We were hoping for a little more excitment...

Jed had had a discouraging day at work today. Being a nearly-perfect wife (har har) I decided to make him his favorite dinner, the most disgusting meal I can think of, Tater-tot casserole. (I know what you are thinking, and I couldn't agree more.)

I popped it in the oven and went back to the living room to be with my boys. No longer than 10 minutes went by before I started noticing white smoke in the kitchen. The smoke detector started beeping, which made the baby scream. Jed picked him up to comfort him and I went back into the kitchen to assess and diffuse the situation. I pulled open the oven door and immediately the whole kitchen filled with thick, black smoke and a thin layer of soot billowed out onto the stove and countertops. There was no fire IN the oven, but I could see bright, twisting orange flames through the cracks of the oven floor.

I yelled to Jed there was a fire and grabbed the fire extinguisher from the mud room. (We had to install a ridiculous amount of fire extinguishers, smoke alarms, and CO2 detectors in order to pass our adoption home-study. Thank Heavens.) I pulled the pin, and tried pushing the handle, but nothing happened. I yelled out again to Jed that the fire extinguisher wasn't working and he ran to get the second extinguisher. Only a few seconds had passed since we noticed the problem, but the house filled up very quickly with thick, thick smoke. I grabbed the baby, who was wearing only his onesie, and rushed out into the cold air to my friend Rachel's house. Her husband grabbed his own fire extinguisher and raced over to help Jed. The baby, probably from the tenseness he could feel, the smoke, the piercing sounds of the fire extinguisher, and the cold air, was still screaming. I left him with Rachel for a minute and went back over to our house to get him a bottle, blanket, diapers, and clothes. When I got home I could hear that Jed was on the phone getting a fire truck. The boys had used the fire extinguishers, but there were still some flames. I went back to comfort the baby and the boys followed a few seconds later. When they had problems getting the gas valve to shut off, they decided to abandon efforts of putting the flames out themselves and leave it to the pros. Two cop cars, a Fire Marshall car, a fire truck, and an ambulance crowded our tiny cul-de-sac about four minutes later. (Although it seemed much longer than that.) The ambulance checked Jed and Brian's O2 saturation's, since they had spent a few minutes in the smoky house. I made them check the baby too, because he had probably inhaled a bit of smoke, and after all he only has tiny bebe lungs. They all checked out okay.

The fire men managed to get the gas turned off, and told us not to turn it back on until we had it checked. They set up big big fans that blew all the smoke right out of the house, although there is still a smoky smell, and he said they had a bit of trouble getting the smoke out of the basement. The whole kitchen is covered in soot and fire extinguisher dust tonight. I can even see a thin layer of ash on the living room couches. I'm not cleaning it up until I call an insurance adjuster in the morning. We will need a new stove, but our brand new stove (which seems to have been the cause of the problem) is still under warranty. The countertops are the only other thing damaged, but I guess my husband could probably figure out how to fix that. You know, if he thought about it really hard. :) So, I probably won't end up filing an insurance claim, unless they would be willing to shampoo my carpets and furniture, to get the smell out. I'm so disappointed that there was not any damage to the hideous linoleum floor. Oh well. I guess you just can't win them all...(Or, if your luck is of the Niel.so.n variety, you can't win any.) Haha, just kidding. Sort of.

We had a good laugh about living in Utah though, when within just 2 minutes after the fire truck arrived, the Elders quorum president showed up, my visiting teacher had called, and our best friends L.afe and Je.nna had been notified and both had called to check on us.

Being that
A: We are nearly broke. And
B: Our kitchen was recently on fire
we dined at the exquisite Wendy's with Rachel and Brian. Jed didn't even moan about the loss of his casserole. What a sport. Hours later, the baby is asleep in my husbands spot on the bed, my husband is asleep on the couch, and here I am at the computer, typing it all down for memory, willing the last trembley, anxious remnants of adrenaline out.