So, on Saturday afternoon Jonas and I went outside with the kids to eat lunch at 1:30 p.m....only to return inside at 4:30. It was HEAVEN out there. We finally got a table, chairs, and umbrella for our back yard, and boy are we taking full advantage of that. I'm so looking forward to this summer! :)
Anyway, the kids played outside for hours and hours on Saturday, and at one point they went back behind the garage. They were playing nicely (and quietly!) together, so we didn't think anything of it...until it had been a full 6 minutes without hearing a peep from them. We got up to look behind the garage...and then out from behind our garage walks a random lady! Haha! Turns out the kids had found some tiny spaces to crawl between and make their way into a neighbor's yard.
This is actually a lady I know, as she came over and introduced herself (and her 3 kids, ages 13, 11, and 8) to us when we first moved in, but since then I've been woefully bad at trying to make friends with the neighbors simply because of pregnancy/baby/kids stuff. Now, however, I think this summer will be the one where Lisa finally puts her "Berube training" into place and goes and brings baked goods to make friends. ;) So, Mary is the lady's name, and she was walking our kids back to us in case we didn't know they had found her house. We did NOT! Ha.
The kids were beyond excited about this discovery. Finn kept shouting "
It's the END OF THE WORLD!" as in, he had discovered the other side of the world. Oh, my cute boy. :) So, we ALL walked back over to the neighbor's house so the kids could show us the passage. And, Jonas has graciously taken pictures of it so you too can see it!
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| Behind our garbage can there, to the left of the garage, is a small space...enough for an adult to walk through, but barely. |
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| So the kids walked down this space, which you would think ends at the back... |
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| But no, turns out you can take a left or a right here. A right would put you behind our chain link fence at the back of our yard... |
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| ...and a left takes you this way... |
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| ...where you then take another right and are now in our backyard neighbors yard / the yard space they share with Mary's family. |
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| ...which is this house here, and where the kids were walking. |
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| This is the path the kids took. :) Thank you to Jonas! |
So, anyway, we stood outside and talked to the whole family for some time. Super friendly, and all of their kids have gone to / are going to one of the schools Layla was accepted to for next year, so that's been lovely to talk to Mary about.
They have two girls (13 and 8), so Layla fell in LOVE. And Cora seemed smitten with the 11-year-old boy...she kept crying when he would leave. :)
Mary's back yard is very kid friendly...lots of jungle gyms, swing sets, etc. She said the kids could come over anytime, which is highly generous of them
(I asked some questions to clarify this, as it would not be MY first offer to someone...haha...but no, she has 3 kids, and she knows exactly what she was offering!). However, I told Layla on Sunday morning that she can't go over ANY time...she has to ask first, and we have to know the kids are free to play. You can see the backyard from our window, so I told Layla she has to be able to at least see or hear the other kids before running over there. So, here is Layla on Sunday afternoon, just SITTING here, hoping the kids would show up. I thought she might sit there all day, but nope, only 5 minutes after sitting down the kids showed up in their backyard and Layla sprinted off. She calls them her best friends, and she has asked the wear the same red dress 3 days in a row "
so they will know I am Layla!"
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| Layla, waiting for her new best friends to show up in their back yard. |
