Night Time Activity

I got a text from Jeremy this morning soon after he left with pictures of our cars--compartments open, stuff strewn on the seats. It's not the first time our cars have been gone through during the night. For us, it's just annoying. We don't keep anything valuable in our cars and our cars certainly aren't valuable! lol. I do not like thinking that someone was poking around the back of our house during the night. It's just a yucky feeling. A bit later Jeremy texted and said he didn't think to check if Josiah's bike was still in the yard and if his golf clubs were in the shed. I checked. The golf clubs were in the shed, but Josiah's bike was not beside the shed where I had parked it.

For the first time I had to tell the children that we had been robbed. Josiah was bummed. He wiped his eyes and fought back tears. After a few minutes I offered him a hug and he refused--I could tell a hug would have brought on the tears. We talked about a new bike and he perked up.

After deliberation Jeremy encouraged me to call the sheriff's department. I knew it was petty. I also suspected that most of the cars on our road were tampered with during the night. I went ahead and called.

When the children found out a police officer was coming to our house, their imaginations went wild. I wanted them to be nicely doing schoolwork when he arrived. lol. I went out to meet the officer and was soon joined by 3 children and Josiah holding his new Nerf Rival.

The officer said, "So tell me about this bike." We told him the model and that it was black. He said, "your bike is just down the road past the tree line." The man whose property the bike was on called the sheriff's office earlier this morning to report the bike on his property. The officer ran the serial number and nothing came up. So he told the property owner he could dispose of the bike. Not that much later I called and reported the stolen bike and on his way to our house, the deputy stopped and checked out the bike. Officer called the man and told him we would be picking up the bike. The kids and I got in the car, drove down the road and brought Josiah's bike home.

Just when I got everyone settled back into normalcy, the officer came back to our house because his boss told him to file a report. As I suspected all the cars down our road were tampered with. I took the opportunity to point out to the children how stealing something as seemingly small as a bike was causing this police officer to do a lot of ridiculous work.

All said and done Josiah was a little disappointed that he isn't getting a new bike in the immediate future! But he was happy to have that bike back. He really does like that bike! He and I have hopes of doing some trail riding this summer.

I am feeling grateful right now that all the children have fallen asleep tonight without feeling scared about intruders.