We noticed that a family had moved into the house right next to us, so we decided that's where we needed to start. I wasn't able to make quite the "welcome" basket I had intended, but I did make a batch of awesome brownies, so I wrapped up a bunch in parchment paper and then wrapped the whole thing in a cute dish towel I had recently purchased (I purchased a few sets from Marshall's, as most of our "good ones" have been tagged by Gus's teeth), and then put it all in a cute burlap bag I had from something else, to make it look more like a gift. I also stuck a note inside with our names and phone numbers.
So, not having a clue what we would be walking into, we made our way over to the house next door.
Now, this is not to say that we were without apprehension. I think everyone at some point in time has had both awesome neighbors...and ones that were complete A-holes. The college apartment neighbor who blasted music at 3 a.m. in an attempt to drown out their "having coffee" activities. Or the one who lets their trees and bushes become so overgrown that they start taking root in your yard. Or, my favorite, the one who has people coming and going at all hours of the night, convincing you that it's either a drug house or a brothel.
In Tulsa, I was lucky to have good neighbors at both my apartment, and later at our house. The woman we lived next to when we were in our house was one of those awesome neighbors. We watched each other's property, grabbed packages if we knew the she was out of town, helped shovel each other's driveways when we got four feet of snow...you know, good neighborly kinds of things.
Back to last night.
We were greeted by a lovely young woman, her husband, and their two small boys (and one in the oven). They were so incredibly nice!
Even though we had Gus with us (we want our neighbors to know what he looks like should he ever get out), they insisted we come in and hang out for a bit. We found out that she is originally from Mexico, he is from Argentina; and that she stays at home with their kids, and he is a plant manager for a company that manufactures equipment used in oil and gas drilling and production. She later sent me a text thanking us for the brownies and for coming over...but I gathered from the text that she's been in the U.S. for quite some time as she used "ya'll" in her text message. I thought it was cute.
I have to say, however, I was a bit intimidated when I saw that the husband's shirt read "Harvard Business School". But, I'd rather be around people that are smarter than me in a feeble attempt to learn more, so I'll suck it up.
Side note: That is one thing that I have come to love about Houston...You can never make an assumption about anyone. There are so many people here from all over the world; some having been here for decades, others are recent transplants. All different races, religions, and allegiances. In an initial greeting, it's honestly very difficult to tell someone who grew up here from someone who just moved. Kyle and I were both raised in fairly small towns with limited diversity, so it's been very eye-(and heart)opening.
Anyway, our first neighbor meet and greet went so much better than we could have asked for. We feel extremely lucky to have such nice people living next to us.
Let's just hope the trend continues!
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