A "Day Off" for the 4th

Haha!  This is my new favorite picture of Collier.  This is his "I'm not quite sure that I like this" face, usually followed by an equally adorable pouty face.  Yesterday morning, this is how both Chris and I felt...

Chris has been crazy busy at work lately, and so I know he's been looking forward to having a day off for a while now.  (All the while being thankful that he has such a great job, of course :)  We planned a low-key day: sleep in (as much as Collier would let us), breakfast at Cracker Barrel, shopping for necessities for our upcoming beach trip, and a fun party with friends.  Well...our smoke detector had other ideas.  

At 4:30 yesterday morning, it started doing the "low-battery" beep.  You should know that high-pitched noises drive our dog crazy, so we had this beep-bark-bark, beep-bark-bark, situation going on, repeating every 60 seconds.  We both thought this was odd, because we Chris had just changed the batteries.  At any rate, we did what any normal person would do at 4 am, and take the battery out of the alarm.  Back to bed...nope.  Still beeping.  We figure it must be because the smoke detectors are wired into the house, and it can't be without a battery.  So--we pull the suckers out of the wall.  Still beeping (what?  how's that possible?)  Plan C: Chris heads to Wal-Mart for more batteries...I mean, who keeps 9 volts in the house?  It's about 5:30 by now, still beeping (and barking), and Chris replaces every battery in every smoke alarm in the house.  Still beeping (and barking).  Collier wakes up to eat, and Chris hikes through the attic, where we figure there must be another alarm hidden.  Still beeping (and barking).  Collier goes back to sleep (how, I have no idea), and Chris tries to call the smoke alarm company.  They're closed for the holiday (of course).  It's almost 7:00 by now, and we are to the point of accepting that we'll just have to put our house on the market and move, because it's going to be beeping forever.  I decided to give it one more shot, trying to follow the sound of the rouge alarm.  Low and behold--a forgotten Carbon Monoxide detector in our laundry room!!!  I saved the day (and our sanity)!  And, I don't think my husband was any more proud of me after I gave birth. 

Mr. fix-it looking for the smoke detector manual.  Note the head lamp--a necessity whenever digging through in insulation in the attic looking for a non-existent alarm. 

We were able to resume our laid-back day, and took a pretty great nap during the afternoon, followed by a great party with some of our sweet friends.  Lots of great food, and fireworks made for a great end to our relaxing (ha!) day off.  Happy Birthday, America!  

Headed out to celebrate!