Day 3 – Jan 2 2022

Today was quite a bit slower than yesterday, but still honestly felt pretty chaotic.

After another night of minimal sleep, we woke up to make the plan for the day. There are a few “timely” tasks that seemed important to start before memories fade. So we wanted to:

1. Do a rough first pass at an inventory of what was in the house
2. Record our memories of the events between Dec 30 12pm (when we first smelled smoke) and Dec 31 8am (when we knew 100% the house was gone).

Mental Picture Inventory – Starting with #1 above, we went room by room and mostly just mentally pictured everything that was there that we want to fully inventory later. Kitchen: Cookware or Office: Filing cabinet type of detail. It took a few shifts (it’s incredibly exhausting somehow) to get through it all, but we now have 473 rows in a spreadsheet with this level of detail.

Since we just moved in 15 months ago, and we used a professional moving company then, we also have all of the photos we took of our belongings for that move. So eventually, we’ll also go through all those photos and make sure we didn’t miss anything.

And beyond that, that 1 line of Office: Filing Cabinet will eventually become 50 more rows of 1 Box of Pens, 3 reams of printer paper, 50 file folders, etc.

We wanted to do this while memories are as fresh as possible. And we also want to make lists of what we need to buy/acquire in the short term. Things like food storage containers, some favorite toys for the kids, a double stroller, etc.

Thank you forever Lauren – Avery and Theo had the most fun morning ever today with silly Aunt Lauren. We could hear their giggles and antics, and Avery had the most fun she’s had in a week playing freeze dance and losing laughably at hide and seek 😂:

House Visit with Neighbors – With Aunt Lauren on kid duty, Nick met a couple neighbors over at the house. And, with a kind officer who looked the other way, they were able to actually get to the lots and get a view.

The smoke/steaming has stopped, but everything is still covered in snow and hard to identify.

Here is a full walk around tour:

Essentially, only metal/ceramic remains. And even then, it’s badly melted/damaged. It’s hard to identify things because of the snow, but we’ll go back tomorrow or Tuesday to get another view once the snow is gone.

In the photo below, you can see the wire shelves from our storage room, the frame of my desk, the main warped steel beam across the whole house, and two piles in the back. One is probably the bathtubs, bed frames, washer/dryer, deep freezer, and Nick’s office remains. And the other is the kitchen appliances and maybe some Peloton pieces.

The crazy highlight of the trip – this piggy bank sitting on the utility pole! ↓

This piggy bank belonged to our neighbor’s son. And was on the 2nd floor of his house. Apparently the water company is having to send people into each and every basement to turn off the water so the city can turn the water back on. And the water guy found this piggy bank in the basement and pulled him to safety. Because he’s ceramic, he somehow survived. Strong little dude!

Daycare – We got confirmation today that the kids’ normal daycare WILL be open tomorrow. They still don’t have internet/phones, so they’re going old school and have set up someone offsite to be like a call center if parents need to contact the school. They’ll stay home with us one more day, have the time of their lives with Aunt Lauren, and then they’ll go to school on Tuesday, since we’re staying up at Sam’s starting Tuesday night.

We’ll still plan to see Granny and Gramps once a week or so, but just not all day every single day — hopefully reducing the chances of us bringing Covid home from school to their house. Also…we’re sure they need a break from constant Elsa singing, baby talking, and overall kid energy. But we’re just so grateful for everything they’ve done for us over the past year and especially the past few days. Did we mention that Granny just had ankle surgery and is in a cast? Things really are just complications piled on other complications.

Along with the 5 other Primrose school families, 2 staff had full damage to their belongings from smoke (though it seems the structure survived). The school owners have set up a GoFundMe for all 8 impacted families, and we are touched by their desire to support us in this way and so so happy with our choice of daycare 6 months ago. They’re even stocking us up with lots of Covid tests at no cost. The best.

Overall, we’re still (just barely) hanging in there, and so touched by all the support from everyone near and far. We love hearing from you, and even if we don’t respond right away, please know how meaningful it is for us to feel that love and support. It’s honestly the only reason we’re able to slog through this right now.

Tomorrow, we’ll plan to start on #2 listed at the top: Remembering and Documenting what happened over those first 20 hours and write it all down before it melts away. And….the ever exciting DMV visit for a new drivers license. The fun continues…