Lonely

Today marks a sad day for our family.  Our neighbors the VanDoren's haved moved to Florida.  They've been our neighbors in the cul-de-sac for the last 3 years and are a large part of our lives.  Their kids (ages 6, 9 and 10) and our boys are always together either playing Wii in someone's house, building forts in the closets, riding bikes in the cul-de-sac or getting into some sort of trouble together.  We had cul-de-sac parties, made s'mores and played corn hole nearly every weekend.  With Jeff working from home and Renda as a stay-at-home mom, they were always around.  I'd always give Jeff a "heads up" when I had a Craigslist buyer coming to the house during the day, just so he could keep a lookout from his office window to make sure nothing fishy was going on.  Renda was my go-to person whenever I started baking something and didn't have enough eggs.  Just last week I realized that I don't even have their home phone number saved anywhere.  That's because whenever we needed anything, we'd just run over.  They'd invite us out to dinner when Scott was out of town and Jeff would blow all the debris off our driveway after each of our many summer storms.  They were great neighbors, our whole family will miss them dearly. 

We've been so fortunate with great neighbors in our lives not once, but twice.  In our old neighborhood we had the Hines' right next door.  I remember the same empty feeling when they moved to Chicago.  Will and Peyton were born a week apart, and as stay-at-home moms Jennifer and I took the kids on road trips together, frequented nearly every ice cream shop in town and had lots of impromptu dinners together.  Robert was the handyman who installed our kitchen dimmer switch, Jennifer tought us how to appreciate homemade chicken n' dumplins. They were a big part of our lives. 

I feel like we've hit the jackpot twice with great neighbors how can we possibly get lucky a 3rd time? But as Jeff & Renda's house sits with a "For Sale" sign in the front yard, I've put together a list of criteria that would make for great new neighbors:

-must have children...ideally boys between the ages of 4 and 8, but I can't be too picky
-must enjoy hanging out in the cul-de-sac, grilling and drinking beer on Saturday nights (expertise in the sport of cornhole is a plus)
-should be a stay-at-home mom (ideally with an mild ice cream obsession)
-must be OK with random backed goods being dropped off (I love to bake, but I need to be able to pawn off my extras or else I'll eat them all)

We're hoping to meet up with the VanDoren's sometime soon in Hilton Head, but until then we'll be watching their house scoping out prospective buyers.  They've got some big shoes to fill.