Well, as some of you might have heard.. yes, my house did catch on fire. Everyone got out except my dog Zeus, and my bird Corona. Please pray for them, because we loved them just as much as we loved anyone in our family.

It still hurts to bring all this up, but I wanted to write it down as soon as I could, not for anyone else, but formyself.

My mom woke me up two nights ago, she turned my lights on in my room. My first thoughts before she said anything was "Oh God, she's been drinking- I'm going to KILL her for waking Gabrielle up." It was a Monday night, so I was in bed for school. I remember this all so clearly because I felt as though our lives were ending, this all happened in a few seconds but it seemed so much longer to me. My Mom started screaming "FIRE, FIRE, GET OUT OF THE HOUSE." The only thing I could think of was to get Gabrielle out of the house. I didn't think about taking anything with me, I just automaticly got my comforter off of my bed, grabbed Gabrielle and got out of the house . My Mom got my sisters, they were right behind me. It took her a few minutes to wake Anna up, she must have been in such a deep sleep. I remember as I was running through the house that George was running for the sink to get water to try to put it out, but our water was out so that idea was shot. I found out later that he also tried to find a fire extinguisher.. but couldn't. My Mom wouldn't come out of the house, she was trying to save Corona, see heres where it gets kind of messed up. I remember running out of the house, Samantha was in front of me. I told her to take Gabrielle and to go up Aunt Loraines-- but then I changed my mind and took Gabrielle back into the house. [I know, that was stupid.] I started calling for Zeus, but he didn't come.. George started screaming at me and Mom to get out of the house because the fire was really starting to get terrible and the smoke; you could hardley breathe. So I ran up my Aunt Loraines and Uncle Dons, my sisters were already up there.. then I could hear George screaming for help because my Mom wouldn't come out of the house. She was in like total shock. My uncle Don ran down to help, while I called 911. I swear to God it took them like 20 minutes to get there while I just watched my house go up in flames. In all that time my Mom was screaming and making it worse for my little sisters, especially Anna. Gabrielle was up, but she was laying in my Aunt Loraines room. I just kept saying that everything would be okay, and the animals were doing great. But it never really sank in that the house was on fire until I saw the flames that came out of the roof. I just started crying. I cried for about 10 minutes straight. Jim showed up about 4:00 AM. [This all started at 3:00 AM] I just cried on his shoulder for a couple minutes. Our house was just going up in flames, the fire fighters couldn't even get through the front door because of all the smoke. It took them about an hour to just get the fire under control, and even when they did leave, people just kept coming and coming. We had the parametics check everyone out, everyone was okay. Then Red Cross came, and they gave us $680 for clothes, $500 for food and until Monday we have 2 rooms at the Red Roof Inn [where I'm at now.] Jim left around 7:30 AM.. I tried to sleep but in the end I just kept remembering everything and it just like haunted me. Around 8:00 my Mom and I went down to look at the house. Oh my God. You can't even image how much damage is actually done. The fire started in our back computer/office room. It was an electrical problem that started the fire. In the end we lost everything in the computer/office room, everything in our laundry room [which included almost all of my Mom, Georges, Sam and Annas clothes] our dog Zeus, our bird Corona, and everything else in the house is basicly ruined because of smoke damage.. I can't use anything of Gabrielles because the smoke/ashes are toxic to babies. All of my clothes are ruined to unless we get them dry cleaned- which isn't worth it. All my purses, coats, hats, scarves, boyyds bear collection, basicly like I said everything we can't use. We are going back to the house tomorrow to salvage what we can.. which will be very limited. But already people are giving money, clothes, food to us to help us out. We've been here for a day now.. I don't know when I'm going back to school. Hopefully never. It's to depressing.. I don't even have anything anymore. I have nothing.

I'll update when I can.. I'm on the laptop that George brought in from the Sand Bar, so I won't be online.
The number for my room: 228.5750 EXT. 227

Thank you to the fire fighters who risked their lives to save our house, the parametics who made sure we were okay, Red Cross who gave us money for clothes, food, and somewhere to stay, my Mom and Georges friends Tom &Mary Lou and Terry &Karen, Annas Girl Scout leaders Kelly &Kristy, Jim and his mom Donna and our whole family.. we couldn't do it without you.

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