Dear Next-Door Neighbours

It's pretty sad that I don't know your names. When I was a kid, we knew EVERYONE within a block of our house - a CUBIC block, if you will. We were friends with almost all of them, too - Mormons, Catholics, non-church-goers, middle-aged couples, young families, grandparents...all of them. I can probably still tell you the names of most of the people who lived in each house in that old neighbourhood. Today I think maybe two of the same families are there...and mine isn't one of them, sadly.

Today I only know the name of one of the kids in the other house because her parents won an ATV and were in the paper. Sad.

At any rate, the reason I'm writing to you is because you have been fabulous neighbours. We've lived here for two and a half years and I can't complain about anything you've done. Within the first week you'd introduced yourselves, welcomed us, and asked if there was anything you could do for us. Last summer you warned us that you were going to be having parties to celebrate 1) Your child's high school graduation and 2) Your twins' 16th birthday. You apologized in advance for being noisy a bit later than we may like. We appreciated the heads up, but never heard a thing. When your dogs bark you often call them inside. When you're outside at night, it is rare and you aren't noisy about it. You've never encroached on our property, invaded our privacy, damaged anything of ours, been rude or inconsiderate, or done anything to be considered even slightly bad neighbours.

That is amazing.

Thank you so much for being such fabulous neighbours; we hope we've been as good from our side of the fence.

Signed,
Becky