Trial by Fire!!!

As most of you know Rich and I bought an older home in July of 2007, we have spent the last 18 months remodeling it. It has been a time consuming and hard process, especially with 5 kids in the midst of our remodeling. Anyways, Rich started remodeling our masterbedroom and bathroom the first part of January, it was another crazy project to live through. On Friday January 23, Rich and his Uncle Vince laid brand new carpet in our bedroom and walk in closet, and Rich and brother n law Steve started hanging up new light fixtures, about 4:30 we left to do some shopping and go to dinner. We were both excited that our bedroom was about finished, and we were almost finished with the remodeling of the inside of our home. We got home about 9:15 that evening, as I was getting Bailee out of the car Rich went to let the other kids into our home. The unexpected was happening. He opened the front door and realized our house was full of smoke. Our home was on Fire and we didn't know where it was coming from! Dan my brother n law rushed over and I took the kids to my parents home. The fire was coming from our attic! Rich called 911 and the fire department showed up. They had to tear through our bedroom ceiling to get to the fire, it hadn't spread to other parts of the house yet. The wood trusses and insulation was on fire in the attic. The fire department was there until after midnight. I couldn't believe this was really happening! All the work and hours spent on our home changed in an instant. Needless to say, the last 2 weeks have been exhausting in every since of the word! The fire investigator said the old wiring in the attic had worn through and possibly a rodent or something chewed through some of the wiring, and so when Rich pulled down on the wires to put up a new ceiling fan it could have arked or sparked and slowly caught fire. He said it was no fault of Rich's just a weird thing because of the wires. We were both surprised when the attic was opened up, how many other things were wrong up there and electrically not to code. I know Rich was relieved to know he didn't cause the fire. It has been an emotionally draining process, but Rich and I are very grateful that we were all safe and unharmed. We are also so grateful for wonderful family and friends and your generous support, help, prayers, and love. Thank you so very much! Thanks to my sisters, mom, and Grandma who spent hours helping at the laundromat washing, drying, folding, ironing, all the clothing and bedding in our home, this was a huge undertaking, and we are happy that our smoke smelling clothes actually came out clean and not ruined. Thanks to my parents for letting us turn their house upside down for a week, until we got in our rental home, and dealing with Matt, Megan, Sadie, and Bailee all getting sick that week as well. Thanks to my attorney brother Kris who helped us get our insurance company on the right track, and to get the ball rolling! We appreciate the gift cards and money, and thoughtful cards, e-mails, and phone calls that were sent to us, that was so awfully generous of you at not expected at all! We love our awesome family and friends!!! Anyways, we finally got into a rental home just up the street from our home, so it doesn't change the kids surroundings to much. We have a beautiful view to Pine Valley mountain and surrounding beauty. I have spent this past week trying to unpack clothing and stuff we brought here, and go grocery shopping, so we can have some food in this house. I also went to my home and had to throw a lot of stuff away because of the bad smoke damage. The company contracted to fix our home took the remainder of the furniture and other items out of our home on Tuesday. They are going to clean and evaluate each item. Their crew also has taken all of the insulation out of our attic, and put new insulation in, the kind that won't catch fire, and they have fixed electrical problems as well in there. They took the ceiling out in our family room/ movie room down stairs because of water damage, and they have gutted our materbedroom taking carpet, sheet rock and insualtion from the walls. It still smells like smoke pretty bad in our home still, it will be interesting to see how far they will have to go to get the smell out. Right now their plan is to fix everything structurally from the fire, and redo our masterbedroom, and put new insulation and ceiling downstairs, and then clean and ozone everything in our home, at that point if it still smells like smoke, their next step will be to paint the inside of the home again, so I guess we will find out. They think they will be finished and we have a scheduled move back date as March 31st, so will see how it goes. I posted some pics of the fire damage and what they started on last week, but I kind of posted them out of order,so you will see the last pics I took first. This has been a literal "Trial by FIRE", and one I won't soon forget, it's been hard going through this process, but I realized that I can't change the situation, so I guess I better change my attitude! I have a lot to learn, with many weaknesses, and I am grateful for a patient and loving Father in Heaven whom I can turn to in prayer, and for a Savior who suffered all things that through him, I can repent, and find peace and understanding. Thanks again family and friends, we love you all!!!!













Our family/ movie room before they took the furniture out this week.

The ceiling taken down in the family room.

Our masterbedroom after they gutted the walls, sheetrock at took out the flooring.

The masterbedroom ceiling after the fire.

Wires and burned insulation in the attic hanging down.

Same as above, you can see part of the new ceiling fan Rich had started hanging up.

Another pic angle of the fire damage.

Pic where the trusses had burned through.

The wood trusses burnt pieces

Rich starting to paint our room, a few days before the fire. All of his hard work gone up in smoke!!