November 23, 2078

I can't believe it. I'm a father. Last night, Kelly went into labor and now I'm the father of a the most beautiful baby girl on the planet. I can't believe it. It's just all so much to take in. I have to sit down. I have to make this work because I'm doing it for her now, not me.

Just wow.

Anyways, Kelly would like to say something to you.

Hi. It's Kelly here. God I'm tired. Happy but tired. I just want to say again, thanks for everything. I think most of you are really weird, and possibly clinically insane in some cases, but you've been here for us and that means a lot. With all we've been through it means so much to both of us to have so many people so far away rooting for us, praying for us, hoping for us. In those first days it kept us from losing ourselves in the enormity of what we had to deal with.

We'd like to ask your help in a very very important task. We'd like suggestions as to what to name our daughter. We have a couple ideas, but after everything, we think you deserve at least a chance to give us some suggestions.

Alright? Giving this back to my husband now. It's hard to type on this thing while holding a baby, my baby, and there are not words to describe how tired I am right now. Good night, everyone.

H. Me again.

I could go on all night but I need to get you up to date and answer some questions.

Roberta's back, and miraculously one of her children survived the attack along with her kid sister, Rose. Her sister lived with her parents and they were babysitting her daughter when the bombs struck. Her son was at school, and her husband at work. They didn't survive. According to Bear they found both the bodies. The husband was killed in the attack, the son, he suggested it was best not to ask. Considering that most schools have civil defense shelters, and that the shelters proved to have insufficient supplies, I think I know what happened and I really wish she didn't have to see that.

What happened to her parents was very sad. They had a basic shelter in their basement, one of those home kits that they sold before the attack I have a copy of the catalogue on Holodisc from when I was doing research. It's pretty interesting stuff. If you want I can post a copy up.

*FILE*
E-Z Form Individual Survival Home (EZFISH) Owners Manual
*FILE*

Well, back on topic, away from my disrespectful tangent, along with their child and grandchild, they both made it to the shelter, but her mother died of a heart attack soon after from the stress. The father survived, but but when it became clear that there was not enough food and water for everyone, he decided "to go out for a stroll". I know its a grim thing to say, but I can't help but admire his courage. It's one thing to make a snap decision while staring down an exploding hydrogen bomb. It's another to decide, after soul searching and personal discussion to give up your life so your loved ones can survive. I hope I can prove to be half the father he did.

Now I'm not going to judge, as I understand why she did and I would have done the same, she and bear came home with another 50 mouths to feed, all survivors from her home town. That brings us to 250, and stretches our supplies and housing to the limit. Thankfully, Roberta had them strip as many supplies from the town as they could before moving out. Otherwise I'd have had to cut our already thin rations. At the moment I think I have enough for 6 months. 6 months food for 250 people. That's a lot of food and it makes you painfully aware of how difficult it is to survive.

Still, housing is proving to be a problem. We are a bit tight before, but now its even more problematic. Even with the log cabins we were able to erect, we still have little in the way of privacy. To make matters worse, far too many people are living in cabins not designed for winter habitation, or even worse, canvas tents. At least we have an abundance of firewood, being in the middle of a fucking forrest and all.

The palisade we're constructing is basically two wooden log fences placed about three foot apart, one 15ft high, the other 11 foot high, with the area in between filled with with earth and the posts buried 3ft deep. Right now we haven't done much more than plot it out, as housing is our top priority. Water and power aren't much of a problem either. There's a well here, and the ranger station has a small geothermal heat-pump/power generator. Combine that with the camper's fission reactor, and as long as we don't waste power we can generate enough power to handle the necessities.

We also have been scouting the park for anything of value and have an entire building full of salvage we need to sort and decontaminate.

I've had more time to take stock of the expertise of my people and thankfully there are a couple farmers. I let them take a look at my seed back and have talked to them about the possibility. I don't have enough seed to feed everyone but assuming we can find new soil, we can start growing in the spring. It won't be enough to feed everyone, and we'll have to save it all for seed, but we'll be able to farm enough to feed everyone the next year. According to some of the manuals they were able to provide, by next year the soil will be safe, especially if we scrape off the first 2-6 inches and are careful about what we plant where.

That said, these are the same manuals that said the fallout would only last a couple weeks and not 3 fucking months with spots of glowing green radioactive snow. Goddamned B-movie physics. Still, we're going to run out of canned food eventually and we'll need to have something to eat.

We don't have an Autodoc. Actually, let me correct that. We don't have a WORKING Autodoc. We found one in the main in park clinic, but some of its parts were burned out by the EMP of the attack. To make matters worse, the area we found it in is pretty close to ground zero, which means the only one of us who can comfortably enter and look for parts is Lucas, or me if I'm willing to see if I have more than one Regeneration. Uncomfortably, we could do a run using Rad-X and our Radiation suits, but frankly we don't have an endlessly supply and with winter here, its not like we'd be able to access it without a snowmobile or a long overland trek straight into the mouth of hell.

Finally, we now have a robot besides the Fruit Fucker. Roberta brought a damaged Mr. Handy with her. He's not working yet, but at least Kelly's got a project besides the baby.