January 27

Over the weekend, we took Autumn out of LA for some hiking and a change of scenery. Getting back on Sunday afternoon, we resumed work on the house, meeting with several people to better understand the contours of rebuilding. LA got rain Sunday and today, leading to snow on the mountains due to the colder temperatures, but no reports of significant erosion in Altadena thus far. We plan to revisit the property later this week to assess any changes. 

Autumn is really enjoying the temporary daycare, where she made some banana nut bread that she brought back and shared with us. We're still hopeful that she can rejoin her regular daycare class soon. The daycare has completed remediation work and we are waiting on the results of post-remediation testing to make sure it's safe for Autumn to return. 

We have one more week of working on the fire issues full time, then we'll have to return to our regular jobs and work on these issues in our evenings and weekends. Phase 1 of the remediation work, being done by the EPA, has officially started today. This phase will remove all identifiable hazardous waste from the burn areas (batteries, gas canisters, chemicals, etc.) before Phase 2, when the lots will be bulldozed and soil removed. From what we've heard, Phase 1 may take 2 months or so to complete.