Welcome to the Neighborhood

Once we got settled in our new house, we decided it was time to meet the neighbors. So one night after dinner we went out, armed with invitations to our house-warming party, to meet the other families on the cul-de-sac with us. We figured five households was a good start, and a decent number of people to invite to the party.

Everyone was very nice and welcoming, though four of the five houses belong to older couples. All of their kids were in their twenties and out of the house, except for the one high school senior (youngest of five). And then there's one oddball family with middle-school aged kids. Of the five families we met, two were planing to be out of town, but three said they'd drop by the party. That had been about what we'd been expecting, and it was nice to start meeting people and learning names.

We also learned about various social events. There's a semi-regular Wine Wednesday, a regular guys night every Thursday, a monthly ladies night out, and a bunch of parties throughout the year. Everyone kept telling us about the epic Halloween party; I'm eager to see how it stacks up against our Halloween party. One of the neighbors said she'd make sure we got on the various neighborhood email lists, and we thanked her.

By the time we got home, we had a couple of emails detailing the upcoming regularly scheduled events and introducing us to the neighborhood. Our friendly neighbor had also taken it upon herself to extend the invitation to our house warming party to the entire neighborhood, some 40-odd houses. So far only one of those households has RSVPed, so we don't really have any idea what to expect come Saturday.

On the bright side, we did get to attend a few events and start meeting more neighbors. The Wine Wednesday is hosted by one of the other pregnant couples. There were a lot of people there, too many for me to remember names. But I met both of the other pregnant ladies in the neighborhood, and they seem nice which is heartening. Both families already have toddlers, and there seem to be a lot of younger children around in general.

I'm actually glad we moved into such a welcoming, social neighborhood. Our housewarming party could get a bit insane, and we may actually run out of food for the first time in our hosting history. But it will be good to start socializing with people. According to everyone we've talked to, this is a neighborhood that likes to party hard. The people our age have told us they have a hard time keeping up with the empty-nesters, which makes sense. Hopefully it also means that Kevin and I will fit right in.

And now to hope that a reasonable number of people choose to attend the housewarming party this Saturday. It'll be good to meet more people; I just hate not knowing how many, exactly, are coming.