Fire!

We were thinking we would do our home inspection this Saturday. Yesterday, however, something happened to change our plans. I had sent an e-mail to the other agency in the middle of the week mentioning the gas and roof problems. No one called me; no one responded to my e-mail. Our friend/landlord/prospective neighbor called yesterday to tell us someone was working on the roof. Ben stopped by on his way home from lunch to check things out. When he arrived, lo, and behold, fire trucks were there! The silly people who were working on the roof used ice melt to get the snow off so they could fix it. This caused a torrent down the wall behind the electrical panel and zap! a fire!

Luckily, the damage isn't too severe. The stairwell wall around the panel is burned, and the firefighters had to put a hole in the kitchen ceiling to get access to the attic to fight the blaze. It does smell like smoke in there now, though, and the roof still isn't fixed.

The big question, of course, is whether or not we will still buy the house. We don't know yet. We sent a long and detailed e-mail to the other agency yesterday, and we are anxiously awaiting the response. Then we should have enough information about timing and exactly what they will fix to know whether to buy it or walk away.

The worst case scenario is that we just give it up for lost and stay where we are. That wouldn't be too nice to the people who were planning on moving here in March, but they haven't given notice in their current rental. (They're our friends, too.) The best case scenario, of course, is if they have to do new carpet and paint for us to get rid of the smell! I'm not holding my breath though; this is the government.

Happy Independence Day!

We had a great holiday! We worked a lot, and we played a lot.

We finished moving rooms around. I decided on Wednesday that maybe my stress level would be lower if the kids actually had a play room. With Buster napping in their room, the living room was overtaxed in its multi-purpose role. The toys were driving me bonkers. When Ben came home very early on Thursday, we started moving around. Now our old room is the play room, and despite what I said earlier, our bed is now in the office. It's a more efficient use of space, though. The office mostly had computers around the wall and toys and random stuff in the middle. I do have a hard time keeping the office clean, and kids' toys scattered across the traffic pattern did not help. Anyway, so far so good. The play room is a disaster, but looking at it brings a smile to my face because at least the toys aren't in the living room!

As for the fun, we lit off a bunch of fireworks on July 3rd. We bought sparklers for the kids, but as Ben warned them to be careful, I guess he did too good of a job! They were terrified. Ben and I had fun with them, though! We finally convinced Kandy to try it, but she still seemed like she was scared of it more than she enjoyed it.

After we finished moving stuff around on Friday, it was time to take the canoe down the Jordan! Buster and I dropped everyone else off at 1700 South and picked them up again at 400 South. They had a great time.

The real excitement happened that evening. We went to the fireworks set off from Jordan Park. As usual, we went to a little grassy area just north of there where it is much less crowded. The south winds were quite strong, and the fireworks were almost over us! We kept feeling ash drift down and saw a few hot coals drop nearby. One of the hot coals landed across the river in some dry brush and ignited a grass fire! Luckily, there were no people or structures nearby. We called 911 and the firemen came. It took them awhile to figure out how to get to the blaze, but they did finally get it out. Ben and I thought it was exciting, but Missy kept saying, "That fire was horrible!" Unfortunately, we didn't have our camera with us, so we didn't get any pictures of the fire.

Click on July 4th Album to see some great pictures from the weekend!