Draw the curtains, nail down the blinds

We have a unique living situation. As you all probably already know, we sold our house at the beginning of March. Currently we are renting a house. We are renting it on a "campus." That's about as specific as I'd like to be with our living location and broadcasting it to the interweb, so if you know where we live I'd appreciate the ambiguity as well in your comments.

The reason I'm bringing it up today is because at this very moment, right outside my front door is this:


Yes. Three HUGE inflatable bouncehouses/slides. Where we live they are celebrating. A celebration that only takes place every 5 years, to my understanding. Which means, it's a BIG celebration.

And, we are not really invited to play on those lovely, fun, totally-would-wear-my-kids-out toys that are RIGHT OUTSIDE OUR FRONT DOOR. Yes, that's our lawn furniture and toys laying in the grass. Squeals and laughter are echoing through our house as the sounds of children enjoying themselves on these bounceable toys. And, there's a band playing somewhere on the not so distant lawn.

Those things pretty much make our RRIAP look like a deflated kiddie pool.

Wow. I've never drawn our blinds so tightly as I am today. I think I'll blindfold my kids and carry them out to the van 1 by 1 and leave for the entire afternoon. Thanks to a friend who will make that possible by loaning us her house this afternoon.

I sure hope no one gets the bright idea to look out the window. Something tells me I'll be playing zone defense this morning, with my zone being all the windows/doors on the front side of our house.

Bring on the meltdowns.