I just wish they lived closer...

I warned them. I told them (and I quote), "Y'all know this is sooo going on the blog." (I like to say "y'all" when I'm in Virginia. )

That was my way of asking permission to post their lovely faces for the 15 people who read this blog world to see.
Pictured above are some of my neighbors. (Several others escaped before I could make them pose for a picture.) These are the neighbors who live oh, only 550 miles away.

They are the people who can read my nostalgic poem about home and know exactly what I'm talking about when I say a tree rang the doorbell.

They are the people who look at my kids and say, "Oh he's grown so much, but he still looks just like Larry." Or, "What happened to this baby girl? How can she already be three years old?"

They are the people I think of when I hear the word community. The ones who mowed my lawn when I was pregnant and my husband was ill. The ones who fed me dinner when my husband was deployed. The ones who welcomed us home from the hospital, who were among the first to meet my babies.

They are the people who served as my emergency contacts, as the backbone of my back-up plans.

They are the people who make me feel, after nearly three years away, as if I never left.

They are my neighbors, the Real Deal.

I just wish they lived closer...