Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

I am so proud of my neighbors!

But first, some background story: We have had a string of break-ins to people's buildings (as we say back in Utah- 'tool shed'. Makes more sense doesn't it?) It happened on a first spree back in October of last year, they stole our chainsaw from our building, which we never locked. :( Lesson learned. They also took a bolt cutter that James had out there. No one was caught, no evidence, but several houses in our neighborhood had had similar stories. It's curious, and sort of obvious that it's someone local.

So fast forward 6 months, and a bolt cutter proof padlock on our building, symptoms return. Our latch was bent and obvous someone had tried to break in again. Maybe they hoped we have replaced our chainsaw by now. No, we haven't, that $400 chainsaw took a while to save for, thanks for taking it less than a year later! So when they couldn't pop the latch off with whatever they were using for leverage, they came back again and again until they cut the latch at the hinge- probably with our own bolt cutters. Ain't that a kick in the teeth?

James had gotten up in the middle of the night (2:45 AM Monday morning, we had just gotten back from his sister's beach wedding Sunday evening) he used the bathroom, got a drink, and just happened to look out our bedroom curtains to the back yard- and sees the (punk!) person standing in front of our building! Seriously?! Now picture this- James, the big brut that he is, with messy crazy bed hair, barefoot and only in his underwear (no shirt, by the way.) He runs outside with his .45 pistol and his flashlight. He shines the light on the building, and the person throws the door open and bolts into the woods. I can imagine what a crazy/scary sight someone like James with a gun must look like! Even crazier is that James is so controlled and quick thinking, he could have shot this person if he wanted to (but legally, can't justify why he would have.) So he fires 2 shots to the right of the person, and chases after him through the woods- keeping up with him! Talk about needing to change your pants I'm sure.

We've had enough! So have all of the neighbors! So a few of us start talking about all that went down (amazingly, I didn't hear the gun shot in my own back yard, James came and woke me up.) and several neighbors heard the shot, and know the goings on, so everyone is on edge. Tuesday I hit the neighborhood with my wagon and 3 kids in tow along with 2 of my other neighbors- and we talked to just about every single neighbor to come have a meeting with us. I talked to the Sheriff's office about having an officer at our meeting to answer questions I was sure everyone would have. I talked to the Detective working with all of the theft reports and break-ins. And they assigned the officer from the high school that the kids in our neighborhood go to, to be at our meeting. He committed to come- and so did the Sheriff, and 2 of his deputies, and the Detective. Because they were impressed with our assertion.

And not only did all those officers come, but nearly every single neighbor came to the meeting. With only 1 day notice. Only 3 houses were not represented, and one of them was because he didn't even see the flyer that i put on his door or he would have been here too. I was so impressed as I was hustling home from Kellan's ballet class, I pulled in right as the meeting was scheduled to start as well to the street in front of my home completely filled with all of my neighbors. I was flooded with relief, I thought no one would come.

We had such a good conversation, and just in case the twerp was in our midst (we suspect that he was indeed) the officer from the high school threw several little gems to make him squirm in his seat. He also asked how many of us owned guns- nearly every hand went up. I hope the twerp peed his pants seeing all of those gun owners, and he literally was right in the middle of all of them. This is only a ball rolling at this point- but it was such a powerful come together, that it feels like a wrecking ball that we got moving. And it feels good!