Burn Baby Burn

     The past two weeks have been quite eventful for our little family. A couple Saturdays ago was the first weekend we have had off since we returned home from Alabama. We were so excited to finally have some family time, and maybe to even get a few chores done. We worked all day long doing yard work, getting organized, and a bit of fall cleaning. We were feeling very accomplished! That evening the kids were sound asleep in bed and Morgan and I were just relaxing, doing homework, and watching Netflix. Suddenly I could hear a strange buzzing sound. A few months back our fridge died and it sounded very similar to that. I asked Morgan what it was so he got up to investigate. He walked all around our little apartment and didn't see anything, so he proceeded to look through the peephole. The thought occurred to him that maybe someone was trying to break in by drilling into our lock. As he opened the door a cloud of smoke rushed inside. We finally realized that it was the fire alarm going off! The next words out of my mouth where "grab the kids...let's get out of here!" We ran to the bedrooms, grabbed our poor little confused babies and jumped our back fence. The minute we got to the parking lot we could already hear sirens coming our way. We were very impressed with the

promptness of all the rescue crews! Our whole building was evacuated, and everyone was a little confused as we just stood in the parking lot waiting for some news. Our sweet little son who is 21 months old thought that it was one big
 party! He loved seeing all of the firetrucks and flashing lights. There was a woman trapped in an apartment on the third floor. Luckily she had a fire ladder that she strung out her window, but she seemed to be too afraid to come down it. It was fun to watch the firefighters in action. They put their huge ladder to the side of the building and pulled her out. My poor husband ran out so quickly that he forgot to grab some shoes. For the rest of the night he was sporting some fun $2.00 camouflage Walmart flip-flops. Several hours had gone by and Levi and Larynn were getting super tired and fussy. We started to ask several policemen and firefighters if we would be able to go back into our apartment soon. That is when we learned the the fire started in the apartment right next door to us. Not only did they have to kick our door in to make sure everyone was out, but the carbon monoxide levels were still too high. Finally at midnight we decided it would be smart to find somewhere to sleep and figure out what to do in the morning. We were both exhausted and our patience might not have been as great as it should have been, so it took us until about 1 AM to figure out where we were going to stay for the night. We had nothing but the clothes on our back and the diaper bag. Needless to say, the rest that night was not as restful as we had hoped.
     The next morning was Sunday. We decided to head over to our apartment to see how bad it was. We had high hopes that everything would be great and we could carry on our Sunday like normal. Well that was not the case. As we walked down the hall toward our home the smell of smoke was overwhelming, the lights were all knocked out, and there was water everywhere. The front of the next door apartment was completely black. We could barely see inside through a little crack and it was destroyed! As we walked into our apartment both Morgan and I started to cough because the air was so strong and heavy with smoke. We quickly threw whatever we thought we would need into a couple of suitcases and left as quickly as we could. We are so thankful that so many of Morgan's siblings live in the area. We ate lunch and went to church with one of his sister's, we were able to borrow a portable crib from one of his brothers, and we stayed the night with his oldest sister. Family is seriously the best!!
     We are so grateful that we got renter's insurance only 6 months ago, because if we hadn't we would still be homeless. Our insurance put us up in a super nice 2 bedroom hotel that serves breakfast and dinner! We feel like we are on vacation! They cleaned our whole apartment from top to bottom not to mention all of our furniture and clothes! Although we are super excited to get back home and back to normal life, we are so so so thankful that everyone is ok! We are truly blessed!