Bunchocoffeys: Starting 27 Off With a Bang!

I believe everything happens for a reason. Here is a very good example of that truth.

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. :) Friday both my mom and Josh took the day off work. Early Friday morning we dropped off the kids at my mom's house so I could go renew my driver's license. It was much quicker and less painful than I expected. And if my temporary is an indication, my picture looks pretty decent... Go me! Then we picked up the kids so my mom could get some things done, then took them back around lunch time. Enter birthday celebrations. First we went to Olive Garden for lunch. Mmmm. I was weak and got both Zeppoli (Italian version of Beignets), which we often get as a to-go dessert there, and the limited-time Pumpkin Cheesecake with Carmel Sauce and Gingerbread crumb topping. Yeah....YUM!! After lunch we went to JCPenney to try on dresses. It was nice to do some shopping for me without kids freaking out the second we step foot in the women's section. Then we brought the kids home and my mom was able to be there when Cory & family came into town. Yay for grandkid days, right? That evening after putting the kids to bed we watched Avengers and enjoyed our treats. Best date night ever!!

Saturday we went to Heber and rode the train, which I already blogged about, so I'm gonna skip over it. :)

Sunday we went and had lunch with my family (minus Kaela and Brayden). Its always fun to get together, plus we had funeral potatoes, so really, how can you go wrong?

My birthday gifts. Newsies on Bluray and baking stuff. Score!!

Monday, my actual birthday was pretty much an average day at first. We were struggling to get Joey to eat, so she was in her room and having a rough night. Josh and the kids had gotten me Newsies, so we wanted to put the kids to bed at their earlier bedtime so Josh and I could watch it and still get to bed at a decent hour ourselves. Well, because Joey was having a rough night, that ended up being 15 mins later than planned. Josh and I debated whether he should shower then watch the movie, movie then shower, or me start the movie while he was in the shower. We decided on the first option.

Part of the way through the movie I asked him if he wanted one of the Pumpkin Cookies I'd made Sunday night. He said he was debating on that or icecream. We kept watching, and I decided I wanted my cookie, so I jumped up to get it. He paused the movie and got himself some icecream. When the movie was over he went into the kitchen to put his bowl in the dishwasher. He said to me there was a problem and to come here, while headed into the bedroom. I thought maybe he'd found evidence of a new mouse or something. I caught up with him in the bedroom and he was putting on his running shoes, and he told me to look out the back window. I went and opened the blinds to the sliding glass door, and there was our backyard neighbors' yard and deck on FIRE!! I quickly dialed 911 as he ran out the door.

I stood on the deck on the phone with dispatch. They asked the address, and since I wasn't sure, I told them the road of their house, then gave them my address. They said not to try to fight it myself. Shortly after I saw Josh dragging their hose around to attempt that, so I told him not to. It was pretty dark, but I could see cars, so I wasn't sure whether anyone was home. Josh came home and said their door was wide open and no one was home. That sounds odd... He left again. Next thing I know they are opening the sliding glass door and attempting to fight the fire. There was one little bit of fire from the deck right at the door. I swear they were using drinking glasses. I could hear the splashes of water, and it wasn't much. Then they'd go in, and come back out. One time they used a bucket to dump water over the side to the yard below. Everytime I would yell at them to just get out of there, the fire dept was on its way. I could hear Josh at their front door yelling at them too. They just weren't listening. FRUSTRATING!! The dispatcher kept me on the line so I could tell her if anyone got injured because they were doing this. I heard a police officer enter our house asking if anyone was home. I came inside and said I was here and it was the house behind us. He left. Dispatch let me go at this point. My phone gave me the 10% battery warning. Talk about cutting it close! I decided to check and see if the kids were still asleep from all the flashing lights, sirens, and yelling. I think I woke Tristan up, so I got him and he and I stood on the deck and watched them put out the fire. I saw the police officer back there before the fire dept and he started fighting the section up against the house on the deck with the hose. He was back there so quick he must have jumped the fence. His squad car was still in our circle. The neighbor went back with a shovel and started trying to fight the stuff on the ground, despite the police officer telling him to go to the front of the house. He finally stopped. It didn't even occur to me to take any pictures of all this, sorry. I was able to put Tristan back to bed after most of it was out, and put on shoes and a jacket. I'd been shaking while holding Tristan. Probably part because of the situation, and part because I was out there in short sleeves. I had to pee, too, but I didn't care. I had to watch. After Josh came back home we talked about it a bit. He pointed out how if he'd had a cookie instead of icecream he wouldn't have seen it. Other neighbors on their street had seen smoke and even possibly the glow, but we saw the actual fire, and were the ones to call it in. The interior only suffered smoke damage, but they said just a few more minutes and the inside probably would have been damaged by the fire as well. What if Joey hadn't prolonged bedtime 15 minutes? Would the fire have been started at that point? It was really pretty small, considering both their and our backyards are just dry weeds. Or if we'd started the movie earlier if I'd started it while Josh was in the shower or we'd watched it before his shower. Any of those things would have changed when our movie ended, and things could have gone alot differently if that had been the case. The daughter at the house had come home from work and locked the door, but it swung open when Josh was pounding on it. He'd rung the doorbell several times. They were all asleep, and may not have woken up had the door not opened. Josh had to switch out his hoodie to wear to work this morning because the other one smelled like smoke. He had to wear Superman. Oh the irony. If only he'd worn that one last night. :)

I went out back this afternoon and tried to get a few pictures on my phone of the damage. I cropped them so hopefully you can get an idea without losing too much detail.

The fire was basically the deck and in front of it and the carport. There were cars parked in the carport and that dirt patch next to it. There was also a lawn mower under the deck the fire dept just kinda chucked out towards our fence. Its still sitting there.

The gutter on carport melted. You can see it hanging off. I watched that before the police officer even showed up.

You can see the white and black marks on the deck where the fire was touching it, but never caught. The part of the deck on fire was there at the bottom left corner of the sliding glass door. You can kinda see where the siding is discolored.