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Night 1

Captain's Log - 11:42 pm:
All is quiet in James Landing. Like, wow. No jammin' rap music thundering from an SUV across the street? No couples arguing at volumes well above normal level outside our window or strange popping noises that may or may not originate from a firearm??? Definitely no rhythmic shuddering of the door near the AC unit. Dogs are still - for the moment. I'm not sure I can sleep with all this quiet.   ;)  Sweet...

7:28 am: 

Woke up to a strange ticking sound, dogs barking spastically and Jon's frantic cry: (quote) MCKENZIE GET OUT OF THE HOUSE, NOW. GET OUT. Holy crap. As I can see all heck has broken loose (it was only a matter of time really), I grab my purse, throw on a sweatshirt and wrangle Hannah into a leash before stumbling outside to have a panic attack for 20 minutes. 

So I'm standing on our neighbors' wet grass in a fog thinking 'What the heck happened? Did our check bounce and they're taking the house back or something?' when Jon abruptly shouts an all-clear and ushers me back inside, where he proceeds to tell me that he had in fact woken up to that strange ticking noise, gone downstairs and found a water jug leaking onto one of the burners on our gas stove, causing it to flip out. Since the whole natural gas thing is new to us, he (justifiably) panicked that the gas was leaking and thought only of my safety. This is good because it means I can forgive the stern tone and angry-Jon voice he used to get me out of the house. 

While I contemplate the early hour and recover from the near-heart-attack I've just had, Hannah notices the open garage door and promptly bolts through it. Oops. Apparently, Jon had wisely seen the need for ventilation and opened all doors and windows during the commotion (which I didn't realize when unleashing the monster). 20 minutes later, Jon has managed to capture our escapee and we breathe a collective sigh of relief ...

... until I watch in slow-motion horror as Hannah looks out through our open dining room window, props her front feet up, turns back to me just long enough to smile mockingly and jumps through. 

Awesome.