Dryer Fire ---

On February 12th our dryer caught fire and threatened to burn the house down.

Jonathan was scheduled to work a third shift that night.  When he checked the dryer he noticed that his clothes had not quite finished drying, so he put them back in and pressed the button to start the dryer.  Immediately he heard and arc of electricity from the back of the dryer and the motor stopped.  He could see a whiff of white smoke from the back, so he looked around the back but could not see anything.  He checked the inside of the dryer but still did not see anything.  He felt the back of the dryer but felt no heat.  He let Jannai know what had happened, though she was already half asleep.

Jonathan went upstairs to put his shoes on and then came back downstairs to get his tablet from Eliza before leaving.  When he came downstairs he noticed about an inch of black smoke covering the entire ceiling.  Looking over at the dryer, he saw that it was engulfed in flames.  He ran closer for a moment to see how bad it was.  The flames consumed the tumbler and all the clothes within, as well as many of the clothes that were on top of the dryer.  The flames where already coming about two feet off of the dryer.  Jonathan ran to the bedroom to tell Jannai and Eliza to get out of the house.  At first they didn't know what he meant, as they were sleeping, and Jannai told Jonathan that she didn't know what was wrong with the dryer (remembering what Jonathan had previously said).  Jonathan started yelling, "I don't care, there's a fire!  Get out of the house!"

Now Jannai and Eliza noticed the smell of the smoke and got out of bed.  Jonathan asked if we had a fire extinguisher, but we did not.  Jannai started drawing water for Jonathan as Eliza went to wake Ella Grace.  Being upstairs, Ella could not yet smell the smoke.  When Eliza told her there was a fire, Ella said, "That's nice," and rolled over to go back to sleep.  Eliza then told Ella if she didn't get out of bed immediately she would punch her in the face.  At this point Ella evacuated with her sister.

With Jannai's assistance, Jonathan made four trips up and down the stairs with pitchers of water in each hand to put on the fire.  The first couple didn't seem to make much difference, and even though Jannai had already called the fire department, Jonathan felt that the fire would quickly consume the entire house if he could not get the fire down some.  The smoke was the biggest problem, and although he ran close to the ground and held his breath as much as possible, it was quickly becoming a lost cause.  On the final trip downstairs, out of breath, Jonathan gasped a few times involuntarily, but did not feel any oxygen coming in to his lungs.  As he exited the basement for the last time he ran straight into the computer table because he could no longer see through the smoke.  Running up the stairs he began yelling at Jannai to get out of the house immediately.  He tipped on the upper part of the stairs, but forced himself to continue up and out of the house.

Once outside, Jonathan looked inside the windows to see if the fire was spreading, but could not see any flicker of flames.  He wasn't sure if the smoke was just to thick to see it, but hoped that he had gotten the fire down enough to momentarily stop it's spread.  He knocked on the landladies door to inform her what was going on in case she needed to evacuate too.  She offered for the children to come over so that they wouldn't have to be outside in the cold.

When the fire department arrived there was so much smoke even on the first floor that they needed respirators to go inside.  They were able to extinguish what was left of the fire without needing their hoses.  This was a good thing because the layout of the house would not have lent itself to using hoses as the stairs are half way through the house, and the bulk head from outside to the basement is on the backside of the house (away from the street) and on the the clear opposite side of the dryer.  The firefighters hooked up large fans to the doors and began blowing the smoke out of the house, checking the oxygen levels with their instruments.  They were even good enough to remove the dryer from the house and put it in the backyard for us to dispose of later.


The EMT's took Jonathan's vitals and found his BP was 160/110 and pulse was 111.  Though his oxygen saturation was a normal 100%, as a precaution they gave him an oxygen tank and took him to L&M Hospital for smoke inhalation.  He already had a slight case of bronchitis so it was difficult to tell how much the smoke was causing him to cough or how much was the bronchitis.  He was checked out and showed no signs of carbon monoxide poisoning so he was released after an hour or so.

We were allowed to return to the house that night and despite the residue smell of smoke there was surprisingly little damage to the house, only a small burn mark on the sheet rock next to the dryer remained.  Even better was some friends who heard of the fire had a used dryer they were looking to get rid of and offered to give it to us, so we had a new dryer not two days after the fire.

The grey on his head is natural, the grey on his back is not.

We had let the fire fighters know that we didn't know where the cats where and they assured us that cats are very good at getting themselves out of harms way and that they would turn up eventually.  That night we found three of them, Fiesty, Georgia, and Cuddles, and the next morning Ciara showed up.  It appeared that none of them had left the house, and Fiesty was even found in our bedroom downstairs.  Apparently the smoke never got bad enough that he felt the need to move from where he was, though he was covered in soot, adding fire to the already long list of things that he is not afraid of.

After a few days, Jannai realized that four feet from where the dryer caught fire is our store of emergency water, about 20 gallons worth, that we'd been saving for our Disaster Preparedness Plan.  In the panic of the moment, it never occurred to anyone that we hadn't needed to run up and down the stairs to get water, all the water we could have possibly needed was sitting right there!

All in all we were quite happy with how everything turned out, as we quite possibly could have lost everything.  We also appreciated how well the family worked together in crisis and how resilient everyone proved to be in the following days.  Not that we needed any reminders on how important life and family are, but it was good to know that we were all here for each other.

Jonathan's Patriots jersey that was in the dryer at the time the fire started.

The fuse box right above the dryer.  You can see the burnt cobwebs.

Jannai celebrated Jonathan's Spidey-sense with a balloon.

The only damage done to the house.

Jonathan with raccoon eyes after unwittingly rubbing them with soot covered fingers.

Blizzard of 2013 ---

We were treated to our first blizzard in ten years, though this one was much more significant than the one of 2003.  Jannai is the only one who remembers the Blizzard of '78, which she remembers as being worse, but for everyone else this is the most snow they've seen dropped by a single storm.

The severity of the storm was particularly noticed when the power went out around 6:30 on Friday evening, as the storm began to intensify.  For us, no power means no heat as well.  The outage took out our entire block and the one next to us.  Groton Utilities was not initially sure when the power would be back up as we were the first ones to report it to them.  With the power out, we began to notice what we thought to be lightening in the distance, a rare, but not unheard of, weather phenomenon.

Jonathan took a walk around to see if it would be better to stay put or evacuate while we still could. While walking around the block, a power line shorted out overhead about ten feet ahead of him. At that point he decided it was probably best to head back indoors.  On the way, another power line shorted out in the distance, giving off a beautiful blue, green, and yellow color, followed shortly after by a shockwave that sounded like gun blast that ricocheted around the city.

Jonathan driving home from work Friday afternoon.

The family decided to stay put as the roads were still drivable, and the power was back on within two hours.  Thanks to the insulation of the house, the temperature inside and not yet dropped by a single degree.  The family was asleep while the worst of the storm hit.

Jonathan got up at 5AM to get ready for work.  It took two hours to shovel the driveway to the point that the car could be driven over the snow as there was simply too much snow to remove it all. Even this took two hours of work, and twice snow plows came by and blocked the entrance off again. There was an ice boulder that could not be broken up, about three feet wide.  Jonathan had to shovel around it and roll it out of the way. Even after all of this, Jonathan still had to rock the car back and forth several times to clear the car of the driveway.

This is still before the worst of the storm hit.

It wasn't until Jonathan got on the highway and saw the digital display on the Gold Star Bridge that read "All CT Roads Closed" that he realized there was a driving ban.  To keep from getting stuck in the snow, he reached speeds of 40mph until the car began hydroplaning on the back end of the bridge.  Route 32 was fairly drivable, although he did come across a snow plow that was stuck in a snow bank while another snow plow attempted to tow it out.

The back roads were a different matter, however, and Jonathan was thankful for the anti lock brakes. There was really only enough room for one car at a time, which became problematic when a truck with a plow came the other way and forced Jonathan to pull one side of the car into a snow bank to make room for it to pass. Thankfully the car was easily freed and he could continue, however the very next hill was the toughest of the road and it took three attempts to cope with it, twice sliding back down the way he had come. On the third attempt, the tire and skid marks left from the previous two attempts were helpful in maintaining some kind of traction, though it still took the cars full power to will it up the hill and navigate around a turn at the top.  Elated by the small victory, Jonathan was disappointed to find that the road he works on wasn't even plowed, making it physically impossible to drive.  The car was abandoned, parked on the side of the road, out of the way.  Jonathan hiked the remaining mile on foot, which was difficult as the snow came up to his knees.

Once at work, Jonathan would be there for the next 25 hours (sleeping when he could get the chance) until the roads were clear enough for relief to arrive. He was finally able to get home Sunday morning.

Eliza spent most of Saturday outside, having snow ball fights, building snow fitters, sledding, shoveling, and sleeping over at a friend's house where she watched Mary Poppins for the first time. She had a great time.

Ella Grace, and Jonathan, battled a head cold and mostly started inside, although she did get out to do some shoveling. She and Jannai enjoyed a day of doing their nails and relaxing.

On Monday, a little stir craziness began to set in, so the family went out to The Shack for breakfast and then did some shopping in New London and the Crystal Mall.  The roads were fairly drivable, and a rainfall all day helped to start washing some of the snow away, but there was a lot of compacted snow so dense that the plows could not get under it with their plows.

The corner store, we found, had run out of gas and we purchased their last gallon of available milk.  Other staples, like bread, were also noticeably absent. We're still not sure when school will resume, as it has already been canceled for tomorrow. Also, there is more snow predicted for this week.

What we here in New England call a "dusting".

Talking With Tori ---

Just realized we never posted this to the family site. A little old, but here it is. We're also collecting video for the second episode of the groundbreaking variety show.

A Happy Family ---

The family has been growing closer throughout the winter and have been spending a lot of time together. We recently enjoyed observing the Memorial of Christ's Death, we spent our nights leading up to the day Jesus died reading scriptures about what Jesus was doing on that particular day.

Ella Grace, Eliza, and Daddy put a snowman together after our last good snow fall. We also had a wonderful day of sledding that ended up in a snowball fight, particularly between Mommy and Daddy.

Ella Grace is continuing to excel in learning Chinese, most of the family are now answering to their Chinese family title, Gi Gi for big sister, Mae Mae for little sister, etc. Eliza is picking up what she can from her big sister. Ella Grace also decided out in service that she is less nervous giving her presentation to a householder when she doesn't have anyone looking over her shoulder, so she's started going to the door alone with Mommy and Daddy usually watching from the car. What courage for her age!

Both girls are doing well at school and are growing at home as well, learning to help with chores. They continue to spend most of their time at home playing together and do not like to be apart from each other for long.

Snowman pictures here

Other winter pictures here

The Changing Seasons ---

There's been lots of fun of late as we get into the winter. Our first snowfall was good for sledding and making snowballs, Ella Grace and Daddy got to do both on a pleasant Friday afternoon after a doctor's appointment. The snowball fight was lots of fun as they could throw the snowballs about as fast as they could pick up the snow, due to the snow being so wet.

The family talent night was also good fun. Ella Grace and Eliza helped out by being background clouds in a poem recital. Ella Grace also continued her fine work as a camera person.

Great-Grandpa came home from the rehab center on Friday, Daddy and Ella Grace had the privilege of helping with that. Great-Grandpa is doing much better now that he is at home according to all reports and has even been able to stand up out of his wheelchair with assistance, which he wasn't able to do before. Daddy and Ella Grace enjoyed running around the woods behind Great-Grandpa's house and making fake footprints in the snow for fun.

This last Saturday the whole family did some house cleaning, throwing a lot out and finding things we'd been looking for in some cases. Ella Grace is planning to help Daddy work on video editing for the family, and Mommy has been doing a spectacular job putting up family photos around the house.

The family also purchased a 2003 Honda Civic with only 27,000 miles on it to replace Daddy's deteriorating Volkswagon. Daddy was sad to part with the VW but is enjoying the Civic greatly. The dealership, Cardinal Honda, was immensely helpful in helping the family secure our transportation needs for what will hopefully be a long time.

Pictures scattered here until Daddy can organize them.

SailFest 07 ---

Saturday was our first SailFest at the new house and we were happy to entertain family and friends for the day. Grammie, Grandpa, Aunt Fran, David, Alex and Erica attended, as well as the Glovers who were able to make it in time and cousins Dillon and Emily along with mother Sarah. We got the grill running for the first time this year and Grandpa helped out getting things ready for a BBQ. The kids played in the lopsided pool (the terrain isn't flat enough, a problem we'll be working out later) but the kids got lots of fun out of it before it collapsed later in the evening.

Grammie and Grandpa also got us an anniversary cake, a chocolate one, that was delicious. Thank you! The burgers were good and so was the wine. We started a fire for roasting marsh mellows but the kids weren't interested, probably shouldn't have given them smores just the day before. :)


It was nice to not have to fight with traffic, before or after the fireworks. Everyone enjoyed a game of Apples to Apples and some Walmart fireworks before heading down for the real show about 20 minutes before it began. We got a real good view, probably the best I can remember, of the show and everyone enjoyed it from beginning to end. Afterwards we all sat out in the front swapping stories while we watched the traffic slowly clear out. The kids enjoyed sparklers.

Pictures here!

Backyardigans ---

We've been getting a lot of work done in the back yard of late. Daddy's taken to mowing the lawn, Mommy's planting flowers, and Ella and Eliza are always ready to help. It's nice to have a yard of our own, and our landlady has been very generous in allowing us to use the fire pit (though Daddy was unsuccessful in getting a fire started there) and her grill, which we'll be bringing upstairs for the summer soon. Eliza particularly loves running through the sprinkler. Ella had devised a water slide with the basement trapdoor, but we sadly had to stop that as the water was leaking through downstairs.

Eliza planted her own flowers. Digging with a spade like it were a shovel she threw the dirt over her shoulder. She's careful and meticulous with her handiwork. Ella's been terrific at tended to her sister outside, trying to make sure Eliza stays safe and tending to her when she falls down.

Parties Galore! ---

It's been a busy week in the house, lot's of fun! Eliza had an end of year party at Headstart that Mommy and Daddy attended with her. Then on Saturday Eliza had a tea party. A couple of her friends weren't able to attend for reasons beyond anyone's control, but Emily and Dillon made it and had a great time. From balloon popping to cake eating there was never a dull moment.

Friday Uncle Micah came over and we got a new toilet to replace the last one that never stopped running. We also got the screen door fixed (mostly) so now we can leave the door open in the summer time, as well as finally getting some glass on our side door so we could take off the plastic baggy that was covering it. Daddy also brought up one of the air conditioners and a window fan.

Eliza's tea party

End of year party

Suessical ---

We attended the Suessical musical at the Garde Arts today and enjoyed it, though Eliza got up for a couple of minutes near the end as she got a little bored. The play takes a number of Dr. Suess books and combines them into one story and sets the whole thing to music. It was well done and imaginative, and Daddy remembered how creative imaginations can be once you get wrapped up in a play, your mind filling in all the blanks made by the limitations of what you can do on stage. All the limitations movies spoil us by filling. It's more fun letting imagination do the special effects. Mommy loved it but was a little bothered by the fact that the Cat in the Hat had no tail. :)

At home the family has been enjoying reading the Bible together as we prepare for the Memorial of Christ's death on Monday. Ella Grace was amused by Jesus throwing the money changers out of the temple.

Assembly, Cars, and Snow ---

Unfortunately our camera was not with us as we trekked up to Natick for our Assembly. I think we just forgot it with everything that was going on that day. Daddy's car wasn't well as an exhaust gasket had come detached (the bolts holding it together had rusted out) and Mommy's car went into the shop because it wasn't shifting again. When the guy called Daddy back he simply said "Your transmission is, ahhh... is no good." This turned out not to be true (Daddy was a little suspiscious how the mechanic would know that definativly just by hooking it up to the computer) but it did mean we were without car for the weekend. Not to worry, Daddy and Mommy had a car rental in line and picked that up for the trip.

The Assembly was on the subject of not storing up material riches, which was perfect for the weekend, and putting first things first we got through the weekend and had a great time. The kids went swimming, the food was great, and a good time was had by all. Ella Grace continues to make friends at every Assembly (they kind of attach themselves to her like barnacles on a ship as she walks around the Assembly Hall), and this time earned the privelege of sitting with one of her new friends for a session. Eliza was Eliza and pretty much ammused herself wherever she went.

After the Assembly, on the referral of a good friend, we got Mommy's car fixed at Stop and Go Transmission (the transmission was fine, it was a little black box outside the transmission that caused the trouble). It wasn't cheap but not too pricy as far as car repairs go. As Daddy can't free two of the bolts from the gasket to repair his car he spend $6 on C-clamps and put the pipe together that way. It's running fine for the time being.

We enjoyed the snow and tried to put together a snow man but it was difficult with the limited snow we've had this limited winter. The last snowfall was better and both the girls had a blast sledding down the hill at Fort Griswold, which is only a short walk from our house. Daddy had a good time too until the snow got into his shoe and melted, his nervous system is a little bit more developed than when he was a kid so the cold is more of a nuisance now.

Snow pictures are here.

New Beds ---

We've gone a little IKEA mad over the last two weeks. Last week we were trying to make the flea market in New Haven but found out that they close at four o'clock, and it was after four that we found this out. So we decided to hop on over to IKEA for a look around and ended up purchasing Eliza a new bed, as we'd been wanting to get her one for awhile. She loves it. After bringing it home Eliza was very helpful in setting it up with Daddy. She busied herself with putting the screws together (which she figured out how to do watching Daddy do it, unbeknownst at the time to Daddy), and by helping hold the frame in place while Daddy screwed it together.

Yesterday, after roller skating with the kids, Mommy and Daddy decided to make another run down to IKEA to pick up the bed that they had been eyeing for some time in the catalogues. Feeling like old pros we were in and out in record time, even after stopping to get a bite to eat at the concession stand. This time it was colder, but that was alright, because it wasn't nearly as windy as it had been the week before. Getting the bed back was a small adventure, as the box stretched from the very back of the van to about half way between the two front seats.

This bed was a little harder to put up, but Mommy and Daddy got it done that night and enjoyed their first night at the new house in a proper bed. It was wonderful.

Why We Left ---

Article display page - theday.com

Branford Manor is getting a bit of press lately for all the robberies that have been going on. We're glad we got out when we did. Maybe part of the problem there is that the manager said she thinks the residents exaggerated the thefts. Real nice. Kind of hard to deal with a problem you don't admit. Maybe if she had been broken into she'd feel a little more drive to get these crimes solved. But, in a place where you can complain for eight years about rot and corrosion in your bathroom and not have anything done about it....

Furnature Additions ---

IM000643
Originally uploaded by jonnierodsg.

We've recently added some new furnature to the new house. Ella Grace got a bunk bed with a futon below that she loves. We've also been given a couch and an old-fashioned clock. The clock doesn't run on batteries but has to be wound by hand every once in awhile. Daddy loves it because of the ticking sound at night, very soothing.

Click here, the last eight pics in the set are of the new stuff.

Movin' On Up ---

IM000156
Originally uploaded by jonnierodsg.

Most of you already know this, but we will be moving out of the slums this September across town to a much nicer, and bigger, half of a duplex. For the first time as a family we will have a basement, and our own bedrooms. The extra space alone should make daily life more enjoyable, plus we have a fenced backyard for the kids.

As part of the deal we're painting the inside in trade for the washer and dryer downstairs, and the oil in the tank, so many a day has already been spent in the house working on it.

Eliza is ready to move already and is inconsolable when we have to leave for the day.

The picture is smudgy because there was a smudge on the lense when taken, which has since been removed.