Sometimes in life crazy things happen that really put things in perspective.
Last night we had friends coming over for dinner. John trains in Ju Jitsu with Steve and his wife Kristin soon joined the other side of our gym that I attend, personal training. They are a wonderful couple and I know when they start a family sometime soon, they will be fantastic parents because they LOVE AJ.
Anyway, Steve got stuck at work and said he could be at our house around 8pm and Kristin would be meeting him there. This turned out to be a really good thing. Around 7pm, John and I were prepping dinner while also playing with AJ (ok, he was mostly playing, I was mostly cooking). I had a great menu planned with our favorite grilled asparagus, garlic-olive oil-tomato cous cous, and steaks on the grill. The asparagus takes about 50 minutes to an hour on low on the grill. I asked John to start the grill around 7 so I could get the asparagus on there by the timed it warmed up, around 7:15. Little did we know that the both of us turn the grill on very differently. John turns it on and keeps it on high before turning it down to low. I turn it on and immediatly turn it to low.
At 7:15 or so, I threw the asparagus (tightly wrapped in foil) on the top shelf of the grill and closed the grill top. I walked inside the house and checked on AJ and John and went back to prepping. At this point I had pretty much everything set--including the dinner table. I did one last check and turned around and BRIGHT ORANGE caught my eye WITH the shades to the kitchen closed overlooking the deck.
I ran over to the french doors leading out to the deck and screamed for John. The grill was in flames and was only 2 feet or so from our house. In addition, we have a wooden deck like most people.
John told me to grab AJ and call 911 while he ran to get the fire extinguisher. I got on the phone and gave all of the relevant information. I admit I was a little bit freaking out. John came down to us and told me that the fire extinguisher didn't work--it was just too old and we never got it checked in the 5 years since we got it.
Meanwhile, AJ--who has been potty training perfectly--was in nothing but underware and a pair of shorts. 911 told us to get out of the house immediately and to get our neighbors on either side out as well. I told him we have a child and I need to get clothes and John ran up the two level of stairs to get him something warm to wear.
I grabbed our dog Tyson and my half naked child and ran out with John just a minute or so behind us. I ran to one neighbor to get them out of the house and asked them for their fire extinguisher. They jumped on it and when John got outside he ran back in to try to extinguish the fire, but their extinguisher didn't work either! Our other neighbors (who our deck backs up to) were not home.
Within a minute or so (talk about FAST!) three large fire trucks with about 15 or so firemen rolled up all loud and proud. A fire chief SUV also came as well as a police car. The trucks stretched across our entire street just about. A few of the men ran in the front door while a few others got the fire hose out and went through the back. Meanwhile the cop (who was really nice) came to talk to us to get our information. We couldn't see anything but within about 5 minutes or so they all came out to tell us that the fire was out and everything was off (including our stove that was cooking the cous cous!). The firemen were all really great and took us to the firesite to examine the damage.
Turns out that one of the burners was stuck on 'light' and NOT on high. They said if it was on high, worst case would have been my asparagus would have burned. John said at this point it was 85% his fault and 15% my fault. I won't argue with that (even if I feel very responsible for not checking the burners).
We got so lucky. We had next to no damage. Our grill is of course gone and we have a couple of burn spots on our deck floor as well as some 'wilted' siding, but we really did get SO lucky. The rain the day prior was our saving grace as well.
What is left of our sad grill:
The firemen let AJ go explore their truck and he had a really fun time with the excitement. Later he told our friends that "mommy was scared, but I was BRAVE".
Everything was wrapped up by 7:40 and John and I were left in complete embarrassment. One of his co-workers lives across the street from us and she came over to check on us. We also can't face the rest of the neighborhood today just yet.
We went back out to the deck, which was COVERED in white powder from the firemen. Our neighbors--who are very snobby and keep everything in perfect order (they do not have kids clearly)--were not home, but their deck was also covered. John went down and fed the hose up to me. He turned it on and then cleaned both decks clear of powder.
I thought our meal would be ruined but luckily our steaks were good to go! John had the genius idea to grill out on his tailgate grill--in the front of the house of course :). By the time our guests arrived, they wouldn't have even known what we just went through if it wasn't for us telling them and explaining why John was grilling in our front. I also had some green beans to work with in the fridge as well. Turns out our meal was perfect and we had a great night.
It's hard to tell (no flash on my cell), but you can kind of see John in our front yard grilling. That would be some sort of hand sign that I do not understand, but thought it was funny anyway.
We certainly learned some lessons last night. I also learned that when it came down to it, the only thing I worried about was getting my family to a safe place. I didn't care about anything else--not even photos or my favorite pair of jeans or anything. Now I know I can honestly answer the question "if you had a fire and had to get out of the house quickly, what would you take with you?". The answer would be only my family. Material things do not matter at all.
So we are off to get two new fire extinguishers this weekend--one for us and one for our nice neighbors. We also will make sure to get it checked every year to make sure it is still working. DAVID (my fire fighter brother): can you please check it for us every year?
I also bost this because I hope that EVERYONE reading this will take precaution in case of a fire. We were lucky, yes, but we could have easily not been and we were not prepared for a fire. Please, please please learn from us!
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