Devastating fire, 40th reunion, visit to Reno, visit with my friends

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The devastating fire in Santa Rosa continued for almost 2 weeks.  The house where I was staying in Santa Rosa, Sylvia's, we had to be evacuated for 6 nights.  Luckily no homes in the area were touched and there was no smoke damage in the house.  We never lost electricity so our freezers didn't defrost.

On the 11th of October I left for 3 nights and 4 days with 5 of my best friends from UCSF Nursing School.  We had a reunion to celebrate our graduation 40 years ago.  Karen Lahl hosted us at her family cabin in North Shore, Lake Tahoe.  Karen is from Vacaville.  Then we had Cathy from Sacramento, Jean from North Carolina, Leslie from Vermont, Cheryl from Burlingame, CA and myself.  We spent 4 days talking non-stop and catching up.

We enjoyed the beautiful Lake Tahoe out our front door and went walking to see some of the sights.  We hope every 5 years to continue the tradition!  What fun we had!  Amazingly no one looked much older from when we graduated! Ha!

Saturday night the 14th I spent with Rose and Bob Coibion in Roseville, alumni from many visits.  Bob is our builder and advisor in building.

Sunday morning, my brother, sister-in-law and Major came up to pick me up and we traveled on for  2 days in Reno, Nevada to visit with my brother-in-law Mike.  We managed to do some shopping and lots of yummy eating.

When we came home Tuesday, the 17th we were able to move back into Sylvia's house.  She had moved back the evening before when they lifted the mandatory evacuation order.  It was nice to be home and the fires were slowly being contained.

This week we have been busy catching up on eye doctor appointments, shopping, seeing friends, all the things we missed for 2 weeks because of the fires.  Many roads are still closed and many houses were lost.  It is estimated that almost 90,000 acres burnt, 5700 homes and businesses burnt down.  90,000 fire fighters from Australia, Canada and states as far a ways as Florida came to work.  Two of the three hospitals in town were closed down for 12 days!  We know so many people that lost their houses and everything!

My niece Tracy had dinner with the family on Wednesday night  had dinner with us.  She works for PGE (Gas and Electric Company in California) and they had been sent to get electricity and gas back on after the fires.  We were happy to be able to see and visit with her.

We had dinner and lunches with many friends and Chidamoyo alumni this week.  Today we had a good-bye BBQ with my family.  Tomorrow we have to start packing--should take a long time with all we bought!  We leave early Tuesday morning to head back to Chidamoyo from San Francisco!

 News and picture of Santa Rosa fire




 Leslie, Cathy, Jean, Kathy, Karen and Cheryl--UCSF School of Nursing 1977!

 Kathy and Cathy

                                                          Ladies cooking breakfast together

Cathy, Karen, Sheryl, Kathy, Leslie and Jean--Cl.ass of 1977!

 Celebrating 8th birthday for great nephew Maximo (upper right corner) 

 In Reno with brother Dennis

 Family dinner with niece Tracy--head of the table

Sister-in-law Kathy, myself, Great nephew Alec, sister Kim and nephew Marc


 Chidamoyo Alumni Rick and Sue Hahn

With church friends and Chidamoyo alumni

 Matt and Dr. Megan Fitzpatrick--Chidamoyo alumni from this year

Friends from church I grew up with any their mom

Dr. Stephane Hwuang and Jeff in middle--Chidamoyo alumni from June 2017

 Dereka, Maximo, March (nephew) and Alec McCarty

Nephew Mapi Maparara


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