The rest of the weekend...

We got to Kansas City Saturday afternoon and checked into the hotel.  Hubs and been holding on to some Hilton rewards points for a while so we booked a room at the Hilton down town for free! Oh yeah! We got all checked in and fed Evelynn and then it was time to go pick up dinner for ourselves.  We stopped off at Waldo Pizza where I may or may not have run into a friend from high school.  Across the bar there was a guy who looked familiar but I couldn't quite be sure. He said, "HI!" in a way that made me think that I must know him. I said "Hi" back and asked how he'd been. The generic conversation went on like that until my pizza arrived and I pretty well ran out of there before I had to acknowledge whether or not we actually knew each other. I know.  Cowardly. But to be fair, I actually was running late and had a fussy baby waiting in the car with her daddy.  But just in case, if anyone sees Mike McNary send my apologies for running out on him, if it was, in fact, him.

Moving on. I was running off to Krista's house because she and Sarah had so kindly volunteered to babysit for us while we went to the wedding (see below).  Had a great time at the wedding. On the way out Nikki called a KCMO police officer that was escorting us to our cars (bad neighborhood) a jerk. Yes she said it loudly. Yes he heard her. But she was joking and he was in on it and we all laughed.

Little Miss hadn't got to sleep when we arrived back at Krista's house to pick her up. Bad news. She passed out in the car but woke up when we got to the hotel. About the time we got to the room around 11:30 the fussing started and escalated.  She finally passed out from sheer exhaustion around 1AM only to wake up crying again at 2:00. I'm sure the people in the rooms next to ours loved us. We got her back to sleep by around 2:30-2:45 but she was awake again at 5AM. I'm tellin' ya. This kid does not like to have her schedule and routine messed with.

So, after a horrible night, the calm. She was a perfect angel all day long. She took her regular morning nap right on time and woke up just as we were sitting down for lunch.  Lunch was fantastic. Mostly because my dear dear friend Jade was in town and she met us. I hadn't seen her since before I got preggers so over a year!? Really?! That long? Wow. That's too long Jadely. It was the first time we got to introduce her to Evelynn and they got along great. Evelynn tried to eat Jade's hair and Jade didn't even seem to mind. What a girl :)

After lunch we went to visit my old next door neighbors. We stayed with them for an hour or so while Evelynn ate her lunch. Then it was back in the car. Right on schedule with afternoon nap time, Evelynn fell asleep and slept the whole way home despite the very loud pouring down rain all the way. It was so nice. She was good all evening and even went to sleep in time for me to catch the end of Dexter.  Ahh... We paid our dues last night but I must commend the little girl. Today was quiet pleasant. And now, off to bed for me!

To Serve and Protect?

My house got broken into sometime between 8PM Monday night and 7AM Tuesday morning.

A person or persons crawled under my garage door (it was open 6-12 inches to let the cat out) opened my car door and stole several small electronics.  My husband, baby and I were home at the time. My neighbor down the street had her car window smashed and her purse stolen that same night. The thieves later tried to use her ID to clear out her bank account. Thank goodness they were not successful.

I live in a small, quiet neighborhood in a small town. It's mostly young families and older people here, and there are only 2 streets and around 20 homes. It's the kind of neighborhood where you wouldn't expect this kind of thing. Ever since it happened I've been on a mission, not only to catch the thieves and get my stuff back, but to make sure it never happens again.

This week I've spoken to the police department several times, visited and called pawn shops and written letters to all my neighbors telling them about the incident and asking them to keep their eyes open.  I'm also gathering details on starting a neighborhood watch program.

It's been good to have a project and make me feel like I'm at least doing something about what happened. And it's been great finally meeting some of my neighbors.

One lady called this morning and told me some rather distressing news.  She actually saw two young men in hoodie sweatshirts at 5:30AM Tuesday morning on foot in our neighborhood. They seemed out of place, especially given that it was the middle of a thunderstorm at the time, so she called the police. The cops never came. And they never called to interview her either. Not even after two police reports were filed about incidents that occurred that very night.

I realize that petty theft doesn't amount to much on the crime scale. And if this was a bigger city I'd assume the police were out chasing down murders and rapists and the like. But this is a small town. Petty theft and drunk college students are what keep our police force in business. A murder would have been front page news for months. And 5:30 on Tuesday morning when the bars close at 2AM makes it unlikely they were checking college kids.