New Year's Eve Party

To bring in 2011, we had a New Year's Eve party at our house with the Benson's, Rindlisbacher's and Waetchler's.

The food was amazing and lots of it.  Jason cooked an amazing prime rib for us in dutch ovens.  We added to that au gratin potatoes, rolls (Jason did these too in the dutch oven) and salad.  Prior to the main course we had appetizers, which were little smokies, seven layer dip, another chip dip, and veggies.  It was all topped off with a variety of desserts.  YUMMY is about all that's needed to describe it.

What stands out most for this night?  That would have to be all of the kids off playing and the adults chatting in the living room.  Out of the blue comes all of our smoke detectors going off and the lady stating that "carbon monoxide is detected".  Are you kidding me?  First of all, I guess it's a nice thing to know that our detectors really work.  Second of all, who would have known they actually speak.  Third, holy smokes there is no way we will EVER sleep through a fire.....those things are loud!

What did we do you ask?  We all determine that it has to be coming from the coals in the garage that were used to cook with the dutch ovens.  You see.....the food was cooked in the garage because if you remember the temperatures at this time were subzero.  So....in the garage is the coals and the garage doors are shut.  Hmmm....I guess that does put off some toxic fumes.  We have an atomic clock in our house that tells you the outside temperature.  It's reading at about -2 degrees.  So, to clear out the air we opened all of the windows and the front door.  Oh yea and we turned on the ceiling fan to "move the air out".  In about three seconds you could see our breath as we were chatting and laughing through this experience.

I believe the coals were then taken from the garage and all of the detectors were reset.  They didn't go off again so I guess we removed all the bad air.

Everyone had left and it was around 12:30 a.m.  As Dave and I are getting ready for bed he does say to me that he had a headache sitting in the living room but he thought it was because he'd eaten too much.  Then the following week at work I chatted with Jason who said he had a headache too.  Really?  There's two people not feeling well and no one is willing to say anything.  Thank goodness for lady smoke detector to inform us as to what is "in the air".

Two good lessons learned......

One - it's always a great time at the Welker's.  We do our best to keep you on your toes.

Two - it really is important to make sure your smoke detectors and working properly!  I believe Chris now has his in working order.....they were disconnected before!