And I Thought My Life Was Boring!

Well, THAT was exciting!!!

I was calmly sitting in the office, working on a special Christmas scrapbooking project. I was about to place a sticker down on a page when I heard feet scrambling up our staircase, a frantic hammering on our door and a muffled exclamation I almost couldn't make out. But after a second the words registered in my mind: "FIRE! GET OUT!"

I am slightly embarrassed to admit that no clear thoughts went through my head. I went into total panic. Paper pad and sticker in hand, my brain checked out and sheer survival mode kicked in. "What?!" I shouted to the door as I ran to it. "Where?!" As I opened it, I heard the manager say, "Over there!" Somewhere in the back of my brain, I noted the irony of seeing my manager clopping as fast as she could down the stairs in her suit jacket, pencil skirt and heels to go evacuate the other apartment dwellers, looking pretty panicked herself. Then I glanced to the right and saw a wall of orange flames leaping up from the front of one of the garages next to our apartment building. It felt like that moment in movies where you see a close-up of a terrified stare and the blazing fire reflecting in it.

I tore around the apartment trying to make sense of what to do. I still had a sticker on my hand and I couldn't pick anything up with that hand until I found somewhere to put the sticker down, and I couldn't just throw it away because it was the only one I had in that color and I NEEDED to put it on the paper, but I couldn't think straight enough to find the right spot in this state, so I ended up just plopping the paper pad down on the kitchen table and sticking the sticker on a receipt next to it. In my mind I had images of flames jumping from a tree to a house, or in this case a garage to a house, and my only thought was, "GET OUT!" I grabbed just my jacket and my purse and ran out the door, only thinking to grab my keys at the last minute because they were hanging on their hook next to the door. And then for some stupid reason I locked the door behind me. But the last image I had was Genevieve staring at me as I went out the door. And it suddenly dawned on me that if I left Genevieve in there and our house caught on fire--this thought was interrupted by a sudden flash of logic which cut my panic down to size. The fire trucks and fire fighters were already here and already dousing the fire and it was nowhere near enough to the apartment to catch it on fire, and the wind was blowing the other direction.

My thoughts started making more sense, but I was still shaken up. If I wasn't in danger, should I go back into the apartment? But the manager had told us to get out. And dozens of families were standing outside their apartments. She probably didn't want us back in until it was under control. That made sense anyway.

I called Stephen's cell. He didn't answer, so I called his work number, praying he would answer. Thankfully, he did. I watched the thick, billowing smoke and couldn't even think how to begin for a moment. Finally I told him everything that had happened so far--the knock on the door, seeing the fire, grabbing my coat and purse. "Did you grab anything else?" he asked.

"No," I said. "Not even Genevieve!" And then I just rambled to him, processing out loud. "Should I go back in and get things? It's not reaching over to our apartment."

"Maybe our laptops, and the network drive," said Stephen.

We talked for several minutes as I watched the fire being taken under control. Our neighbor with the 5 kids went back into the house at one point briefly, and came back out with her children's jackets. I agreed to get the laptops and network drive out of the house and just at least put them in our car.

At one point, I finally said, "I wish you were here." Stephen said he could probably call his boss and explain the situation and ask if he could come home, at least temporarily. That sounded good to me. "I'll call you back," Stephen said and we hung up.

A minute later he called. "I'm coming home!" he announced.

After we hung up again, I decided to go get the computers and network drive. It was more out of a kind of follow-through with what I said, though, because by now the fire was out and there was just smoke. It was a little scary being in the apartment--I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be or not, and it made me nervous not being able to see the fire through to its bitter end and make SURE it was out. I didn't want to stay in there, not knowing, for long.

People were still standing outside, watching. I watched with them as the firefighters came around the back of the garage with a chainsaw and some picks and things. They sawed open the back of the garage and took it off in pieces. Everybody got closer, LOL. One of my neighbors had gotten out his digital camera and was taking pictures. Several people were taking cell phone shots.

We were already losing daylight, but I could see the remains of a charred car in there. Smoke still swirled up at the top of the roof. One little boy called out to a little girl asking what happened. I wish I could have understood what she said, but all I caught was, "He got burned here," and saw the girl gesture to her left forearm.

Stephen finally arrived and we stood watching the excitement for a few minutes. A little smoke still swirled out, but the firemen were cleaning up. I wasn't ready to go into the apartment until I heard it was okay, so Stephen and I asked a fireman as he rolled up the fire hose. "Yeah, the apartments are fine," said the fireman confidently. "You can go back in." Phew!!

Stephen left shortly afterward. I brought back in the laptop and network drive, still a little nervous about doing so. I'll tell you one thing I learned from this experience. We are NOT prepared in any way for the event of a real fire on our house. When Steve and I were on the phone, we talked about writing up a 5-step plan or something to help us get what's important out of the house if it does catch on fire. And I also learned that I really need to clean up, because it was extremely difficult to run around and get anything done or even get TO the important stuff with the current state of our house. Scary! So maybe this was a little extra motivation from God to get my house cleaned up. :) And also extra motivation for fire safety... I will never doubt Stephen again when he tells us to keep things away from the baseboards!

December Trip to Idaho

Well, it's our first extended period of time away from each other since we've been married. I'm in Idaho. I flew out here chiefly to see my old friend Elizabeth, my best friend growing up, but also decided to take a few days to see Jenny, Mindy and Becca, my best friends from college. I flew out on Saturday and am flying back home this Friday. I visited Elizabeth Saturday, Sunday, Monday and half of Tuesday. She lives in a very small town with not much to do, so we spent a lot of nights staying up late, playing games with her other friends in town. We also spent a night decorating Liz's Christmas tree, which was a lot of fun and quite an adventure, as it was a pre-lit Christmas tree and it took forever to locate all the places where the different light strands plugged into one another! We also looked at Christmas lights, went shopping at Maurice's, made brownies and made a couple Wal-Mart runs.

Wal-Mart seems to be the thing I do when I'm visiting friends in Idaho, because I've made 4 further Wal-Mart runs with Jenny and Mindy since I got here. It feels just like I'm back in college! :)

The most interesting part of the trip so far has been adventures resulting from the fact that I arrived the week record low temperatures occur across all the Pacific Northwest. Although Jenny and Mindy's apartment is very warm, the subzero temperatures outside at night have frozen all the water pipes. No showers, no brushing teeth, no washing dishes, no using the toilet. And daytime highs aren't supposed to reach above freezing until Saturday, the day after I leave. Our landlord says there is nothing we can do; the pipes are all underground. Would it be wrong of me to pray that God would suddenly change the weather pattern?

In the meantime, Jenny, Mindy and I are going to have movie nights and girl talk and do Christmasy things around the area. It's good to get to spend time with them.

It's good to hear Stephen's voice every night when we do our nightly devotions. Being away from each him makes me appreciate having him more.

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Edit next day: I stopped my story far too soon. Things got much more interesting AFTER our pipes froze.

After about an hour after Jenny got home from work, we suddenly heard a ringing sound that seemed to be coming from outside our apartment. I almost didn't take notice of it because it seemed so distant, but it occurred to me that in below-freezing weather, odd sounds always ought to be checked out. So Jenny and I followed the sound to a huge red fire alarm bell ringing deafeningly loud, just above the apartment door. A fire alarm? Jenny and I circled the apartment looking for smoke but didn't see so much as a wisp. The big red bell said "Dial 911" on it, so that's what we did. At least the fire department could figure out how to turn it off? So Jenny first called the landlord, who did not answer his phone, and left him a voicemail letting him know what was going on, and that she was going to call 911.

About 25 minutes after we called 911, a few very easy-going firemen drove up. The first one stepped out and as he walked to the ringing bell, said to us, "Aren't you guys going to answer that?" and chuckled. He and the other firemen opened the door to what we thought was a neighbor's storage closet, but in fact it was the closet where ALL the water pipes were! (I would like to note that none of it was underground, as our landlord had mistakenly informed me earlier.) We peeked into the closet with the firemen and one of the sprinkler system pipes was visibly busted--about a 4" long, 2" wide gap in the pipe--with a chunk of frozen water inside. The firemen checked out the situation and then turned to Jenny and I to explain what had happened. The water heater that keeps the pipes from freezing had broken and was blowing cold air instead of warm air. The water had subsequently frozen (hence the lack of water in our apartment) and then expanded in the sprinkler system pipe so much that it burst, setting off the fire alarm system. By this point it had also set off a flood-warning system inside our apartment, which was even more ear-shattering than the bell outside.

Mindy had gotten home in the meantime and we all decided that whatever happened, we were sleeping elsewhere tonight. Jenny called her sister, who lives in a dorm on-campus, and asked if we could stay with her overnight. We packed up bags and blankets and pillows to the blaring flood alarms and took them in two cars over to Megan's. Just before we left, the firemen finally got the alarms to turn off, but we were all packed up and ready to go, and still without running water, so we went to Megan's anyway.

While the firemen had been figuring things out, Jenny had called our landlord's cell phone half a million times. Not even joking--she hit redial about 50 times and left about 4 messages on his voicemail. He never picked up--not even when the fire department called from their own lines. He got back to us at 9:30, three hours after it had all happened, and then Jenny finally got to show him where the pipe was that had broken. At least he won't ever get to tell someone "Everything's underground" in good conscience again.

So we spent the night at Megan's, and today the landlord came over with a guy and put an extra space heater in the water pipe closet, and a few hours later the pipes thawed and every faucet in the entire apartment gushed on, scaring Mindy and I half to death. Apparently no other pipes had broken, because we haven't seen any flooding.

The actual space heater for the water pipe closet was also fixed and eventually the landlord returned and took out the extra space heater. Our apartment has stayed in working order so far, except for one minor incident when I plugged in a space heater downstairs to warm my feet up, and not 2 minutes later, the living room power went out. I figured I had just overloaded the circuit or whatever and went to the fuse box, found the switch for the living room, flipped it off and then on again. That fixed it. THANK GOODNESS.

I could go into more adventures in Idaho in sub-freezing temperatures, but they aren't nearly as interesting (and it's time for bed). Tomorrow I see Stephen again and my life returns to normalcy. :)

Trips, Trips, Trips!

Wow, our life got busy! Our small group has been keeping us on our toes, always out on new adventures. We love it. Our newest members, Ethan and Rachel, are quickly becoming good friends as they invite us out on hikes all over the area and we have them over for dinner and movie nights. A friend of mine from college recently moved over here with her husband, so Stephen and I are planning on dinner together with them sometime soon. The volunteer work I do is increasing now that the school year is coming closer. Our refugees will be needing our help with not only homework, but with graduating high school and deciding what comes next. Fortunately a friend of theirs who speaks their language and has been in the United States for a good 13-15 years will be helping them out a lot as well.

The latest busyness that has come up is trips, trips, trips! We just got back from a short jaunt to the coast to visit Stephen's sister, who is working at a conference center there for the summer, and we're planning to go again for our own enjoyment this weekend. We are also planning on another visit in September to my hometown to see my grandparents, go to a wedding, and also visit a theme park, so Stephen can have his first experience on a roller coaster. :) On the way back from there we hope to pop up to Stephen's parents' place, since his brother and sister-in-law will be in town visiting. It's been difficult to arrange a visit with them, since we are rarely all in the same place at the same time.

October will be our 1-year anniversary and we will be traveling to cross-state to stay at a bed & breakfast and visit a harvest festival. I am also planning on taking a trip, or two trips (I haven't quite figured it out yet!), to visit my friends back where I went to college. And the holidays will be upon us shortly, which is the scariest thought. I told Stephen the other day, "Wow, October was a dumb month to get married in! No sooner are we finished with our anniversary plans than we are trying to figure out how to visit our families for the holidays!"

I decided the month to get married in, of course. ;)

Those are the trips we are taking, but we also have trips that we might take. Stephen and I have earned a couple nights of hotel stays by visiting presentations about Wyndham Worldwide. We have the opportunity right now to go to either Hawaii, Las Vegas, Los Cabos or Florida. We have also talked about wanting to travel around the southwestern United States to visit family we have living down there. And finally, we have talked about taking a mission trip together at some point. None of these plans have become concrete, as we don't currently have the means, but we know we want to take them. So our heads have been full of plans and maybe-plans lately. But I am trying to focus on the plans for trips we will be taking for now. :) That's exhausting enough to figure out!

At least we have our bed and breakfast booked for October, and my grandparents know we're coming in September. Now, to address the trips to visit my college friends.... Back to planning! Pray for me/us as we try to figure out how to accomplish these financially, logistically, etc.

In other news, we finally got our settlement money from the accident Stephen was in in November. Stephen now has a new camera and I have a new computer. We've also made some extra payments on our loans and replaced Stephen's back tires, which were uncomfortably close to bald! We are so thankful for God's provision.

Please continue praying that God will provide me with a job, and with the stamina to persevere through the "job-hunting game," as Stephen so wisely put words to it. I am tentatively searching for a floristry job, as floristry is something both Stephen and I know I would enjoy. Unfortunately, I don't have the experience. I am hoping to take a class at the local community college on floral arranging which will hopefully provide me with knowledge, if not experience, that I need to get a job in that field. We have the money and are working on finding the time in between the church commitments, the volunteer work, the trips!

Thank you for your prayers and support. Lord willing, we will see a lot of you in the near future, and make it through the last part of this year with our sanity intact. :)