On the street where we live....

Some weird things have happened to us this week, and although things have turned out to be not as bad as we had first thought, it has brought many things to our attention. I'll explain. Sunday morning, we pulled out of our driveway, and as we started driving away, Matt and I noticed a strange man walking through our neighbors yard, onto the street, and get into his old Audi that was parked in front of our house. We thought this was kind of creepy, but needed to get to church, and I didn't give it another thought, until I was at my enrichment meeting this week, where I was talking to one of my neighbors. She says: "did you know there is a guy stalking our neighborhood?" WE started comparing note...she told me the guy had approached her husband while he was in the garage, cleaning late one night. And had said he was an undercover cop. (which, since we have lots of police friends in our neighborhood, knew would never haven) The another neighbor saw the same guy, late at night, shining his flashlight into windows. And the final straw for me, was another neighbor girl, (about 5 yrs old) receiving a puppy dog from a strange man, who said she could keep it for a few days, and he'd meet her later to get his dog. CREEPY! Well, I went home, completely freaked out, insisted that Matt carry the boys up to our room, to sleep on the floor next to our bed that night, and even had Matt pull down his (LORD of the RINGS) sting sward, to keep next to the bed that night. (on Matt's side of course. What would I do with a sward? The next day, we started making calls. The Bus barn, the Home Owners Pres. so on. Then we went to Home Depot, to see out getting alarms for the windows. That night, Matt got a call from the HOA pres. She had been doing some investigating throughout the day. It turns out, there was a pervert in our neighborhood. But it wasn't what we thought. I guess he'd been having a thing with one of the neighbor's teenage daughters. (under 16 I think, and he's 25!) And what we had all been seeing, was the comings and goings of this creep in and out of her window. Hence, the flashlight, and sneaking out early Sunday morning. Wait, it gets better. I guess he was spotted by one of the men on our street, crawling in the window one night. And the guy (who works at the correctional facility in Palmer, called a our neighbor, who also works there) and they went to tell the dad of this girl what had happened. I guess they "flushed" him out by catching the two together. We're not quite sure if they beat him up, or what, but they told him not to come back to this street again, and all the neighbors now know to call the police if we see him here again. Crazy, hu? And I thought I lived on the most boring street ever. But it has taught us to be much more aware of those around us, and our most precious possessions, (our children).