Meet the Neighbors!

Your neighbors are just like the box of chocolates in Forrest Gump. You never know what you’re  going to get!  We got lucky!!  When we moved here to the beach, for the first few months we were only coming on weekends and then spent the week at Kate and Frank’s. We hadn’t met any of our neighbors yet since we weren’t there that often. We first met Richard of Julia and Richard (they live next door to the left).   We had a ring doorbell installed when we moved in and one day we were back at the ranch in Live Oak when the ring alarm went off. We pulled up the camera and see some guy doing something in the front of our house. We weren’t sure who he was or what he was doing so I turned on the speaker part of the ring and ask “hello, can we help you?” He didn’t know where the voice was coming from so we asked again. I think only then did he realized the voice was coming from the doorbell. “just picking up leaves from our tree”. And that was the first encounter with Richard next door. Next time we were at the beach and saw him outside we went out to introduce ourselves and apologize in person for our spying on him.  Richard and Julia have been living at the beach for a while. Both PHDs who worked at Mayo clinic. They have two sons, Noah and Liam.  Since then we have got to know them a lot better. Richard is a great guy. He mows our lawn for us when he is mowing his lawn! He even put up our back fence for us because ours was falling down and he had extra fence panels. Julia comes over for the occasional wine night.  Great neighbors!!

We met Maria and Cory when we were getting the HUGE Live Oak tree trimmed in our back yard. This tree is one of the reasons I loved this house so much. The branches cover most of our house and back yard and provide ever needed shade during summer months. It also hangs over into Maria and Cory’s yard to the right providing them with much needed shade also. But I knew nothing about these trees so we had an arborist come and check it out and give it a trim. The tree got a clean bill of health and they did trim some of the branches. When they were done they knocked on the door to let us know that when they were up in the tree trimming that they noticed a couple of holes on our neighbors roof and that they placed a note at there door to let them know.  Either that day or the next we met Maria. She came over to get some more information on what the tree trimmers said.  Long story short (and contrary to what Cory might say) there were holes in their roof that were caused by tree branches from the tree in our backyard. Like a branch had grown over and eventually just rested on their roof. I guess over time it caused a hole. As much as Cory would like it if it was our tree at the time Google earth clearly shows the holes before either of us moved in. Fortunately for Maria and Cory the hole was over the overhang part so any rain did not get in the house. Side Note:  They paid for home inspection before they bought and the “inspector” missed it. Jerk.  We officially met Cory a day or two later in our driveway.  Maria the ICU nurse and Cory the Nurse Practitioner. Boy did Barb luck out there!  

So there they are. Maybe the two best next door neighbors we could EVER expect to have.  Just google  “neighbors from hell” and you’ll see what I mean.  We’ve been here five years now and the bond has grown stronger.  Not only neighbors but dear dear friends. Its made life at the beach and life in general just that much better. We are the old couple of the bunch. Everyone’s kids range from sweet Ada (who steals our heart) who’s around 3 to Noah on the other side of us who is off to Florida State. So the 30-40s on the right and the 40-50s on the left, and us old folks in the middle, and kids all around. Right where we want to be!