Unexpected Visitor

So a crazy thing happened last night. The kids were all in bed, I was laying in bed reading a book waiting for R to finish up his work in his study when all the sudden someone started to pound (not knock politely, but pound frantically) on our door. At first, I thought it was just some neighborhood kids pulling a prank. But the pounding soon became very frantic accompanied by a woman screaming as if someone was chasing her. I tried to find some clothes to put on, while I heard R cautiously open the door. A woman was on our door step sobbing that she needed help, needed a fire extinguisher, because the car she was towing was on fire--in the middle of the street right in front of our house!

R quickly handed her our fire extinguisher, told her to keep away from the car (who knows if and when the fire would hit the gas tank) and that he was calling 911 right then. By then, I was dressed and grabbed my coat and shoes. I did my best to keep the driver from getting too close to the car and out of the snow. She was in shock and couldn't stop crying. The police came and blocked off the street and we waited for the fire department. It seemed like forever until the firefighters showed up, but in retrospect it was pretty darn quick--especially for a volunteer fire department. We stood on our driveway and watched the firefighters put out this car fire. R got some great pictures.

While we were outside, we noticed we were the first "on the scene" with the driver. A lot of neighbors came out of their homes to watch. But I realized that this woman chose our house because it was around 11:30 pm, and we were the only home with lights still on. I was glad that we could help her.

The kids slept through everything even though MK woke up during the pounding.

So, here's what we found outside our door.

Here are the firefighters.

This a really cool one R got.

And when it was all said and done.