperdine's Emergency Preparedness plan is a "shelter and place" plan rather than an evacuation. The reason for this is simple. There are only three main ways to get in and out of Malibu, and in the case of a wildfire it would be crazy to send 2000 plus people out onto those roadways clogging them up while the fire personnel are coming to fight the fire. Also the danger of sending people out onto the roads that the fire is racing towards is very high. However, it is frustrating because the news agencies like to sensationalize things, just a bit and phrases like, "Pepperdine students are being held captive on their campus" comes out. Also you have interviews with our administration where the news anchor says I just don't understand, why don't you get them out. Really, the safest place to be is right here on campus, in one place, surrounded by over 400 firefighters, 6-8 water dropping helicopters, fire chiefs and red cross staging on campus, and a two week supply of food and water!



Around 8 a.m. the fire came over the ridge and really began "Threatening Campus". Again, we were safe because we were down on the front of campus, in a stucco building, with tile roof, surrounded by concrete plazas and parking lots. Also, right out front of this building are two large ponds and the helicopters were using these ponds to fill up. For the next 4-5 hours we sat in the cafeteria watching the helicopters fly in and fly out and fight the fire around us. They fought the line of the fire threatening our campus and no structures were burned. Late afternoon we were able to go home and it was a relief to be able to eat at home and sleep in our own bed.



The fire has currently moved east about 2 miles but the winds are still blowing and it is only 10 percent contained. The roads are still closed and we are asked not to leave campus. We are thankful for everyone who planned and fought this fire. It isn't over yet but 24 hours ago it looked a lot different than now.

I have uploaded some video to YouTube. The current videos are shorts that I filmed on our camera. I will put longer ones up later today, as long as the power stays on. Thanks for your prayers, calls and texts! They were appreciated.

More Videos

As I said earlier, Caleb was extremely talkative last night at dinner. I've put up a few videos showing this. Enjoy!

New Video

There is a new video on the left. This is about 3 weeks or so ago. Caleb is talking pretty well by this time as you can tell. I will hopefully upload another one tomorrow showing him talking during dinner tonight! Enjoy...

Words

I've finally tabulated the words Caleb now knows. All the information I've read says that at 18 months it is normal for a child to know 10-15 words and a few 2 word phrases. Our pediatrician was actually suprised when he asked Tara about Caleb's language development. He asked Tara if Caleb understood simple instructions. He said, "Does he understand a phase like go get your shoes, so we can go to the park?" At that, Caleb said, "Shoes, Park, go Park, go Park, Park? Park!" Our doctor said, "Oh I'm sorry, he definitely has a handle on his language." Tara went on to explain that he has been talking for a while now and learning 3-5 words a day it seems. His pronounciation is that of a toddler but it is definitely understandable. For some of these I have written how he says them. Again, these are words he can recognize and says. And of course this isn't exhaustive. There are words he has been saying for over a month that I just remembered today.

So now, here are the 140+ words that Caleb knows, in Alphabetical order:

(He knows all the letters and numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 so those aren't included)

ah choo, airplane, Albie, Andrew, ant, animal, apple, apple sauce, arrow, Aunt Carrie, Aunt June, baa, baby, ball, balloon, bang, bark, bat, bath, bear, beep, bike, bird, Bob, bonk, boo boo, Book, bottle, bowl, box, bread, broom, brush, bubbles, bug, button, bye-bye, Ca Ca (Jessica), car, cards, cat, chair, cheese, Chicago, clock, cold, Cole, cup, dadda, dirt, dog, don't, do, door, down, drill, duck, ears, eggs, EmyOoo (Emyloo), Eric, eyes, fan, fish, flower, gate, girl, glasses, gopher, grandma, grandpa, grass, hammer, hat, hawk, heart, HeyCo (helicopter), high, hot, ice, Ice Cream, I'm me, juice, jump, knee, knife, leaves, light, lotion, low, mama, man, mine, mole, moo, moon, more, muck, ni night, Nicole, no no, nose, off, OK, on, page, pancake, park, paste, pee pee, pig, plate, please, Pooh, quack, rock, run, shells, shirt, shoe, star, Steve, tall, teeth, thank you, toast, toes, tools, trash, tray, tree, truck, uh oh, uncle, uncle chuck, Up, vacuum, water, watermelon, whoa, yay, yes....and counting daily! :)

New Pics

I have added a few pictures in the album on the left. Check them out.

I am still compiling the words Caleb is saying and will hopefully be able to get those up here very soon! His fever is now gone, but he slept twice as much as normal today and went down for bed earlier than usual as well. I guess he is catching up on his lost sleep while being sick.

Caleb - 18 Months

Caleb has been sick the past three days. The doctor said yesterday he was on the back end of having croup. He is beginning to be more like himself but is still has a little less energy than normal.

At the check up he was 33.5 inches tall and 24 lbs, 12 ozs. He has lost about a pound this week because of his sickness and that puts his weight at the 30th percentile for boys his age (he has been right there all along it seems). Also, he is in the 80th percentile for height (again, pretty consistent all along). He is growing great and talking so much.

More will come tonight. I will put up some more pictures from this week, and list out the words he is saying and recognizing!

All sorts of new stuff

As promised new photos are uploaded to the flickr album on the left. The pictures are mostly from our trip to see Grandma and Grandpa Mize and Uncle Colin in Pleasanton, CA. We had a great long weekend with them. You will see Caleb being his normal busy self.

Also, I have embedded a youtube player so you can watch videos with an easy click. Now they are small and if you want to watch them in full screen then simply click on the youtube link below the video player (or double click on the video player). The only tricky thing is that it is going to play on the blog and in the new youtube window, so stop playing the blog video before you go to youtube, or you will hear double sound. There is a few new videos btw, so check them out!

The newest video was tonight at dinner. He was very talkative so I wanted to capture his words. He says a lot in the 2 minutes spliced together.

Slowly but surely I'm getting better at this video creation. It is actually sort of fun! But time consuming. Anyway enjoy the new stuff!!!

Tonight's the night

Sorry, I didn't get around to uploading new pics last night...tonight however, they will appear, almost mysteriously in the album on the left.

Two new videos

I've uploaded two new videos of Caleb. He turns 18 months in a few days now, but is already talking so much and figuring things out.

One of the videos is him learning how to snap and unsnap his buttons on his onesie. The second is great parenting! Letting him eat whipped cream!

Enjoy!! More pics will be up tomorrow of our trip to the Bay Area to see Grandma and Grandpa Mize.

http://youtube.com/reedingroughrider