Day 6 – Jan 5 2022

With an impending snowstorm, we spent a lot of time in the morning figuring out what to do. How will we get the kids to school, do the shopping/errands we need to do, and all get back to Longmont safely in a snowstorm?

Well, that answer is taking the kids somewhere else instead of to Primrose Flatirons, which is 40 minutes away.

Kids at new school – Thanks to our school’s leadership team, the director of the Primrose Longmont school had already offered us a space for whenever we need it. So we called her at 7:30am on the dot to ask if we could bring them for the day. She confirmed they’d be happy to take them any day we need, so we broke the news to Avery that she was going to a different school.

We dropped them off, which was pretty hard for Avery, given the circumstances. But we heard she had a great day.

As could be expected, when she got home it was a bit of a disaster. This is the hardest thing we’ve ever had to get through, and her life is just being torn, shaken, and changed every day. And she doesn’t understand it all yet. We’re hopeful that once we’re back in Boulder/Broomfield, we can get back into a routine that feels more normal for her – even if we’re still completely thrown off ourselves.

Short term housing (now until Feb 6) – The day started with Kate panic-messaging 3 additional VRBO hosts. After the conversation with the landlord who wasn’t excited about cats (despite a pet-friendly listing), it was starting to feel like we might have no options. Luckily, a middle-of-the-night research session surfaced some more.

It seems that people in the community are posting their homes, and then if it can be used by a displaced family they’re finding elsewhere to stay. We heard back from one promising rental, and planned to go see it at 10am.

When we arrived at the house, it was super cute!! It’s on a narrow (and ice covered) street in Boulder, and is over 100 years old. It’s beautifully furnished, has 4 bedrooms and will work just fine for us for a few weeks.

The owner, Kim, seems great. She listed her house just this week for families like ours. She is planning to get an apartment or hotel in Denver for a few weeks so that we can have her house. The kindness even of strangers is completely overwhelming right now.

We moved quickly to get Kim hooked up with our relocation company so she can get paid and go book her accommodations. People are amazing.

REI – Next up, was shopping. We received so much for the kids, they need basically nothing at this point. And we’ve even donated some of the stuff we received since we don’t have anywhere to store things. For us, it’s a little different. Lauren stocked us both up at Old Navy, so we’ve been comfortable. We need snow boots, heavy socks, and some hoodies/jackets — so, to REI we go! The REI in Boulder is offering 20% off for anyone affected by the fires, so we went to town.

As you can probably imagine, we’ve had lots of offers for donated clothes. We just want to pick our own stuff, and not wear someone’s old sweatshirt they don’t need anymore. This whole ordeal is sad enough as it is, I don’t need someone else’s sweat stains on my clothing.

The best part was that we overhead a couple women talking at REI, and checked in with them on if they were impacted by the fires. Turns out, one of them is our neighbor with the beautiful Burmese Mountain dog down the street! We hadn’t met them before, but we chatted for a while, exchanged info, and got them connected to our neighborhood Slack. We’re going to meet up for drinks at some point here, they were awesome, and we’re so sad we weren’t friends before this.

The House – As we were leaving REI, we got news that our neighborhood is now open to residents. We’d already gotten the placard needed to get access, so we headed right down. Nick had been up close before, but Kate hadn’t.

When we got there, a few of our close neighbors were already there. As we walked around, trying to identify anything we could, more and more neighbors came to join us. Soon, we were all across the street hugging, chatting, and updating each other on where we are, what our plans our, etc. Leigh had brought coffee for everyone, and even set up a nice little table and chairs to make it feel like home.

As we stepped out of the car, we saw two wheels and a crossbar.

Approaching the garage, one of the first things Kate saw was the numbers from the house. We decided we’d start collecting anything of note that we found, and put them in the mailbox for safe keeping.

We circled and circled and circled.

Talked to more neighbors, circled some more.

Right in front of the car in the garage, we saw a piece of a piggy bank sitting on top of the rubble. These banks were gifts from Grandmom and PopPop when Avery and Theo were born, a Thomas family tradition. Kate has a bank from when she was born back in Pennsylvania.

So, using a long piece of metal from the pile, we rescued the piggy butt.

It was hard to leave. Just wanted to keep digging and keep searching. But the snow was coming soon, and we had to get moving to get back to Longmont safely before the roads got bad.

Eric and Amy – All day, we’d been trying to get a few minutes of Eric and Amy’s faces. We swung by on our way from Louisville to Longmont to give them a quick update and chat. Luckily, Kim’s house in Boulder is just 1.6 miles from Eric and Amy – so we’re hoping we’ll see them a lot more in January. They’ve organized a meal train for us, so we’re basically covered for food for a while. We’re so grateful to have them here with us.

In the evening, we picked up the kids, ate some yummy leftover Chinese food, and attempted to make a plan for Thursday that provides a little bit of down time to breathe. It’s been pretty hard to breathe.