Got the Go-Ahead

I just got off the phone with JP, I love that he trusts me with our financial future. I gave him all the details of the refinance, and told him that I really think we should do it. He's going to check into getting me the POA so I can do it with him not here. It will be so much nicer on our budget, so maybe I will have a little extra money at the end of the month instead of the other way around... Which is what I'm dealing with now.

We had some excitement here last night, the cops came for a visit. (It's ok, we called them, asked them to come help us) Alex was the victim of a bully situation, almost got his shoes stolen. Pretty sad when owning a pair of brand name shoes makes you a target. He was barefoot, his Etnies ("the" shoes) were sitting on dry land 5 feet away from him as he waded through the huge puddle created on our side street by the thunder and hail storm that had just passed through. Two kids, about 15 yrs old rode by on their bikes, saw Alex and the shoes, and rode over to him, shoved him down (splash! Into the puddle!) and grabbed his shoes. Alex got up and did the right thing, came running to the house. Mom and I heard (through the yelling of Alex and Emma) and got the main points of the story, grabbed her truck keys and headed out to hunt the little bastards down! (at this point, it's appropriate to say "wow, they rock!!") We headed one of them off (they had split up, and were already a couple of blocks away) and stopped him, asked him (not politely) where the shoes were. We ended up, after a series of ran-stop signs and squealed tires, following these 2 boys (yeah, we found the other one, too! We're so cool!) following them back to the scene of the crime. I'm guessing they were about to take off WITH the shoes, saw Alex running to the house hollering for us, realized that they would get busted, dropped them and ran. Sorry punks, it's not about the shoes, it's about pushing kids around who are smaller than you, bullying the entire neighborhood. This is not the first time my kids have "met" these hoodlums. After wading into the puddle to retrieve the shoes (little bastards threw them into the middle of the water, hope they're not ruined) I hollered to them (they're busting ass out of there by then) that they better just get their asses home and wait for the cops to pay them a visit. So we called the cops, had an officer stop by and gave him the details (kudos to Alex here ) and he said he would go talk to mommies and daddies (those are HIS words). Alex then mentioned that he would not be surprised by retaliation in the next few days. The officer let us know he would be talking to the boys about that. Point of that conversation would be that it's over now, and any type of revenge would be met with harsh punishment. I'm thinking sending them to a juvenile detention center... This is not the first time the police have visited these two boys and their homes.

So we had an interesting night...