Fire Trucks For Real

First I would like to say that it has been a week since I have posted to this blog. It bugs me but I have been out of town. Yes, that is right, I was able to leave town with some friends for the entire Labor Day weekend! Boy did it feel good to get out of town. We went camping up north and it was beautiful weather and so relaxing. I really needed that.
So anyway, back to my fire truck post. The past few days, Jon and I have noticed that our electricity was doing some strange things. We both just chalked it up to the power company must have been doing some testing or something. Anyway, last night when Jon got home with the kids, the lights in the house were very dim and would not get any brighter. Jon called our Electrician friend and he told Jon to flip the switch on the circuit breaker so Jon tried that and it worked. Later on in the evening, I was downstairs and when I started the dryer, the lights got very dim and then they came back up. I thought it was weird but was so tired I decided to go to bed. In the middle of the night I woke up and there was no electricity in our room. Something felt weird to me so I woke Jon up and told him the power was out again. He then said, not in the kids rooms because I can hear the fan. He then decided he better head downstairs to take a look and check things out. Jon then came back up stairs and asked me if I would go down with him. Once, I got down there he asked if anything seemed weird to me. It did...it smelled like burned rubber. We both then proceeded to feel the walls and the ceiling to see if anything felt hot. Nothing did.
At this point I looked at Jon and said, do I need to wake the kids and bring them to my moms (it was like 2 AM), do we need to call someone to come out and take a look, or should we stay up all night in case of a fire? We were not really sure what to do but we decided it would best to call the dispatcher for the fire department to see what they thought would be best to do. They suggested either an electrician (didn't want to pay for one in the middle of the night) or the fire department. We opted for the fire department. Before we knew it, we had two fire trucks with lights ablazing sitting in front of our house. We have 5 firemen in our house. They were walking around checking the walls and the ceiling for haze and heat. Then three of the men got called out to a more critical call. The fireman came down to the conclusion that the house seemed fine but advised us to leave the circuit off for the night and if the smell got worse to call them back.
This morning, Jon called our Electrician friend and explained the situation. He said he would stop by on his way to another call. After he inspected our electrical panel, he said that God must have been looking out for us. The main line into the house was shorting out and the insulation was melting. He said that if we would not have turned the circuit off that the sparks would most likely have caused a fireball and then our house would have started on fire! I am numb to this news. My stomach hurts just thinking about it. I just THANK GOD that Jon was home with me and the house did not catch on fire. WOW!
I told the fireman last night right before he left that my biggest fear is having a fire and trying to get all three kids out. He was right when he told me we needed to start having fire drills with the kids. I intend to buy a ladder for our 2nd story and to start talking to the kids about what we should do if the house starts on fire. God sure watched out for us last night. Now we just need to get the electrical panel back in tip top shape!