do you smell something funny?

Last week we had quite a scare in our house.  We went to bed on Wednesday night just like any other night.  I woke up Thursday morning to the alarm on my phone, which is actually a bit unusual.  I never wake up to my alarm on the first ring.  Since the phone was plugged in on Jerad's side of the bed, we rolled over to give it to me.  At that point, I asked him if he smelled something funny.  Both of us were essentially asleep, barely waking from consciousness.  He rolled over and yells, "A fire!"  We both had a big adrenaline rush running out the door of our bedroom, seeing a huge orange glow from the kitchen.  Just a side note, if you want someone who stays cool and calm in an emergency, I am not that person.  If you want someone to freak out and have no idea what to do, I'm the girl.  As we get closer to the kitchen, we realize that it's not the entire kitchen on fire.  Rather, it was an ice tray that was left on the glass cooktop that was in flames up to the hood.  Was the burner left on?  Definitely not.  A short developed in the cooktop causing the fire.  Jerad grabs the sprayer from the sink and shoots water at it.  Of course, it didn't work because it was an electrical fire, so flames go even higher.  I cleared off the counter, getting everything away from the stovetop.  Jerad grabbed a spatula and scraped off the melted plastic from the burner.  That did enough to put out the fire.  After a big sigh of relief and a trip to the bathroom, Jerad went back to the stovetop to try to clean up some of the mess.  As he was scraping off the melted mess of an ice tray, the lights on all of the burners started flashing.  He yelled at me, "It's not over!"  He ran around to the cabinet under it, opened the doors, and smoke billowed out.  He told me to watch it for fire while he ran out to shut off the breaker.  I, of course, am in total panic mode, seeing the smoke coming from the knobs.  As he's outside at the breaker box, I hear something inside the cabinet that sounds like a whoosh of fire.  I quickly ran outside in my bare feet and robe into a beautiful and quite cold snow, screaming at Jerad that I think a fire has started inside the cabinet.  I run back in to find the floor extremely hot which prompted me to grab the phone and call 911.  I'm in hysterics over the phone.  Did I mention I panic under pressure?  Brickman runs in asking what's going on, and I tell him there's a fire and to get his clothes on.  He starts crying, saying he's scared.  How do I tell him not to worry?  As parents, we're supposed to be the one in control, right?  I'm obviously not in control.  He asked, "Are we gonna have to move?  What about Gizmo (our dog who doesn't even stay in the house)?"  I rushed them to get their clothes on and get out to the car and turned it on so they would be in a safe, warm place.  The picture flashing through my mind was fire quickly spreading through the floors and the walls.  I was mentally preparing myself to be homeless and losing all of our earthly possessions.  What do you grab?  Pictures?  Documents?  I grabbed my camera and my computer.  They were easily accessible.  I waited outside for the fire department to show up while my husband stayed calmly inside.  I begged and pleaded with God to put out the fire while pacing up and down the driveway as the snow covered the ground and the trees.  The fire chief is the first to show up, and he quickly calls off the other emergency vehicles that weren't already on their way out.  The boys were excited to see the fire truck with its flashing lights pull up in our driveway.  They weren't the only ones that got excited.  Someone driving by saw flashing lights and began calling members of the family to see what was going on.  We had three phone calls before the firemen left the house.  So, what became of it?  Jerad checked under the house, and there were no flames.  The firemen checked and said we were in the clear.  What did I hear inside of the cabinet?  That was the breaker shutting off.  Why was the floor so hot?  I had just been standing in the snow in my bare feet to run into my nice and toasty house.  Did my imagination get carried away?  Most definitely.  Did I jump the gun in calling 911?  Quite possibly.  I like to say, though, that I'd rather be safe than sorry.  It's very possible that there could have been a fire under our house or in our walls.  I'm so thankful that there wasn't, but at least we had professionals there to take care of it if there was.  Praise the Lord that we are okay!  Praise the Lord that he has given us a sense of smell so that we could smell something out of the ordinary.  Praise the Lord that we woke up when we did.  Praise the Lord that it didn't happen at 3:00 in the morning but rather as we were waking up.  Praise the Lord that He saved our home.  It so easily could have gone so much worse.  The only damage that we had was the loss of our stovetop.  Since then, it's been removed.  The electricians have been here to check everything out, and we have a new cooktop ordered.  This experience made me very aware of some things that need to change in our house.  Smoke alarms installed, fire extinguishers bought, escape route planned, etc.  I am a strong advocate of fire safety now.  If my husband hadn't been here, I don't know what I would have done.  I also feel that we were blessed that the ice tray was there to cause the fire.  If not, the cooktop could have shorted out and just travelled through the house without us realizing there was a problem.  We were to be gone all day that day.  We might possibly could have come home to no home.  We are truly blessed.