Where we came from...

We love 99% of our house. It is a huge step forward in where we came from. When Kendall was first born, we still lived in a 2 bedroom apartment, right across from Des Moines University. Right on the border of the "ghetto." With "white trash" living below us and across from us. With a common washer and dryer. With homeless people digging through the dumpster right outside of the apartments. With an air condioning box that really just cooled down the living room. With a heater that we had no control over (we opened our windows in the winter). With an open parking lot that left our cars covered in snow and ice. With a shoveling company that burried our cars in 4 feet of snow. I'm sure I could go on and on.
So anyway, our house is fantastic. We love having a yard, a deck, a walk-in closet, separate rooms for the boys and girl, a double-car garage, our own washer and dryer, a heater and air conditioner that we can control, and multiple bathrooms. We only down-side --- our neighborhood. When we found this house on the Internet, we asked our real estate agent to show it to us. She told us she'd show it to us, but that the house was not in a very good school district. We thought this wasn't a big deal because our kids won't go to school while we're out here, and with the market being what it is, resale is going to be hard anyway. We were in love with this house, and to a certain extent, we still are. However...

June 2011: We move into our house.
June 2011: We meet some of our neighbors.
June 2011: We get a security system (most of our neighbors do, too).
July 2011: My mom is here. She gets up at 4 AM to use the bathroom. She sees a cop car drive by. Weird!
September 2011: One of our neighbors gets arrested. There are 4 cop cars in front of her house. She comes home a few days later.
February 2012: I go out to get the mail. There a cop car across the street. The cop sees me and waves me over. He has questions about some other neighbors. He even has a picture of them. Scary!
July 2012: It's nearly midnight. I hear something that comes around our house every minute or so. The sound only lasts about 10 seconds. I go to the front of the house, but I don't see anything. I go to the back of the house, where there are only trees separating us from a field. That's when I see blue and red lights all around the field. Then I see a helicopter flying over the field and our neighborhood. WTF?!?
September 2012: We have new neighbors. They have only been there for 2 weeks, and already there is a cop knocking on their door.
September 2012: I see the girl who got arrested last year arguing with her boyfriend. That night, a cop comes knocking on their door.

Let's be honest here. Billy is going to be a well-paid doctor. Once we move from this house, we will never again have to deal with this type of stuff. But let us always remember where we came from...