I've Been Tagged

I've been tagged by Diane at A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words, to go to my 4th album and pick out the 4th picture on my computer. Well, I didn't think this picture would come up. It's a pretty frightening story, so I'll tell you how it started. See the firetruck there? Yes parked out on the road in front of my house. Well, look to the bottom right at the date. Yes, it was Christmas morning last year. This is how it all started.... Usually on Christmas Day, we have Christmas Dinner at my mom's house. We've done that for years. Last year, I really wanted to host Christmas Dinner at my house because we had just moved in, and I was ready to entertain. My mom relented, and decided to let me go ahead with it. I was so excited, because in all the nine years I'd been married, I never had to opportunity for such a special occasion. I set my alarm for Christmas morning for 5:00 am, to set out the rolls to rise. We have a wood burning fireplace that we love. Chad usually keeps it going all winter, and it's so cozy. Well, I stayed up that morning because I smelled something burning. I checked on the boys, and they were both sound asleep. I didn't see smoke in the house, so I figured the damper was open on the fireplace, and the wind just blew some smoke in the house. The smell got worse, but, I just put my chicken on the stove top to boil. I waited probably until about 6:00 to wake Chad up (he is not a morning person like me). I told him it smelled like smoke, could he get up and check on it. He did the same thing I did, checked on the boys, yadayadayada.. We have an alarm system, so he disabled it, and actually went outside to get some more wood to put on the fire, as it had fizzled during the night. About that time, our alarm system went off. How embarrassing, on Christmas morning, because our alarm system is not dinky, it's so loud & obnoxious, I'm sure it woke the entire neighborhood up, and some other people too. We have big foghorn sounding things so, yeah it was really loud. Well Chad said the alarm wouldn't go off unless it was something wrong. So he walked in Cooper's room (which is behind the fireplace), and felt the wall. It was so hot you couldn't even touch it. There was even a small black spot on the wall about the size of the end of a cigarette. He called his Dad, which is what he does when anything goes wrong. He said to go up in the attic to check for smoke. Sure enough, there was smoke. So, here goes, we called the Fire Department, and they were at the house in less than 10 minutes. We got the boys up out of their beds, and put them in our bed. We called our moms, who both came over to help. Of course the wall was knocked out in Cooper's room, and the firemen said if we'd waited 15 more minutes before calling, the house would be completely in flames. Doesn't God work in mysterious ways? The wall in Cooper's room was something like, 400 degrees. It burned the 2x4's, everything. We could see the brick on the back of the fireplace, and it was smoldering.

We had Christmas Dinner that day, and everything turned out exceptionally well, believe it or not. I couldn't imagine what could have happened with Cooper, and Connor, who was just across the hall. We were surely blessed that Christmas Day. It will be one that we'll never forget!!