Friends, neighbors, and family

I remember telling our real estate agent "we have to live in a neighborhood".  Among many other necessities (man cave basement, walk-in closet), this requirement was very important to me.  Growing up, my parents house was surrounded by friends that were constantly over for dinner, watching fireworks, yard work breaks or to simply hang out.  Of course, at the time I was a child and mostly it was simply important to me that I was surrounded by kids my age, playing outside all day without ever heading home until it got dark.  (Can you imagine that now?!).  But besides the fact that my sisters and I were practically milk carton missing all day, what stuck with me was this community of friends, neighbors, and family.  I knew that this was what I wanted for my own family and once I saw the house we live in now, I knew that this would be home and hoped that our neighbors would be just as great as the ones that lived next door to my childhood home.  

Blizzard December 2009

For the longest time this neighborhood dream of mine sat idle.  We moved into our house at the end of September, the end of the summer, and the end of outdoor activities.  The winter of 2009-2010 took over, and boy was it a doozy (Hmm, kind of like 2013-2014!).  And my dreams of cookouts, card games and fast friendships were quickly going down the drain.  "It's winter", my Mom would tell me. "No one goes out in winter".  Especially a winter like that one I guess.  Because as soon as the warm weather came, so did the need to be outside. I don't recall who talked first, probably Mike because he is the friendliest northerner I have ever seen, but we were invited to a cookout across the street.  We returned the invitation to our own cookout and our newly introduced neighbors seemed to be enjoying our company (yay!)  And for some reason, despite the fact that on our first night getting to know each other I asked my neighbor to return her wine to me if she wasn't going to drink it, we became friends.

Olivia and Brogan

Olivia and Drew

It's been about four years since that first barbeque and we have seen so many changes come through our two doors from their two children to our little Olivia, to rooting for games together, long walks, trips to the lake and too many dinners together to count.  Through these first two friends we have met even more great neighbors and people who we now call our own friends.  Sometimes I wonder about other houses we toured in other neighborhoods, what would our days be like now?  Would anyone else but our current neighbors put up with Mike walking over to their house simply because their storm door was open?  (Apparently that is the sign for "come on in" in Mike's mind....)

Olivia's first haircut by Lindsey (our neighbor)

I am thankful for the friendships we have made on our little block and the hours we have spent together and now the time our children spend together.  So for now, I am going to pretend like our dear friends are not packing up their home and getting ready to move in hopes of finding their dream house.  But one thing is for certain, even if they are not always our neighbors, they will forever be our friends.  So for now, I will wish them well and maybe, just maybe, I won't tell the people coming to tour their home that it's haunted....

Friends-4-eva

Oh Olivia....

Our neighbors' house for sale (who wants to be our neighbors!?)