Spring Break at Gram and Papa Kevins...

was quite exciting to say the least!

It started out pretty normal, we made the drive in a fairly easy 8 hours and stopped to spend the night in Park City with Grandma Suzie and Nancy & Family. We drove to Liberty the next day. Sunday was a nice relaxing day, went to Church for Ellie's baby blessing, came home and had yummy food to celebrate the occasion.

All the Phipps cousins (minus Danica and Carson who are in Florida)


Henry enjoying his rootbeer float and Lottie licking her bowl clean

The normalacy all changed that night (or early the next morning) when we were awakened at 3:30 to Tyson yelling "fire! everyone out!" apparently the alarms had been going of for a least a minute. Chris and I both vaguely remember the alarms but it was Tyson that got us going. Luckily all 4 of our kids were sleeping with us that night so we quickly woke them up and ran up the stairs (we later realized that it would probably have been safer to go out our bedroom window) When we got to the top of the stairs the family room was completely filled with smoke and there were flames coming out of the garage. The kids were disoriented but we were able to get them out the front door. It was freezing cold and most of us were without shoes so we crammed all the kids (11 total including 2 babies), 2 dogs and 3 adults into David and Janelle's explorer. Papa Kevin called 911 but because they live up in the mountains it took a good 10 min. for the fire department to get there. As I sat in the explorer with the kids, I kept watching the guys going in and out trying to get out pictures and computers. I kept thinking, they just need to get out of there. Gram had called a friend to see if we could come stay at their house for the night so we drove away just as the fire engines got there. We got to the neighbors and tried to get the kids calmed down but it was pointless at that point. They ended up staying up and watched a few movies. I think a few eventually fell asleep for a bit. Chris and all the other guys eventually showed up. We were anxious to hear all the details. Apparently as we were rushing out of the house David had thrown a few cups of water on the fire and it seemed to make a difference. Chris found a cake topper and filled it with water. They were then able to hook up a hose to a utility sink in the mud room next to the garage. When the fire department got there the fire was all but out. They told the guys that if they hadn't fought the fire the house would have been gone.


Thank you to Tyson and Amber for the Pics! I stole this off their blog :)

So, it was a crazy experience. We were so blessed that no one was hurt and Gram and Papa Kevin did not lose anything that could not be replaced. We definately learned a lot about how to react in an emergency and how important it is to have an emergency plan and working fire alarms!
The rest of the week consisted of sledding, eating, playing games, walks, Tangled at the movies, and insurance guys, fire inspectors and restoration guys coming in and out all day long!


Thanks to Janelle for sledding with kids so I could just stand there and take pictures (the easy job)