Good Neighbors

We found out recently that our next door neighbors are moving back up to Massachusetts at the end of this month. They had moved down here 2 years ago for a job. They missed their friends and family "up North" and so decided to throw in the towel and move back.

Every time I think about it I get sad. We have lived next door to this family since we moved to Raleigh, a year and a half ago, and yet we only really started to get to spend time with them this spring. When we first met them I decided that we didn't really have much in common so I didn't pursue a friendship. I'm so disappointed in myself for being so unfriendly and stand-offish to this family. It kills me to know that they were so lonely this whole time and we didn't reach out to them at all.

Even though we have just started to get to know the parents, Oliver plays with their 3 kids in our connected backyards for hours almost everyday. They splash around in the water table, they water the plants in my garden (thanks guys!), they hit balls from the T-ball stand, they shoot baskets, they ride Ollie's little pink bike down the hill, slaloming through the bushes, they chase each other around the yard, they swing on their glider, they draw with sidewalk chalk, they blow bubbles, and they enact an endless drama in their little playhouse. Their daughter, Jayla, is just 10 days younger than Oliver and she and Ollie are thick as thieves. He gets so excited when he hears her voice and shouts "friends! friends!" I am really going to miss hearing the knock at our back door every afternoon and their little voices asking if Ollie is up from his nap and can come out to play.

We have had a couple of Friday night cookouts with their family in the last few weeks. Ryan gets home from work and fires up the grill. The kids are usually all in the backyard playing already. They drag over their lawn chairs and we all sit around and eat and talk until it gets dark. It is such a easy way to kick off the weekend. I wish that they were going to be around longer so we could make that an ongoing tradition.

Here are some pictures from our cookout last Friday. You'll notice that Oliver has inherited his mother's love of Nacho cheese Doritos.

Incidentally, there is a GREAT piece in the New York Times today about how increasingly rare it is to really know one's neighbors. You can read it here.