Howdy-Ho Good Neighbours!

Did you ever used to watch Home Improvement, that incredibly corny family sitcom with Tim Allen pretending to be a Tool Man on a local cable show called "Tool Time"? Do you remember his neighbour in the show, Wilson? If you never saw the show, it ran for about 10 years (I think) and one of the insanely silly jokes / running themes of it was that the audience NEVER saw Wilson's whole face at once. He was always standing on the other side of the fence, so only the top half of his face was showing, or holding something that was covering the top half of his face, so only the bottom half was showing... In the very last episode, you FINALLY got to see all of Wilson's face in one shot. It was really quite a clever, if ridiculous, little joke.
I got to thinking of Wilson yesterday when I saw my uncle and said to him "Howdy Ho Good Neighbour!" which was something Wilson would always say to Tim over the side of the fence in the backyard... My uncle and his wonderful family have just moved in really close by to us, along with having my sister and her family next door... we're considering just changing the street names to our family names at the rate we're taking over the neighbourhood. It's funny, cuz when I tell people how close we all live to each other, they seem shocked. Like you would never CHOOSE to live this close to your family. but that's exactly what we did; we chose to live nearby... and now when I want to go for a walk, I can go with my parents, my uncle, aunt or cousin, my sister, my little angel and angela tagging along (in strollers or on foot, depending on whether we're planning a power-walk or a dawdle...) or if we just want to pop by and see each other for five minutes, or borrow a cup of sugar like the old cliche, we do it... If I don't see my sister, niece or nephew (read: angel or angela) for more than two days, I basically go into some form of mild withdrawal. three days and we're talking more serious withdrawal. 4, you don't even wanna ask. I love having my family near by, and I'm incredibly grateful for it. Case in point, we all had dinner together tonight, with little notice that this was what we would do. Exhibit two: this morning, my uncle and I happened to ride the bus into downtown together without even meaning it. It just makes for a lot more bonding time when everyone's nearby. So, welcome to the neighbourhood!