One week later. . .

I wrote this Friday evening. But as is becoming typical of our life - the internet at the hotel was down and I couldn't post it. So it is now Monday. I am sitting on a sooty couch with about 10 people in my home while I grab some wifi and try to get some work accomplished.

Our life has been a little different this past week. We'd initially thought the fire to be annoying, but no big deal. It became more of a deal as time went on.

The clean up guy arrived on Sunday morning. He gave us a black trash bag and told us to fill it with "emergency" clothes that we would get right back ASAP.  He waded through our house and recommended the entire house be de-smoked from top to bottom. Monday morning the cleaning crew arrived. And by Monday afternoon we were without bedding, curtains and clothing. Not a big deal until we realized we were left with the clothes on our back. The emergency bag wasn't back yet.

We found a hotel suite and settled in for what we thought was a couple of days.

Tuesday found me traveling all over town trying to figure out prices and replacement costs so I could have the damage list for the adjuster. 

Our home was taken over. People in and out all day, a massive Hepa filter roaring in my living room, all of my belongings being handled by a stranger, and some seriously frustrated kids who couldn't get in their bedrooms.

Friday a forensic fire investigator came and confirmed that the stove had turned itself on due to a faulty something and was not our fault. We were told it would be at least Tuesday of next week before we could go home. The adjuster called to inform me that she had a preliminary total of $20k and she didn't have all of her figures in yet.

She also informed us that the insurance company had decided to sue. So it could be approximately a month before we could begin the demo on our kitchen. 

So we wait. We are on another adventure and thank God every day that we are safe and together. Life will return to our normal soon. But in the mean time we are enjoying the blessings. One of them will be when I return to a immaculately cleaned house.

I will try to get my computer and camera in the same building soon so I can begin posting a few pictures. Some of them I can't post until the investigation is over.

What a day!!!!

Yesterday was one of those days!!! It was a doozy. It started when I had to get up incredibly early to get to Chattanooga so I could start the eviction process for a tenant that we inherited when we purchased the townhouses. It isn't a fun process no matter how you work it. But since I've never evicted someone, it was rather nerve wracking.

Everything took longer than I'd planned so I was extremely late picking up Dominic and his friend from camp. I arrive to find out that due to a slight mix-up and change in plans I was not on the list to pick up the friend. After a rather panicked moment I found the other mom who WAS on the list. So she signed him out and I took him home.

We leave for home and are in Spencer when I get pulled over. He said he'd seen my car swerve and I was going a little over the speed limit. I knew I wasn't going very much, if any, over. So I truly thought I was going to get a warning. But when he'd first came to the window he'd seemed extremely interested in the boys. He asked their names, ages, where they'd been, etc. Turns out he was fishing for info. I only had one booster seat in the car. So I'd given it to the friend since he was shorter. But Tennessee has changed the law recently and children need to be 8 yrs old before they can ride in the car without a booster seat. It's endangering your child. So I was given a massively huge ticket for Dominic and he tacked on the speeding as well. I felt he'd fudged the speed and was really upset.

I drop off the friend and arrive home to find the house empty. Everyone was at my in-laws house. They moved in next door the day before (more on that later). I drop off  the work binder, books I'd purchased from McKays, and my purse and head over myself. About 15-20 minutes later I hear Caitlin tell Dominic "I'm going home to get it". A few seconds later we hear her screaming. It's her terrified scream. We run over to hear her say "It's burning inside". Jon looks toward the door to see smoke billowing out of the door. He grabs the fire extinguisher that he keeps in the carport by the steps and within a very scary minute has the fire out. But Kim (my sister-in-law) and Gramps had been throwing still burning items out into the carport. One of the books slid right under the car. I happen to have the keys still in my pocket so while still on the phone with 911 I backed the car out of the carport. Everything I'd placed beside the stove was ruined. My purse, gps, chargers, books, work stuff - all a blackened mess. We stood there in complete shock. No one had used the stove that day. I had checked the stove when I laid my items down beside it. But when Jon ran into the house one of the burners was bright red. When he tried to turn it off, he found the switch in the off position. He had to pull the breaker to get the stove off.

Long story short - our entire house is filled with black sooty smoke and we have a largely unusable kitchen. We sent the kids to the grandparents and changed the sheets on our bed. It was still a bit sooty, but we survived the night. Tomorrow morning we have professionals trumping through the house cleaning up and checking wiring. Because according to the firemen, sometimes stoves just turn themselves on. And because my bag of books was close, we had a fire!

Lesson learned. Never, ever put things anywhere near a stove - Even if it's off!

We've seen blessings in all of this.
Our family moved in just in time.
No one was hurt!
I didn't have to cook super last night. =)

*Please ignore all typos. I'm trying to type this on my iPad since my computer is unusable until the clean up crew gets here. I'm just hoping it can be saved. Joys of having an open concept house!

Mohawks see red!

Oh my soul! This little boy is crazy. And I love him with all of my heart. He probably gets most of his crazy from me, but I'm not admitting to anything. =)

He told me that the red looked more normal so he wasn't as embarrassed. =)

  This is the cutest little boy face I've ever seen!

Future Runners

I found several posts in my drafts folder. So some serious out of order will be going on while I finish them.

The last couple of years at camp meeting Dominic and I ran the race on Friday. But this year Caitlin wanted to run the 1 mile. Usually the 5k runners start and the Fun run starts about 5 minutes later. Caitlin is well known in our house for being incredibly slow. So Jon offered to run with her. Neither had run a mile before (if Jon has, it's been years).  But this year they changed things up and had the Fun run start first.

On Thursday afternoon it dawned on Caitlin that the race was the next morning. So she ran up and down the driveway three times. It was hilarious, especially because that's probably the most she'd ever run before. It takes 6 1/2 times around our back yard to make a mile. Caitlin hasn't ever gone more than 1/2 a lap around the yard. Baby girl just doesn't like to exert energy when it isn't necessary.

Caitlin took off with the biggest grin on her face. She was really excited.

I waited by the sidelines for what I thought was going to be a while. I had even given the camera to my father-in-law in case the 5k started before she returned.

Less than 11 minutes later my baby girl came into view running. According to a very tired Jon after the race, she ran the entire way and didn't show down. She finished her mile in 11:09.

 
Baby girl can move if she actually wants to. She came across the finish line with a smile on her face and no sign of being tired other than her pink cheeks.

Dominic and I waiting for the 5k to start. My cousin Matt is standing beside me in the white shirt.

This little boy cracks me up. Dramatic anyone?!

Dominic, as usual, took off like a cannon. I wanted to beat my time from last year so I wasn't too far behind him.

I finished the race and ran back to run Dominic in. I saw the little boy (right of the picture) and told Dominic to hurry. I wasn't sure where he was in his age division, but I wanted him to get a metal. He was running in the 7-9 age group. But that boy heard me and took off too. Poor Dominic ran his heart out at the end and just couldn't beat him. At one point he gasped that he just couldn't run any faster.

He was wasted at the end. 

Turns out the boy in the orange shirt was a small 10 yr old. 

So Dominic pulled a 2nd place in his age division. His time was 29: something (I've momentarily lost my running log).

Much to Jon's chagrin, he won 2nd place in his age division. So he gave the medal to Caitlin. There were a ton of girls in Caitlin's age division 5-7. So she didn't place. But she proudly showed her medal to everyone and told them she'd gotten 2nd place. I was so proud of how well she'd done that I didn't correct her.

My cousin Matt did very well also.
Very proud of the runners in my family!

Cohutta Springs Camp

Jon and I made the very hard decision to send Dominic to camp this year. So this last Sunday we drove down to Georgia and dropped our little boy off for a week of camp.

He woke us up at 5am bouncing off the walls. He was so excited. The trip down was pure torture for him. Thankfully we were taking a friend of his, who would be in his cabin.

This picture was taken after we teased them that they might not be in the same cabin together. 

And people think girls are the dramatic ones.

Carting their stuff up the hill to the cabin.

 

He would have let me leave without a goodbye. The hug (way too short) and quick smile for the camera and then we needed to leave. He had things to do.

The camp has this awesome feature on their website. You can pick which camp your child is in, and then view pictures and videos of the children.

Each day finds me watching the entire slideshow in hopes that I can catch a glimpse of my sweet boy. I miss him so much. Every single picture of him shows that he's having the time of his life. He's laughing, participating, and making new friends. But I'm sitting here with a million things to do, glued to the computer hoping to catch another glimpse of him. It's probably pathetic. He's clearly not missing me. =) I, however, am counting the days until he gets home.