Stupid Fire Alarm

We've been having "issues" with our fireplace. When we light it all the smoke comes into the house until there is enough heat generated to push the smoke up the chimeny. It's not been that much of an issue... until tonight. I was making dinner (spaghetti from scratch, salad, and garlic bread) while Matt and Brian (the brother) were building the logs to light a fire. We planned on playing Mille Bourne after dinner in front of the fire. Anyway, they light the fire and the smoke pours in... so much so that it sets off the fire alarm. No big deal right, we just cancel the alarm and all will be fine. WRONG. The alarm would not cancel no matter how many times I punch in the code. **history: we have a security system and the smoke detectors are tied into the system. The bonus of this is if the smoke alarm goes off the fire department is notified immediately, we don't have to call them. The down side is there are 5 smoke detectors in the house, one carbon monoxide detector, two security keypads and the central monitoring unit... ALL OF THEM beep loud as hell when one of them goes off. Poor Ari woke up screaming his little head off, there is an alarm in his room and three others upstairs that were all going nuts! They went off for at least ten minutes, we were all running around here like crazy trying to get them to turn off. Matt was finally able to get someone on the phone to cancel the whole thing but by then we were all wired!

I got to thinking though, why did no one contact US when the alarms were going off. I purposefully waited to disarm it the last time for someone to come over the speaker so we could talk to them. It's supposed to be a two way communication that if the alarm goes off they come over the speaker and ask if everything is alright. We could have been burning to a crisp in here... Matt said the girl on the phone told him that she listened in but the alarms were too loud for her to talk to us, now what is the point of that? I'm really upset and have a few phone calls to make in the morning. I don't pay to have a fire/medical/security system so someone can "listen in" while our house is burning to the ground.

Anyway, enough venting. Until this evening we were having a really good day. Michelle called and wanted to have lunch so we met her and Ella at Chick-Fil-A. Matt's never been there so we had to drag him out the door. It was pretty good, I've not seen them since before Thanksgiving so it was nice to see them. We're going to Gymboree with them in the morning so Ari and Ella can really play some more.

Brian made it in around three, we chatted at the house and then ran out to the grocery to stock up for the week. I made dinner (he saved it from being charred on the stove while we figured out the whole alarm thing) and it was nice to sit down at the table. We're skipping Mille Bourne, we all have headaches from the noise earlier.

I'll be back tomorrow with some photos, my head is pounding so I'm gonna take excedrin and curl up on the sofa with the TV on until I'm tired enough for bed. Hope your day was quieter than ours...