FIRE!!!

Tonight we had way more excitement than I was ready for! My friend, Tia, was over visiting...we were sitting in my living room chatting it up when the doorbell rang. Chris answered, and it was one of our neighbors. She was all breathy and was yelling "Move your truck, move your truck, fire, fire, fire!" Tia ran out into the driveway to move her truck and I jumped up (way faster than I should have 4 days after surgery) and ran to the door. Our entire front yard was on FIRE! It was a truly SCARY moment. Chris ran out into the yard (socked feet, no time for shoes) and started to hook up the hose on one side of our house. Our neighbor on the west side came running over with his hose, as did our neighbor across the street. Many other neighbors were running over with brooms beating the fire, and others had buckets of water that they were pouring on our little wee trees. I was stunned, just standing there not knowing what to do. Finally, Tia grabbed me and pulled me back into the house so I would stop inhaling so much smoke. A couple minutes later, the fire was out and a couple minutes after that, the fire department showed up... lights, sirens, and the whole works. My heart was beating SO HARD!!!

It seems that our new neighbors (they've only lived there 2 WEEKS!) to the east were grilling dinner on a small charcoal grill. They took their steaks inside and left the grill on their back patio. Well, we live in Oklahoma, you know, "where the wind comes sweeping down the plaaaaaiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnssssss", and today, like everyday, was windy. It doesn't help that we live in a neighborhood that is only 2 years old and was built in the middle of an old pasture, so we have NOTHING to block the wind. The wind constantly whirls and whistles around our house, and today it whirled our neighbor's hot grill right over into the grass. The grass promptly caught fire, and fed by the sweeping wind, spread into our yard. Our neighbors across the street and down a couple houses were having a birthday party, so (FORTUNATELY) there were about 10 adults standing outside that saw what happened and ran right over. All in all, there were probably 20 people who helped us put out the fire! What a great neighborhood to live in!!!

Here are pictures of the damage. We are so blessed that our house didn't catch fire! Oh, and this was the first time that we were able to meet our new neighbors! They were so embarrassed of their "entrance" into the neighborhood!

Our front yard, standing on our front porch. The fire was SCARY close to the house in some spots!

Looking from the street toward our house (white brick and raspberry colored shutters) and our neighbors house (the tan one). You can see where the fire started next to their back patio and spread into our yard. You can also barely see our two little trees that survived the blaze!