So sad...

I was planning to post nursery pics either tonight or at least soon, but an unexpected turn of events has me not in the mood (though I promise I will soon). Don't worry, I'm fine and it has nothing to do with Cameron or the adoption, but last night I was reminded that I need to count my blessings every day...

I woke up last night around 1am and saw flashes outside. Thinking it was lightening I looked out the window expecting to find stormy weather, instead I saw several police cars, an ambulance and fire trucks parked just down the block. The house about 4 doors down from us was on fire, and apparently it was quite a blaze. I went outside since I saw several of the neighbors out there checking things out as well (we're all out roaming in our pj's at 1am, it was an interesting sight) and talked to a few of them for a while until the smoke got to be too much for us. They filled me in on which house it was, and we did know the people who owned the house, though not very well. They had bought it not more than a year and half ago and had completely gutted and remodeled the place. They had added on a huge garage with an addition above it and had sunk tons of money and time into the place. They had done all or at least most of the work themselves and the place was looking so nice. Well in an instant that beautiful house is pretty much gone! Their entire garage is burned to the ground and though the main structure of the house is still standing, it looks completely trashed and I doubt there is much salvageable there.

There is still no word on what started the fire but I'm guessing with all the paint, stain, etc. in there from the work they were doing it wouldn't take much to start it. It started in the garage somehow and quickly spread to the house. Thankfully the owners got out of the house in time, apparently one of their dogs was barking and woke them up and they discovered the fire. But I believe they had something like 5 dogs and I heard that one of them didn't get out, poor thing. It's all so incredibly sad, and house fires are scary enough when you see them on the news, let alone when it's happening on your block! So as much as I thought our social worker was crazy for having all those darned smoke alarms all over our house, I'm sure glad they are there today.