We're Home (Sort Of) & We're Safe

I have gotten some very kind emails from friends worrying about my lack of blogging. I apologize. Brian, Nolan & I took a trip to St. Louis for just over a week. We attended Meghan's wedding last Saturday, an absolutely beautiful affair and I can't wait to post pictures of the beautiful bride. She was ravishing! We also managed to pull a surprise 30th Birthday party for Brian, who turned the big 3-0 last Friday. I can't wait to post about all of this and share lots of pictures, but unfortunately for all of us, that will have to wait. After a two day trek home, we arrived safely yesterday afternoon. Brian mowed the lawn, I ran to the store for milk. We all played, ate dinner, put Nolan to bed. Right about the time Nolan went to sleep the weather became awful. Thunderstorms that were so loud & so close it felt surreal. Brian and I hung out and enjoyed the sounds of the storm and then Brian went to do some work at the computer. I was watching TV in our bedroom when all of a sudden there was a HUGE boom, the fire alarms started going off, but then stopped after about 5 seconds and everything shook really hard. Our TV was frozen on the last clip I had been watching, with an odd line down the middle. I ran into the office & Brian and I talked about how freaky this storm was. Then I went into our bedroom and I smelled something awful, smoke or something. I immediately yelled for Brian and we figured perhaps the TV had shorted. Nope. We started checking appliances. The fridge wasn't working, but there was no smoke either. I kept checking on Nolan, who was somehow still sleeping like a log, and his room didn't smell funny. I have to admit, the panic was rising in me and the longer it took to find the problem, the more anxious to call 9-1-1 or get out of the house I became. Brian went to the garage and I was in our bathroom when I heard Brian yelling, "WE NEED TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE NOW!!! TURN OFF EVERYTHING YOU CAN" We both headed for Nolan's room, but when I saw Bri headed that way, I just started grabbing. I grabbed Brian's wallet, our keys, Nolan's diaper bag (which had my wallet & phone) & a pair of shoes for Nolan (and we of course could not forget Nolan's mousey & Blankey). We already had a flashlight and Brian shut off the electricity in the garage. By this point I thought, this...what's in our hands is all we're going to have left. We ran into the pouring rain, into the car and Brian strapped Nolan in quickly. He told me to drive away from the house as fast as I could and to go to the street over and said that there was a gas leak. Meanwhile, he went across the street where emergency vehicles were dealing with another situation and told them about our gas leak. The sherriff saw the meter and determined it was too severe for him to mess with, so they called the gas company. The entire time I was waiting to see our house go up in flames. Thankfully, that never happened. Our house did get struck by lightening and there was an electrical wire right on top of our gas line (we're so not happy with the fact that the house was built this way) and the short caused the pipe to burst and leak gas. The man from the gas company said something as simple as someone ringing the doorbell could have caused the house to blow. I am not very good with all the technical stuff, so I apologize that I am not explaining this as well as Brian could. We're blessed with such awesome friends, Chey & Andrew, who are letting us crash at their house for the time being. We're hoping and praying things will be fixed today but there are no guarantees. We don't yet know the extent of the damage. Today has been sort of chaotic and stressful and extremely unreal, but let me just share with you a few amazing things. 1. We were considering not returning from our trip until Monday. Then we also decided to not set an alarm for Sunday morning at the hotel, because we figured we could sleep in and there was no rush. The alarm was set from the previous guest, however and at 6:30 AM it went off. Nolan was wide awake, of course, so we showered, dressed, ate & were amazingly on the road by 8 AM (soooo not like us). Brian said, "I wonder if that happened for a reason?" You bet it did! Since we left so early, we drove ahead of the storm, so we were not in hazardous driving conditions. Also.. we were home early. See, if we hadn't been home, for whatever reason, we would not have a house right now. Plain and simple. 2. Nolan didn't wake at all, during all of this. Not until this morning when he realized he was in a pink room did he get suspicious that something might be not right, but he's such an awesome kid, he's hanging in there great (with the help of Abby's toys, of course!) 3. We have each other. We're all alive. Our dogs were at the kennel, an extra blessing when running out of the house. They are safe and adorable and we're all healthy and thanking God for taking care of us and setting that alarm clock earlier than we may have liked. I couldn't stop hugging & kissing my boys last night and especially today. We're so blessed and so lucky and I'm so grateful to the man upstairs. Brian just called, he's been at the house (outside mostly on a STEAMING hot day), dealing with the gas company & electrician. The appliances are all okay, but the A/C is not working and one guy thinks that's what was struck. There are about 10 (YES, TEN) holes in the gas pipe. None of the workers can understand how the place didn't go up in flames immediately and I can't wrap my brain around it either. Every time I try, I get emotional. We'll keep you all updated & I hope it won't be too long before we can post some pictures of our trip to St. Louis. Happy 4th of July!