We made it through another October.

I don't know why but October has always been a bad luck month in our family. This October Jeff lost his job, Cameron decided our bathroom is haunted, and was in the hospital with Pneumonia. We always have something happen during the month every year. Sometimes it is worse than others.

Some past years that I can remember are Jeff being in the hospital with his first really bad kidney stones and Cameron's first Halloween which was also spent in the hospital. Cameron actually spent most of the holidays during his first 2 years in the ER for some reason or another.

One Halloween our house caught on fire and we almost died. We went to sleep after trick or treating. The furnace malfunctioned and filled the house with carbon monoxide and smoke. The smoke detector didn't go off even though the battery had just been changed. The carpet caught on fire and was just starting to spread when I woke up. I shouldn't have been able to wake up with the amount of smoke I had been breathing. My grandma said my grandpa saw what was happening from heaven and grabbed my big toe and told me to get the hell out of that house.

I opened my eyes and all I could see was smoke. I hit Jeff and yelled FIRE! and took off for Taylor's room. He was just a baby at the time and our only child back then. Thank goodness the fire hadn't spread very far yet so I grabbed the baby and headed for the door. Jeff followed behind with the phone and called the fire department. They were great. They got there super fast and got the fire out very quickly. It didn't have time to do much damage. They put us on oxygen to help us breath better and we had to take Taylor to the doctor to have him checked out for carbon monoxide poisoning.

We were all fine but it was really scary. Taylor started having night terrors after that about the house. We moved right after the fire but the dreams continued for years. During the time that we lived there the big tree in the backyard got hit by lighting and fell on the house. Also the next door neighbors had lots of big scary dogs that would bark all night. So Taylor would have night terrors about the big dogs in the trees and the trees were gonna get him and he had to run in the dark.

So we survived the fire and we have now survived another October. You know if you have never been in a fire you might wonder: what would I take with me? If I had to get out quick but I stopped to grab a few things what would they be? I already know that answer. No things. I didn't even think about it or try to go back in. I just wanted my family out and safe. How lucky that we are all here together and safe.

Cameron thinks the bathroom is haunted and other fun Halloween stories

Since we moved into the new house the main bathroom has been making weird noises. It seems to come from the pipes. It sounds like someone banging on the pipes with a wrench. We joke that it is moaning mertle.

Cameron hasn't been bothered until the last few weeks. He told me he was going to use the bathroom. He always goes in the main bathroom or yellow bathroom as he calls it because it is yellow (his favorite color) and it has the cool stained glass window he likes. He came running back a moment later terrified and crying. I couldn't understand what he was saying. I finally got him to calm down some and he said he couldn't go to the bathroom and something about the mirrors. So I walk him back to the bathroom and he wouldn't set foot in there. He wouldn't go back in there for at least a week and then only if I went in with him. He will not look at the mirror. He has been using the other bathroom where the mirror is too high for him to see into. He can't tell me what scared him so much. He just says he doesn't want to go in there and he doesn't like the mirror. Weird. So maybe the bathroom is haunted after all.

Here is another weird story. One night years ago we were sleeping and I was having a dream that I was at a baseball game. I looked up and the ball was coming right for me. I tried to get out of the way but couldn't. It was going to hit me right in the face. I closed my eyes and waited for the impact.... Jeff was sleeping next to me and he was dreaming that he was at a baseball game and saw a ball going right for me. He ran over and just as it was about to hit me in the face he caught it and protected me. We both woke up at the same instant and in real life I had my hands up to cover my face and Jeff had his hand in front of my face where he had just caught the non existent ball.


Here is a Halloween clip: