HOW SATAN FIRES TRIED TO RUIN CHRISTMAS...Its 2am again and I cant sleep.

Today after church Phil and I thought we were having a nice afternoon. We made lunch, built a fire and started a movie. Pete came home to shower before he went to the Kirkbrides. Before he showered Phil and Pete went in the garage to have a casual Christmas clove. After Pete's shower we noticed the house slowly started getting smokey so we figured it was because of the wet wood. Pete left, we finished the 45min that was left in our movie.

Phil decided to go to our room, (that has a door to the garage) to take a Sunday nap. When he openned the door he discovered that our room was filled with 5 feet of black smoke pouring in from the garage! Phil started screaming, "fire! call 911!" I ran around the house screaming like a crazy person, searching frantically for my cell, I immediately called 911.

operator "911 emergency"
me "OUR HOUSE IN ON FIRE!!"
operator "What?"
me "Our house, its on fire, I mean the Garage is on fire it's burning!!"
operator "Where do you live?"
talking the fastest ever I stuttered out our address.
operator " GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!"
then I just hung up, I dont know if I should have stayed on...whoops.

As I was stuttering on the phone with the 911 operator, Phil ran out side to access the garage from the other end. Meanwhile Pete was having Kirkbride famiy Christmas. After calling every Kirkbride # I had I finally got Pete on his cell. I was a little too worked up and at first kinda told him the house was on fire. The stuff in our garage was on fire!!! Phil opened the outside garage door, after a big cloud of black smoke was released he was able to see the flames consuming everything on the front-left side of the garage. In his bare feet, Phil immediatley powered up garden hose. With the humble strength of our garden hose he was able to put out the evil fire by the time the 4 fire trucks arrived. He was a hero! Shortly after the trucks came Pete made it home with Brad, Brandon and Chad. Phil tried to go into the house and he got yelled at by a fireman to "stay back!" 5 firemen and the GE were standing with us outside while it poured down rain, poured. I pretended not to hear the reporter when she asked me if I lived here. I wasnt interested in talking. I was wearing Pete's shoes, soaked in my sweats, holding onto Jericho. Phil wasnt wearing any shoes, poor guy. They had to dig through the damage to make sure the coals were out and crawl in the atic and check the breaker to rule out electrical issues.

As soon as we got clearance from the firemen that it was safe to go into our house, I immediately started cleaning the house like a crazy person so that I felt useful. I learned from Ruby to clean when you are stressed, ha! The walls in our room and the laundry room were covered in black cob webs, literally covered like a halloween house. There is a thin layer of soot on everything in our room, all of our stuff stinks. The firemen really messed up our carpet, good thing Phil works for Diamond Clean. I've done the best i can to wash and febreeze everything but I cant stand to be in there! We are sleeping in the living room tonight. Eventually everyone left and the Kirkbrides went back to Christmas. Phil went to Scott's to get an extension cord so he and I could have light to load most of the garbage into his truck and sift through Jenn's metled containers to see if anything was ruined. The garage is horrible, I dont even want to think about the mess! Everything is covered with wet yuck and black soot... It is going to be a huge project to clean all of the soot off our stuff and the walls to repaint!

Phil had to give two reports, one to a detective that had to investigate the cause and wether or not it was arson. Phil was pretty sure it was his clove that he put out in a pop can that was sitting in the recycling. I dont get it, but we can't think of anything else.

Phil spent the whole evening sad and worried that he ruined Christmas...poor guy. We took showers and had to use a scrub brush to get the black off our hands. We were blowing out black snot, Phil was spitting out black gunk from his throat.

Im glad Pete and Jenn came home in good spirits, we were actually able to make a few jokes about it. Emma was relieved that her stuff and Jericho were ok.

Thank God we still have a house. The detective estimated that if the fire had gone on 5 more mins it would have taken the garage and got into the house.

Now I am super paranoid about everything that could be a fire hazard. Im so glad we pay $6 a month for renters insurance. I dont know if we will use it but Im glad I have it. Im getting a fire-box to keep all our important stuff safe, you should too.

so after church today our house caught on fire, everything is fine, no structural damage just smoke damage and burnt stuff. It turns out there was a smoke detector in our room but it didnt have a battery. So, double check your smoke alarm and dont smoke!

I'd like to give a special thanks to Larry the neighbor who saw the smoke shortly after us and ran over. He stuck around long enough to explained to me what the scanner thing was that the fireman was using to measure heat. Before he left he offered us "food and shelter". What a great neighbor.