A Bit out of the Every Day.....

So, you know how your life just goes along and you feel like nothing changes? Sometimes you just wish you had SOMETHING to break up the monotony, right? Well, today I got it! I was watching my kids "kidrope" and feeding Jaymeson breakfast when I notice a few firemen walk behind my house. I excitedly show my kids the firemen and continue on with my life. ADMITTEDLY that MAY not have been the brightest move. Luckily, I moved into the front room to pick up the "kid ropes" and see a fire truck parked right in front of our house. I was excited and took a picture (I had the camera in hand as I had just taken the pictures of my kids from the previous post)



As I check and see if it was a good picture, I turned my head and saw this:


8 firetrucks and about 50 firemen were right in front of my house! If you look closely, you can see that they had sectioned off the road so cars couldn't drive by or anything. It was then that alarms started to sound off in my head and I needed to figure out what the heck was going on. I saw no flames, but there were some people in my row of townhouses that were standing outside in house coats. When it's your very row of townhouses, you get a little panicked. I quickly asked what is going on. Apparently someone's furnace had exploded (like flames in a full circle around the basement) and somehow put itself out. Unfortunately, the gas in the furnace kept on leaking out and "apparently" that's a concern. I didn't know what to do. I felt somewhat safe with all those firemen ready to go, but still felt the urge to get OUT! I quickly (and kindly) made sure that no one was going to light anything (namely cigarettes....this lady smokes at least 5 packs a day, I swear). I ran inside and called Jarett to see what he thought. He didn't answer his cell because he was in class. So, I wrote him on MSN to explain what happened and he called me back in about 30 seconds flat. Told me to get out and run for the hills (essentially). As he did this, the firetrucks began to pull away. Things began to clear up and only one truck was left behind. They checked and made sure the gas remained off and the levels went down. Eventually they cleared out and all is well.....just a little excitement we had this morning!

The real irony of all this is that just yesterday, my kids brought home a fire safety pamphlet and we filled it all out and did all the "planning" for a fire. After they finish their pamphlet, they are entered into a draw for a free computer, so that's pretty cool. I thought SO light heartedly about it. Yeah, this is a good thing to know, but it's NEVER going to be a problem for us, right?!? Today hit me a little close to home.

If anyone doesn't know, my Grandparents house burned down when I was 11 and they lost almost EVERYTHING. The fire department didn't come for over 45 minutes after the call was made and they watched a roof fire become a gas fire and watched their house with all their memories from South Africa and all their kids childhood memories all evaporate into nothing. I know how horrid fires can be and I hope to NEVER have a repeat of today or anything like it.

It really made me think, though. What are the precious things (of course, after children) that I would HAVE to bring out of the house if I even THOUGHT there was going to be a fire. I know I'd grab my computer (all the pictures and memories on here are NOT replaceable) - I should probably back it up and have the backup somewhere else..... The boxes of pictures, the scrapbooks, my purse, my Journals. What else would you want to bring out?