Like a good neighbor...

As much as I tell Brian that I'd like to move to a neighborhood with more families and people our age, we really do have great neighbors.


Most of you know that we own a duplex, live in one side and rent out the other. We've had the same tenant for a while now (she's getting ready to start her 3rd year), and she has a 6-year-old daughter. This is really great for a couple reasons. One is that she is incredibly tolerant of the late night crying and other inconvenient noises that have seeped through our walls over the past year. The other is that we share a yard, so it's really nice that we can just have an overall kid-friendly yard and not have to worry about leaving your scooter in some one's flower bed. This gets even better when we are able to share toys!! Today I found out that her 6-year-old has outgrown the picnic table and outdoor playhouse that are currently residing in our side yard, and she generously offered to give them to us. They just needed a little clean-up. Ummm...let me think about this...free outdoor play equipment that is already in my yard? Yes, I'll take it. So outside I headed with my bucket and scrub brush. What do you think?


Picnic table before:




Picnic table after:



Playhouse before:



Playhouse after:





If that wasn't enough, we've been incredibly blessed by our neighbors on the other side of us: Greg and Charity. Not only are they cool (they were just featured in a local magazine for being "hipster parents"), but we've been able to help each other out quite a bit with our families. Today Charity brought their kids, Jack, Sam, and Ella over for a little water play. Ella is 6 weeks younger than Katy, so we're assuming they'll be best friends. :) All of the kids seemed to have a really good time playing in the water. We had a little blow-up pool (that, again, belongs to our tenant) and the sprinkler. Katy was cracking us up with the sprinkler. She stood right in front of it while she got sprayed and looked as if it was nothing. So funny.


Katy enjoys our "waterpark":


Jack and Katy play in the sprinkler 80's-style:

Little Ella, so cute. Doesn't she look like an infant Audrey Hepburn?

Ella's older brothers entertain the little ones: