Love Thy Neighbor

We couldn't have chosen better next door neighbors if we had done interviews.  We aren't chatty, hang out on each other's patio and party kind of neighbors but our kids are completely content to use our combined yards as one big playground.  Their six girls and one boys perfectly compliment our five boys and one girl.  Well, the ages don't quite work out but their four younger girls (ages 6 to 13) and their two year old boy have a great time hanging out with our three younger boys (ages 4 to 13).   The girls have complete crushes on the boys and the boys are clueless.

One of the first days of summer break the boys started hauling out every stuffed animal they could hunt down    in our house.  When I looked outside I could see a huge pile of stuffed animals on our trampoline and a huge pile of stuffed animals on the neighbors trampoline.  They ranged from the tiniest key chain creature to the overstuffed Tigger, which each family proudly had one of.  I stood back and watched for a minute before grabbing my camera.

Instead of playing the back-in-the-day game of My Dad is Bigger Than Your Dad, they were playing the updated We Have More Stuffed Animals Than You Do version.  What I found so funny was the method each team was using to do the counting.  The girls kept all the animals on the trampoline, taking great care to not let one fall to the dirty ground, while pushing all of them to one side and tossing them to the other side as they counted.  The boys gave up trying to keep them on the trampoline and scooped them all to the ground to then toss them into piles of ten, not even taking into account that the animals might get dirty.

Final Score:  97 to 68
They won

When the weather finally warmed up enough to warrant a little water play each family scrounged through cupboards and drawers to find balloons to fill for a water fight. After drenching themselves trying to fill the balloons with the hose and several pinched fingers attempting to tie the balloons, the imaginary boundary was set and the water bombs were let loose.  Somehow, little Brock next door could tell that we were the boy side of the battle and came to our side of the yard to throw balloons at his sisters.

The trampoline is this years main attraction.  Even though we had it last year, the playhouse hosted most of last years games.  Our trampoline has somehow snuck across the lawn to stand next to their trampoline so that they can jump from one to the other, have the sprinkler under one but not the other, and to create a big enough shade area for everyone to enjoy a cool lunch area in the heat of the day.  On the individual trampolines we often find Justin hanging out with Brock while the others all play imagination games or Justin is teaching someone how to do gymnastic tricks.  On more group days they can be found playing Duck, Duck, Goose or Crack the Egg or just sitting there talking like best of friends do.

The neighbor's cousin, Bailey, joined the fun and by the end of the day also had a crush on Justin.    
How can boys be so oblivious to the obvious?