What a weekend!!

Oh my, where to begin! We went to Grandma and Pop-Pop's this weekend to celebrate Sami's birthday with family. On Saturday, my Aunt Judy and two of her three son's came to visit, as they're in the States on vacation for a week (they live in Germany). Pop-Pop and my hubby Rick took Judy's youngest, Oliver, and my son Jason fishing...leaving Grandma, Judy, Alex (Judy's middle son), Sami and me at the house. Just before they went, Pop-Pop was out the garage smoking a stinky cigar (I don't know why he took up that nasty habit when he worked so hard to quit smoking when I was a baby).

Shortly after they all left, Grandma (my mom) and I were changing Sami's stinky diaper. We could still smell the cigar...and now add the smell of a poopy diaper. Judy insisted she smelled something more...something different. Well...thank God she did!

She went to the garage, with all of us following, and the smell was extremely strong. When my mom turned on the light, the garage was FULL of smoke! They opened the garage door, and I could see...down the side of my mom's car...the source of the smoke. There are some plastic shelves at the front of the garage on which my dad stores all kinds of cleaning supplies and other chemicals. Apparently, he set the stinky cigar down on the shelf, right near some dirty rags, and an ash or something started smoldering. All I could do was point and shout, as I was holding Sami in my arms! Judy ran over to investigate, while I turned around, ran and got Alex and got Sami, him and myself out of the house. Alex is a junior firefighter over in Germany (he's 17), so he took charge with the fire extinguisher with Judy's help. Judy moved her car and my mom backed hers out of the garage so they could get full access to those shelves...and we discovered that right below the shelves was a big bag of fertilizer. You know...the kind of stuff that the Okalhoma City bomb was made out of?

Judy pulled stuff out onto the concrete, while Alex weilded the fire extinguisher. My mom opened all the windows in the house. I felt a little lost because all I could do was stand there holding Sami. I obviously couldn't put her down.

So, after the crisis was over, we really couldn't go back in the house for a while due to the smoke fumes, so we got some folding chairs and sat in the driveway...waiting for the fishermen to return. When they did... my dad walked right past us after parking at the curb. Didn't even stop to ask why we were blocking the driveway. We all stayed outside while my mom took him inside to "talk" to him. Needless to say, things were a little tense. They got more tense when we found out that he insisted he did nothing wrong...that it must have started on its own. I'm really beginning to wonder about my dad.

Mom isn't finished with him. She plans to talk with him further. All I've asked her is to ask him to not smoke at all while we're visiting...not even outside. Not only does no one in my family like it, but I have asthma...and I don't want my babies breathing the smoke at all. If he refuses to not smoke while we're there, then we won't be visiting again, I'm afraid. I won't risk my children's health...or their lives!

So...how was your weekend?