Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood?

Every few months, four or five of the neighbors get together for a potluck. I don't remember exactly how we decided to start this. I'm pretty sure the idea popped into SuperShanna's head while we were all just standing out in the street on the corner watching our kids trade tricycles last summer...

Usually we all get individual babysitters, but one of the other couples was totally awesome and scored two sitters from her son's school to watch all of our kids while we hung out from 6-9 p.m. on Saturday. X-man LOVED it as much as we did. He got to go play with his friends toys and have everyone in the neighborhood in the same place. He was even too excited to bother eating dinner, so I took some leftover pizza and left it there in case he got hungry.

Then we took our bounty over to another house in the hood and had adult time. I do have to admit, I like being able to sit in someone's kitchen and not have to look around folks to make sure my child isn't tormenting or being tormented. With kids that he plays with all the time, it's not so demanding. I can let up a little. But our kids hadn't really seen each other since the last time we all saw the sun and 60 degree weather -- so they might need practice getting into the groove. Alas, it was just parents.

One of the worst things about living in this area is how transient the community is because of the university. People are always coming and going. And we get a lot of awesome people in the area. So, I fall in love with folks, and then it's time for them to go away. (Yes, Kristen, Dave and Jonah, I'm talkin' about you!) I assume that at some point, the Fruit company my spouse works for will require relocation as well. It's been hinted at that the requirement may come sooner than later. But we've lived here nearly 8 years. And I like it. I particularly like the neighborhood we live in right now, and I don't want it to change. Even though I know Signature plans on starting to prep the land behind my house for development this spring... Hopefully we'll have the same luck getting neighbors behind us as we did getting neighbors across the street and next to us.