A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

Sometimes you've just got to hang with the neighbors. (We all should have done that years ago, but no day like today to start.)

Debbie & Jody had us all over to their house; he grilled hot-dogs & she made her grandmother's Cowboy Soup. Carl & Janey brought brownies, chips & pasta salad. Tim & Amanda sent baked beans with their oldest kids. Scott & I brought bananas, apples and the makings for S'mores. All-in-all, we had quite a spread with plenty of leftovers. (Here, why don't you take some of this home with you? Hey, why don't I leave a few of these here?)

All of the kids had the bestest of times, from the little 20 month old to the newly hatched teenager. Jody has made an awesome "treehouse" from scraps: they salvaged two slides, a friend's fence, various pieces of lumber from various projects, the leftover shingles from the re-roofing, "grass" outdoor carpet, even a old attic-access ladder. The only thing they bought was an extra long slide. It looks like it might have been made from a kit, but when you use it, you see that it's recycled and an original design. I was very impressed! The whole thing was great & proportioned such that the littlest kids could climb up to the top (about 20 feet off the ground) and back down to slides they were comfortable using. Well, by the end of the evening, Janey's C and my DLG were flying down the really tall slide, but younger siblings always do push the envelope.

MLB learned to use Nerf Dart guns. He never knew such a thing existed (we're such closet pacifists,) and he was overjoyed to shoot at the electronic target and get 100 points every time. Not that he gave that poor target a fighting chance, shooting as he was at point-blank range. Every kid 1st grade & up was armed and aiming. The oldest kids had the best accuracy, but then again, their father does work for HPD.

Oh, and the neighbors have a new puppy. If the temperature had been in the 80s, the kids would also have had a pool or something and been in utter backyard heaven.

We adults stood around talking & getting to know each other better as a neighborhood group, refereeing as necessary. The fire-pit was lit up in honor of the chill evening air, and those world's largest marshmallows were roasted on the world's largest toasting forks by happy dads & kids.

And I didn't have to worry about Auburn losing today. Oh my, yes.... it was a beautiful day indeed.