Last Thursday, November 8th, there was something strange in the air. In the afternoon when I drove to pick up William from school I thought "Is there another fire or something?" The sky looks so eerie. Sure enough, that night I heard the news. There was a fire in Paradise, CA which is 175 miles north of San Francisco. We've had a few smokey days in the past so I didn't get too concerned. But on Friday morning you couldn't even breathe (or at least you didn't want to) when you went out side.
And it just didn't let up.
We tried to stay inside as much as possible; only leaving the house for school, swimming lessons, grocery shopping and work. Chris bought us masks for when we had to go outside (Stephen's still hasn't arrived yet though). We did indoor activities and brought out the new watercolors I had stored away for a rainy day (I wish it was a rainy day). The kids have painted almost everyday!
The air quality just kept getting worse. We reached the purple zone on the map, which is hazardous. And then yesterday, Friday the 16th, school was canceled for William because the district was concerned for the health of the kids getting to/from school and also the quality of the air in schools since it's not filtered.
So, yesterday we braved the outdoors so we could get to the California Academy of Sciences for the morning. I was a little sad that they had to close off their holiday exhibits because they were in open air parts of the museum but thankful they did for our safety. There was still plenty to do in the closed off portions. And William ran into a classmate so it was even better. We went to story time, had play time, looked at the penguins, went through the earthquake shake house exhibit and attended a session all about penguins. Then we braved the air to get home for nap time. It was worth it to have the experience but at the same time the air outside was so bad that even walking a block from the car to the museum had me second guessing myself.
And today we risked it again to get out of the house if only for a few hours. The SF MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) opened their permanent collection to the public for free this weekend because of the air quality outdoors. This was an amazing gesture. Not only had I not been to this museum in nearly 8 years but we could all go on a day when we literally had nothing else we could do (affordably) and we could all go for free. And they had great, breathable air! I was so grateful!
Chris had taken the kids one other time to the museum and Stephen was a little difficult to handle in such a fragile environment. It really wasn't any different today but after suffering one consequence he seemed to handle it much better.
After we walked through the collection we had each of the boys tell us which piece of art they liked the best and we took their photos next to it. William really liked the "Fire" exhibit, he thought it was actually moving! And Stephen really liked the gold monkey (sitting on Michael Jackson's lap).
To finish off the morning we ate lunch in the nearby food court. This was probably one of the more successful eating-out experiences we've had as a family! So, while we can't do our favorite things this week (like "go park" as Stephen says) we did have a couple of great experiences and made some memories.
It's been a really hard week: facing the reality of a massive fire and what that means to thousands of people who have lost everything and the increasing number of missing persons reported, the health concerns for everyone in the path of the smoke and the difficulty in staying indoors with two little kids who beg to go outside every day. We considered and even researched leaving the city for the weekend but it just wasn't feasible or at least it wasn't affordable. We're trying to stay as safe as we can and pray for rain. So far it doesn't look like we'll get a break from the smoke until Tuesday at the earliest.
If you are interested in seeing more of what it's like in the Bay Area with all the smoke, here are a few links to check out:
Before/After Photos of San Francisco
Air Quality Report for Friday November 16
Update on "Camp Fire"
Last Thursday, November 8th, there was something strange in the air. In the afternoon when I drove to pick up William from school I thought "Is there another fire or something?" The sky looks so eerie. Sure enough, that night I heard the news. There was a fire in Paradise, CA which is 175 miles north of San Francisco. We've had a few smokey days in the past so I didn't get too concerned. But on Friday morning you couldn't even breathe (or at least you didn't want to) when you went out side.
And it just didn't let up.
We tried to stay inside as much as possible; only leaving the house for school, swimming lessons, grocery shopping and work. Chris bought us masks for when we had to go outside (Stephen's still hasn't arrived yet though). We did indoor activities and brought out the new watercolors I had stored away for a rainy day (I wish it was a rainy day). The kids have painted almost everyday!
The air quality just kept getting worse. We reached the purple zone on the map, which is hazardous. And then yesterday, Friday the 16th, school was canceled for William because the district was concerned for the health of the kids getting to/from school and also the quality of the air in schools since it's not filtered.
So, yesterday we braved the outdoors so we could get to the California Academy of Sciences for the morning. I was a little sad that they had to close off their holiday exhibits because they were in open air parts of the museum but thankful they did for our safety. There was still plenty to do in the closed off portions. And William ran into a classmate so it was even better. We went to story time, had play time, looked at the penguins, went through the earthquake shake house exhibit and attended a session all about penguins. Then we braved the air to get home for nap time. It was worth it to have the experience but at the same time the air outside was so bad that even walking a block from the car to the museum had me second guessing myself.
And today we risked it again to get out of the house if only for a few hours. The SF MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) opened their permanent collection to the public for free this weekend because of the air quality outdoors. This was an amazing gesture. Not only had I not been to this museum in nearly 8 years but we could all go on a day when we literally had nothing else we could do (affordably) and we could all go for free. And they had great, breathable air! I was so grateful!
Chris had taken the kids one other time to the museum and Stephen was a little difficult to handle in such a fragile environment. It really wasn't any different today but after suffering one consequence he seemed to handle it much better.
After we walked through the collection we had each of the boys tell us which piece of art they liked the best and we took their photos next to it. William really liked the "Fire" exhibit, he thought it was actually moving! And Stephen really liked the gold monkey (sitting on Michael Jackson's lap).
To finish off the morning we ate lunch in the nearby food court. This was probably one of the more successful eating-out experiences we've had as a family! So, while we can't do our favorite things this week (like "go park" as Stephen says) we did have a couple of great experiences and made some memories.
It's been a really hard week: facing the reality of a massive fire and what that means to thousands of people who have lost everything and the increasing number of missing persons reported, the health concerns for everyone in the path of the smoke and the difficulty in staying indoors with two little kids who beg to go outside every day. We considered and even researched leaving the city for the weekend but it just wasn't feasible or at least it wasn't affordable. We're trying to stay as safe as we can and pray for rain. So far it doesn't look like we'll get a break from the smoke until Tuesday at the earliest.
If you are interested in seeing more of what it's like in the Bay Area with all the smoke, here are a few links to check out:
Before/After Photos of San Francisco
Air Quality Report for Friday November 16
Update on "Camp Fire"
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