6:00 am
BEEP BEEP BEEP BLEEP! BEEP BEEP BEEP BLEEP!
What IS that?
Ryan also gets out of bed and says it must be the smoke alarm. We go to Natalie and John’s room, and Megan is already in there. I was just going to wake Natalie up, she says. What? I’ll think about that later. The smoke alarm in their room is not going off, but it’s still making quite a racket in the rest of the house. John is still asleep. Should I pick him up? Should we go outside? Is there a fire? I don’t see or smell anything weird. We go through the rest of the house.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BLEEP! BEEP BEEP BEEP BLEEP!
Once we determine that there is no fire anywhere, we stop the panic, but we still have the problem of HOW DO WE STOP this noise!? Ryan gets the ladder and starts unhooking the smoke alarms (handy, that one, I tell you) while I sat on the couch with a pillow over my ears trying to block out the sound. He determined that the one in his office was the one causing all he problems. When he unplugged that one, the racket stopped. And isn’t it funny that Jenna and John slept through the whole thing? If this had been a real fire, we would have had to wake and/or carry them out.
I went back to bed, hoping to get another hour of sleep. John, true to form, came in a short hour later and wanted his breakfast.
Then, at 8:30, we received a call from a friend, who’s also a member of the primary presidency. She informs us that there’s been a change in the planned stake activity days outing for our girls. They won’t be going up to Mutual Dell in American Fork Canyon today because there was a bear attack there last night, and they haven’t yet found the bear. I’m shocked and saddened for an unknown family who lost a son while camping last night. And, NO, I don’t mind the change of plans.
I even heard on the news today here in the Pacific Northwest about this bear attack. How heart breaking.
It was all over the news last night. They have killed the bear, and determined that it was definitely the one who killed Samuel Ivies, the 11-year-old boy.
Oh, and the smoke alarm incident is exactly what we had happen at 2 a.m. several times. Brian got so sick of being jolted out of dreamland and nearly having a heart attack that we’ve just left most of our smoke detectors unhooked. Hopefully we still have enough to warn us if there ever is a real fire. Our landlord said it’s probably pollen coming in from an open window, or a spider or spiderweb going in front of the detector. Apparently new smoke detectors these days are ultra sensitive, to the point of being useless because they end up being ripped off the ceiling to stop the noise!
But they found the bear and shot him (or killed him somehow). So why can’t they go ahead with their plans?
We heard about that here, too. And I cannot think of a bigger nightmare as a parent. I mourn for that little family….
The Activity was scheduled for before they had found the bear.
Also, it is recommended that you lightly vacuum the smoke detectors on a semi-regular basis. We may have to start doing that, after being in the house for 6 years without doing it once.
🙂
I saw a “commercial” on Saturday Night Live last year for a smoke detector that played hiphop music instead of beeping. Maybe that would’ve helped!