Was this all an awesome dream!?

Saturday nights are mostly uneventful around here. We do have neighbors across the street that like to have parties but they are pretty contained and end at a reasonable time, so no big deal. We also have neighbors right next door that have parties and most of them are family affairs. Not so on Saturday. The neighbors across the street were having a party so there were quite a few cars parked on the street. When we got home from getting milk that night, nothing looked different.

It all changed around 1:30am when Jeff and I headed to bed (not sure why we have been staying up late lately, but we have). Our bedroom is right next door to their house by a few feet and we had the windows open through the night because it has been nice and warm. When I got Diesel from the kennel outside, I could hear people in the neighbors backyard but the patio lights were off. Thought nothing of it. Well it all changed. We were laying there and people talking/laughing got loud and you could here someone constantly shushing people. Jeff thought it was the neighbors across the street. I told him it couldn't be. You could also here them in the front of the house. Jeff decided to get up and check things out. He looked out our front window and saw a teenager walking across our lawn to their car with a beer in hand. Jeff immediately called the cops to complain. They mentioned that they had gotten other calls and were on it. We later found out that a cop of staking things out around the corner trying to here in on the party but we are pretty sure that the beer drinking friend called the others because things started going crazy. I was in bed and could here kids running like crazy through the gate by the window. They scattered and I could here noises on the patio. I could also here a cop yelling stuff to the kids. Jeff was watching it all from the window. He never came back so I went to check on him. To my suprise our front windows were lit up with about 4-5 cop cars with lights on, cops all over with shining flashlights and Jeff talking to one in our driveway outside. The cops were gathering kids, some in handcuffs, some standing there on the curb. Cops constantly shining flashlights every where. It was insane. I headed outside to talk to Jeff who was now talking to our totally drunk neighbor across the street and another that just got back from the bars. Earlier we had also heard a HUGE crash of glass. It was like a car crunch or car glass breaking. It sounded more like a window or glass table. When kids started running, dogs started barking down the street and Diesel joined in. After that, he went to sleep and never woke up (we have been trying him out in our room and he seems to really like it). After talking to our neighbors, Jeff and I sat on the living room couch watching the entire thing for a while. It was nuts. Kids kept coming from down the street. They were slowly gathering a small bunch. We also saw one officer do all of these tests on one of the kids like the follow the finger test.

Eventually we headed to bed. I heard one girl tell an officer that she was calling her mom (I am sure he told her too) and I could hear her say. "Officer, what street are we on?" She then told her mom the directions to get there and she hung up with an attitude indicating that she thought her mom was stupid. Really?! Do you think that her mom really wanted a call like that at 3 in the morning. Dumb girl. Jeff and I also heard a lot of commotion, like a big ramming rod against a door, and as we stood on our bed looking out of our high windows, we saw the cops in the house with flashlights checking rooms as another one was standing right by the window just in case a kid jumped out. Finally we both fell asleep.

I thought it was all over until about 4:30am I heard an officer outside our window yell about seeing movement in a certain area of the yard, ask if anyone checked the shed and mention that someone moved a big screen tv in front of a door inside. Wow, they were still out there rounding up and looking for kids. I tried to get back to bed but they left a side door light on all night which was shining brightly in our window. Jeff was out like a light.
The next morning we had beer cans in yards and smelled like cigarette smoke and alcohol from our neighbor and his friend. We figured we better take showers before we headed to church. Wouldn't that be funny heading to church smelling like that.
Yesterday an officer called Jeff following up on the situation. He said that the kids knew what they were doing. They had all the windows blacked out and were drinking and smoking marijuana. We are assuming most if not all were underage. He said that some were in jail, some were released and some have warrants out for them. They are taking this seriously and pressing charges. They said that there were no adults there. Weird...because they all magically appeared home on Sunday and the man that has not spoken a word to us or acknowledged our presence in 5 years waved at Jeff through the fence. Interesting. They asked if Jeff would be willing to testify if needs be. He told them of course and that he was a probation officer with the county so it didn't worry him. The officer did, in fact, raid and search the house for kids. I could only imagine what the inside looked like afterwards. The kids are so dumb. We would never have known if they were not out well into the morning and started to get loud. We wouldn't have done anything. What a way for them to end the school year and what a crazy morning for us. I am still struggling with energy because of it.