There goes the neighborhood

About 6 months ago our next door neighbor had a satellite dish attached to the wall that separates our backyards. (This neighbor is now known as "The Dish Guy" or "The Satellite Dish Neighbor" in a formal setting.) The bad part was that the dish faced into our yard. So technically the dish was actually IN our yard. See the picture? That is taken from my back door. Isn't that pleasant?

We left a perfectly nice note on his door informing him of the problem and asking him to move it. No response. We then called the association and they "sent a letter". A big scary one I'm sure...Not. No response. So then we started putting things in front of the dish to both block the signal, and block the view of the dish. Which worked when we were home but when we were gone the neighbor would just move the stuff. So finally Larry just turned the dish around so it faced into their yard.

Keep in mind during all this time the neighbor was really mad at us and yelling swear words over the fence when he knew we were out there. Or honking as he drove past our house. Or putting his trash in our driveway (allegedly). Stuff like that. But never once did he come over and actually talk to us. Even when we were trying to be understanding about it. After the note he could have easily come over and apologized that they installed the dish there and offered a solution. He chose to ignore us instead.

So one day I hear some loud noises coming from next door. I look out the window and the dish is gone. I thought he was actually moving it. Then I look out about 5 minutes later and it's back. So I go outside. I can't see anything, I have no idea who is on the other side of the fence but I figure this is my chance to get this resolved.

"Excuse me. Please don't put that dish in my yard."
"It's not in your yard. It's in his yard."
This is when I realize that I'm actually talking to the dish guy. Not the neighbor.
"No." I say grabbing the part of the dish that is in our yard. "This right here is in MY yard."
I don't remember the exact details of the rest of the conversation since it was several months ago. We went back and forth several times but I wasn't backing down. Finally he agreed to move it. And it is now moved.

A reasonable person might think the war of neighbors was now over. I did. I mean, we had lived next door to each other for over a year without incident. I figured this would blow over.

It did not blow over. The drama has continued, on his part anyways. We have just been ignoring him completely. Then about two weeks ago Connor and I were walking from the van to the front door just as he was leaving. He honked and gave us the finger while he drove past our house. He did not realize until it was too late that Larry was standing in the doorway. For some reason he is scared of Larry. It's perfectly fine in his world to give the finger to a woman and a 3 year old child (as you drive away with the window rolled up). But he won't even show his face if Larry is around. It's kinda hilarious.

Larry has been looking for him ever since the middle finger incident. He just wants to talk to him, Larry has never threatened him in any way. But "the dish guy" is no where to be found. He hides. No joke. Just the other day he had parked across the street and was leaving just as Larry was coming back from getting the mail. He started across the street, noticed Larry, and then turned around and went back inside. He waited until Larry was in the house to leave.

I told you that whole story in order to tell you another story... but now this post is too long. So I'll finish tomorrow.

Stay tuned.

Note

I got the following note from Maddy earlier today...

I Love sckool. I will Love my Techer. I will like The room. I will make nuw frense. I will lern intresting stuf. I will Love my sockooll so much. I will have fun at sckooll vary.

Got that? At least she has a good attitude. And the sentence structure! Very nice.

Determined swimmers

If you know me then you know I like routines. Routines allow me go through my life with as little thought as possible. They allow me to keep up appearances. I would be a total disaster if I actually had to think about what I was going to do next. Instead routines keep things moving forward with very little brain power on my part.

On Fridays we go swimming. Today is Friday so I put "baby suits" on the kids this morning instead of regular clothes. They ate their breakfast at record speed and then fought over who was going to carry the fun noodle. (Only today the fight was about who was going to get to carry it, rather than the usual who was going to have to carry it. But whatever.) I took them in the backyard and sprayed them down with the spray on sunscreen and off we went. There is nothing I like better than walking through my neighborhood in my bathing suit all shiny and greasy from my sunscreen, but we got to the community pool only to find out that the water had been replaced with pea soup. Yeah... gross.

Tears fell.

We walk home, strip off our suits and get into regular clothes. Connor is crying and I'm feeling very out of sorts since it's Friday... we should be swimming. Now what am I going to do? I try to get past the fact that I skipped my shower because I was going to wait til after the pool and decide that we can head to Walmart and see if they have a blow up pool on clearance. We might still be able to swim.

Walmart does have a few blow up backyard pools left and, as I suspected, they are on clearance. Not super duper clearance, but clearance none the less. Since all the pools are in deceptively small boxes I have to look at the picture of the ultra happy family on the front to determine what is best for our ultra happy family. My choices were limited to a smiling and stylish mom sitting next to a pool with a baby in it, a smiling and stylish mom sitting next to a pool with a toddler in it, a smiling and stylish mom sitting next to a pool with three toddlers in it, and a smiling and stylish mom sitting IN a pool with two toddlers in it.

I quickly nixed the pools with the baby in it and the mom inside the pool. My kids need more than a six month old baby and I will not be joining in on the swimming fun if I have any say in the matter. I decided to go with the three toddler pool. It was more than I was hoping to pay, but I figure that a 7 year old and a 3 year old equal three toddlers. I don't know... this is the information I'm given to make the decision. What else can I do?

Ok, so we get home. I marvel at the tightness of the pool inside this teeny box. Honest to goodness... how do they get that in there? I find the holes to blow it up. The directions say to use a hand pump and that it will take 10-20 min to blow it up. hahaha. I get out the hand pump and let the kids go to town. 45 minutes later the pool is showing some minor signs of life but not even close to being able to hold water.

At the advice of my husband I dig around in our closet and find the pump for the air matteress. I had to make some adjustments and it wasn't perfect, but it worked. 10-20 minutes later we had our pool and after some comedic events we even got it outside.

Peanut butter and jelly sandwich break.

Baby suits back on. Fights over the fun noodle. Splashing. We are offically swimming. Then it started raining. No joke. Big, fat, summer time rain. There was no thunder so I let them keep swimming. I had to hide my book under a towel and knew we looked nothing like the picture on the box, but who cares.

Two is all I can handle

Larry has to work all weekend, which sucks. My only respite is that Maddy is at Shaun's this weekend. You would think having 2 two kids would be twice the work of one.. but you'd be wrong. It's three or four times as much work. Don't ask me why. I guess cause they get each other going.

When you only have one kid you don't have to deal with important issues like who needs to get into the van first. Or worry about who is touching who, or remember who had the orange cup last. You never call your child by the wrong name. And you don't have to introduce your own version of the fairness doctrine and ration out equal amounts of iCarly and Special Agent Oso.

When there is only one kid in the house you don't have to ask your 7 year old daughter why she is fighting with a 3 year old over a hot wheels car. You never have to listen to screaming through the bathroom door because one child is in there taking an exorbitant amount of time and singing, carrying on, and generally making the bathroom seem like the best place in the world.

No, it's only when there are two kids in the house that you must oversee who sits where on the couch or explain why one kids gets to stay up later than the other. Only when you have two kids do you have to pull over on the side of road and threaten to go home if they can't stop hitting each other. Only when you have two kids do you have to stagger bath times in such a way so that you can ensure every one gets hot water.

It's not an easy task... two kids. More than twice as hard as one kid. And this is exactly why we don't have three. If you were wondering.

I just wanna dance!

We were at the post office this morning and there was an older lady standing behind us in line. She asked Maddy how old she was...

"I'll be 8 in October."
"Oh, my niece's birthday is in October too. What day is your birthday?"
"The 14th."
"My niece's birthday is the day after Halloween."

True Story.


Ok, so Steve got married this weekend. OMG, the wedding was just perfect. Everything was just beautiful. So elegant and classy, but still fun and relaxed. The reception hall had dark wood walls and all the tables had tons of white candles in all different kinds of crystal vases. It was exactly how I would want my wedding reception to look... you know, if I had that kind of money to spend.

Connor shocked the heck out of me. He loves to dance. We dance around the house almost everyday. But I wasn't sure if he would dance at the wedding. I planned on trying to get him out there and dancing with him for a few songs. Haha. No need! Even before the reception got to the dancing part Connor was begging to get out there. As soon as he was allowed to dance, he danced. And didn't stop. Even when he was the only person on the dance floor he was out there. It was too cute. He danced until 9:45 when it was time to leave. He easily out danced everyone in the room.

And he actually stayed in a fairly good mood so we were able to stay til the end of the reception, which was unexpected. I'm so glad though because I didn't want to have to leave early.

Happy birthday

I hope everyone had a great holiday. Mine was ok. We went to the local Tea Party they had over here in Gilbert. It was my first political event ever. I was honestly surprised how many people were there. They are reporting that 2,000 people showed up. Which is impressive considering it was the holiday weekend and it was hot as all get out. We didn't stay til the end because Connor was getting hot. He gets so flushed, it looks like a we rubbed a strawberry on his cheeks.

Anyways, since the media tries to silence the conservative voice it's hard to find info about the Tea Parties. I was able to find a few videos from the Gilbert Tea Party. Here and here.

After that we went to my niece's birthday party. I think the 4th of July has to be the coolest birthday ever! I'm so jealous. :) So that was fun. They have a trampoline which the kids just loved. So I mostly sat out back and watched the kids go up and down.

And we have crossed a milestone in regards to the van situation. I called the insurance this morning and they accepted the estimate we had gotten over the weekend. $1,600. So they are sending over their portion and the van is currently in the shop. Poor little van. They also said the would sue the owner of the truck themselves. So that's a huge relief. If he pays them we will get our deductible back. They also said it won't make our premiums go up. Which was a pretty big concern of mine. So guess it's good news. I just want the van fixed at this point. We will work out the finances later. I am not going to hold my breath for reimbursement of our deductible. If we get a check someday I will be happy... otherwise I'm just going to move on. Nothing else can be done.

Unbelievable!

Ok, so a quick recap. I told you right here how we have very strong suspicions that our neighbor's hit Larry's car on Saturday night. I told you how we were so concerned with their driving skills that we ordered surveillance cameras for the front of our house because we knew they were going to damage our property, but the cameras haven't arrived. I told you how we have complained to the association every day for two weeks about the fact that they have this big panel truck parked across the street from our house and all the trouble it has caused us.

I told you all that.

So we have dealt with the fact that Larry is going to have a big side swipe mark on his car. It's beyond frustrating when your property gets damaged by someone who was being irresponsible and you can't do anything about it. But we know we can't change it so we had moved on. Honestly, we had.

Tonight after dinner we were sitting on the couch watching TV. The front window was open and the only thing I can see when I look out is that big white truck sitting across the street. I'm not really paying attention but it catches my eye when it starts to back up. I say casually to Larry "There he goes." I'm watching him back up... and back up faster... and back up faster. My breath starts to pull in as he gets closer and closer to the van. And then just when I think "I can't believe this, he is in our yard!" It comes to a very abrupt stop. Too abrupt. I say "He just hit the van!" although I didn't honestly believe that. I thought maybe he slammed on the brakes. But before the words are even out of my mouth Larry and I both jump off the couch and race to the front window. I still can't see the back of the van but the truck is just sitting there... awkwardly close to the van.

We both go rushing outside with the kids following closely behind us. Sure enough. There is a huge ugly caved in spot in the tailgate. Next stop... the truck's drivers door. No one is inside! So Larry starts over to the neighbor's house and I go inside for the camera. I'm taking pictures of the scene and Larry yells from the neighbor's house. "Ashley! Call the cops!"

So I do.

"Mesa police department."
"Yeah, my car was parked in my driveway and someone just backed into it."
"Someone drove into your driveway and hit your car?"
"Yeah."
"Your car was parked in your driveway and someone hit it?"
"Yeah."
"Someone hit your car while it was parked in your driveway?"
"YES!"

Surprisingly the guy who drives the truck actually came to the door and comes outside. In another amazing turn of events he actually admits that the parking brake must have let go which caused the truck to roll backwards and hit our van. In fact, it's happened before. "Oh well thank you so much for parking your huge ass, messed up, has a tendency to roll away at any moment, truck across the street from my house!" I'm actually thankful that my van was there to block the thing from coming through the wall. Jeeze. What happens next time?

He proceeds to spend the next 30 minutes telling us what a bad day HE is having!

So the cops arrive. Turns out that his unregistered truck is also uninsured. How nice. But the cops can't give him a ticket, or tow the truck... because he wasn't driving it at the time of the accident. No joke. In fact, the cop did us a huge favor by even taking a police report since they aren't supposed to if the accident happens on private property. Can you believe that?!

Dude hits our parked car with an unregistered, uninsured truck but the cops can't do anything about it at all! They aren't even supposed to take a report. Insane.

Oh, the heart melting part. The cop is there doing his thing and we are all kinda just standing around pissed off at each other. Connor goes inside and comes out with this tool box. OMG I just about died. He is so cute. He was going to fix it for us.

So I dont' really know where to go from here. I have to call the insurance tomorrow. I called today but it was 6:58 by the time everything got settled down and they close at 7:00. By the time I got through the automatic voice thingy it was after 7:00. Sigh. Which is just as well because if I had gotten anymore bad news today I would have lost it.

Our cameras should be here on Monday. Just in time to catch the cat pooping in our yard.

She's home!

Maddy is home from her two week trip over to her dad's. I picked her up and we went straight to the movies. We saw Kung Fu Panda. Which was so cute, by the way. I thought it was going to be kinda dumb... but it wasn't. The story was good. The scenery was beautiful. I was happily surprised.

Anyways, so I had told her that I had a big surprise for her when she got home. (Her room.) I was trying to get the suspense going... hoping that would work in my favor. It did. I got the reaction I was looking for. Her mouth hung open, her eyes were wide, she said Oh. My. God. as she spun around slowly.

Maddy is nothing if not dramatic.

Another change we made was to mix up the chores. Connor had been slowly taking over Maddy chores of unloading the dishwasher and picking up the toys at night. So I made those his official chores and gave Maddy the brand new chores of cleaning the downstairs bathroom and helping to clean up after dinner. Everyone was pleased. I have such helpful children and I feel that I'm doing everyone a disservice by not taking full advantage of this fact. So I'm trying to do better. I vow to take advantage of my kids.

So this morning the kids head downstairs while I get changed. While I'm puttering around in my bedroom I can hear the chores getting done. When I finally emerged from the bedroom I find that Dr. Seuss actually unloaded the dishwasher today. Maybe they had a Cat in the Hat adventure while I was brushing my teeth. I can't be sure.

I also find it odd that spraying a surface with a spray bottle and wiping it with a cloth is skill to be learned. I mean, I guess. But it's not something you think about. Here I am in the bathroom showing Maddy how to use a bottle of Windex. (Not so close!) And then how to wipe it down. (Don't just swipe it all around in bizarre circles, have some kind of system!) I'm also amazed how helpful it will be when Maddy masters this new skill. I had her wipe down the stove top yesterday after dinner. Granted it took her the better part of 20 minutes... but she did it. And it looked pretty good.