Weddings, Garage Sales, and Neighbors

Saturday we went sheep herding in the morning, and in the afternoon we went to Erin's sister, Trish's, wedding. Really nice ceremony, and the reception was at Wente Vineyards in Livermore. It was really cute, because the minute Marc and I got to the reception, Trish's daughter and stepdaughter came up to me and asked me if I could give them tips on Nintendogs. I quickly realized though, that they are WAY ahead of me in the game. Still, after dinner, her stepdaughter was talking to me about Nintendogs for at least an hour. Too cute.

The food was good, and I managed to get Marc out on the dance floor for one slow dance, and that was it. Jacob was hilarious because he was dancing all night. Towards the end of the evening, Allison threw up in the middle of the dance floor, which cleared it out pretty quickly. :)

Sunday morning we got up early and drove up with Steve and Erin and the kids to Elk Grove for the estate sale. We ended up selling a few big items, and it was funny to see how some people totally tried to lowball us.

When we got home in the afternoon, we found a note in our door. It was from our next door neighbor's wife. She said that Snoopy's "whinning" was causing a strain in her marriage, and that he was waking her up in the mornings and disturbing her when she was trying to watch movies. She then said that if we didn't take care of it, she would contact any agencies and even a lawyer if she needed to.

What was so ridiculous is that she's never once before told us that there was a problem. Marc and I let Snoopy out right before we leave for work. Her letter seemed to imply that we were ignoring him when he was making noise. No, it's because we're simply not home.

We'd spoken to her husband once before, when we'd had to leave the house at 3:30 am and we had to let Snoopy out. He just complained that the dog woke him up that morning, which is a valid complaint. So since then if we've had to leave that early, we take him to my parents' house. But he didn't mention anything that was a problem on a regular basis.

So I thought it was pretty uncalled for for her to threaten us when she's never even tried to talk to us about it. She says she's made attempts (when we're not home), but I've seen her and Marc's seen her in person, and she's never said anything to us. And hell, if you don't want to talk to us face to face, just leave us a note and let us know about the problem and give us a chance to fix it BEFORE you leave a note threatening to get a lawyer.

So I typed up a note last night and left it on their doorstep, and basically told her as much. Kenny read it and thought I was too nice, and that I should've just told her to get a life. But you know, we always try to be pretty considerate neighbors, and usually if you tell us there's a problem, we'll fix it. I could've been mean and said, "I'll assume that by "whinning" you mean "whining" and not "whinnying" like a horse." But instead I simply told her that it was unnecessary to threaten us with legal action, and that she should've just spoken to us about it first.

In the meantime, my parents were nice enough to take Snoopy for the week, until Marc and I can figure out how to solve the noise problem, and to give our neighbor a chance to chill the hell out.

That night we also went to meet my parents and brothers for dinner for my mom's birthday. We'd gotten her a yoga mat and a mat bag, and it turned out that Kenny also bought her a bag, hehe. But it was cool, we had a nice dinner.

Hope everyone else had a lousy neighbor-free weekend. ;)