February 12: The Night before Vacation

Our vacation doesn't begin until tomorrow, but we are getting an early start on sleeping away from home tonight:
When we came home from church this morning, we immediately noticed a hot, burning smell in our house, accompanied by a light hazy smoke in the air. We searched the house and pinpointed the furnace as the source of the burning smell and smoke.

The motor to the fan broke on our furnace, so while the heat was being produced, it was not being blown into the house. Rather all the heat remained in the furnace, getting hotter and hotter and hotter...thus the burning smell and smoke.

The furnace repair guy came to take a look, but he could not fix it because he needed a special part that won't be available until tomorrow. Our house is cold when the furnace is running normally in the winter. When it is not running at all, it gets chilly quickly, especially when the temps are in the 20s outside.

So...we decided to camp out in our church nursery for tonight. It has heat and a crib for Isla and a crib mattress for Audrey. And it is just down the block from our house, so I could easily go back home and pack after the girls were in bed. All we had to do was bring down our air mattress and some pillows and blankets, and we are ready for bed!

We had several kind friends offer their homes to us, and while it would be fun to have a slumber party with our friends, Daniel and I both have a lot of work to get done tonight. The church (so far at least) is working great as a little home away from home for our night tonight.

It is a bit annoying to be dealing with this the day before we leave for vacation! Kind of like a few years ago when we discovered a gas leak in our house the day before we left for vacation. Why do these things have to happen at such inconvenient times?

Actually, we are grateful that this did happen before we left for two weeks though. If it had happened while we were gone, then the house could have burnt down. Or the pipes could have frozen and caused flooding. It could have been much, much worse. We are grateful for that!

Now it's time to finish my work and get some sleep! Florida, here we come!!!!