Allerton Avenue

I haven't written much yet about the new street that we're living on, Allerton Ave. It's a short street...makes a T into both Hall and Adams, so there are a total of only a little more than 30 houses on our street. Many of the houses were built in the 1920s and 1930s...and they are all really different from each other. There are sidewalks, a slight hill, and lots of big, beautiful trees.

And kids. Lots of kids. I don't know the official count, but just in my head I can think of 18 kids(not including ours) under the age of 10.

The first time our realtor showed me the house (Joe wasn't here yet), he told me that Allerton had a reputation for being a cool street. That the neighbors hung out together, had barbecues, happy hour, that kind of thing. I thought he was just trying to sell me a house, but then a few weeks later when Joe came with me to check it out...we hung around and talked to a neighbor across the street to get her impressions of the neighborhood.

We thought for a minute that our realtor had paid this woman to gush about Allerton. He didn't. We bought the house...for lots of reasons; including the people who live around it.

I hesitate to even write some of this stuff, because I know it sounds too good to be true. And we are still in the "honeymoon" period of being excited about our house. Eventually we may find out some really dark, annoying things about our neighbors :) That being said, here are a few of the cool things about Allerton:

-the kids play out in front of the houses. Seems like when a few kids head outside, they all do. Rowan frequently checks the front window to see who's outside playing...and sometimes the kids even knock to see if she's home. Rowan hasn't felt confident enough yet to go play without Joe or me accompanying her...but eventually she will. When she does, she will have no end to her playmate options...including a 4 year old girl across the street and a 5 year old girl next door to that.

-the parents often hang out front, too. Partly to supervise the children, surely. But I suspect that a fair amount of it is the joy of adults in community, too.

-the neighbors get together for indoor play-dates when the weather is bad. They invited us to one before we moved in...moms, coffee, kids playing.

-Phil, the neighbor across the street and next door, has a pool. He doesn't have kids...but apparently opens his pool up to anyone on the street, at any time. We're looking forward to swimming there in a few months when the weather is warm enough!

-Curt and his wife live down the street 4 or 5 houses. They are in their 50s or 60s probably. Our first introduction to Curt was when he was dressed as a monster handing out candy on his front porch on Halloween. Joe officially met him one winter day after Curt had snow blown our driveway...and also the sidewalks up and down the whole street. We had a lot of snow this winter...and we never once shoveled our front sidewalk. Curt did.

-Curt also grows a vegetable garden on the side of his house...mostly for the benefit of the kids. He dries some of the beans every year, gives the seeds to the kids to start little plants at their houses...then the kids all plant them in his garden in the spring. Seriously.

-About 10 families on the street participate in a CSA (community supported agriculture) together. So they take turns driving out to the farm each week to pick up the bushels of veggies to bring back to the street. We, of course, are participating this summer!

-there is a neighborhood celebration for almost every holiday. We were invited to the Halloween one before we even lived here. Pizza, beer, trick-or-treating. On St. Patricks Day, right after we moved in, there was "happy hour" out front across the street...one neighbor provided beer, others brought green treats. Yesterday there was a big Easter Egg Hunt at a neighbor's house (and we spontaneously did the egg-dying party, but more on that later). On 4th of July another neighbor has a brunch after the HollyHock Parade (word has it that Allerton Ave is doing a float for that parade this year).

-people loan and borrow stuff. So the Cebulskis are a big benefit to the street. We do own a concrete mixer and drum floor sander, after all. A neighbor across the street has been re-doing his bathroom, and he has been over lots of time to borrow a tool, ask Joe something, etc. Joe loves it. As long as people return things in a timely manner :) Yesterday Joe had to jack up his truck to check out the brakes...and he used a neighbor's flat driveway to do it (ours is a bit of a hill). Another neighbor, who is a mechanic, provided lots of help along the way.

-there is a park about 2 blocks away...and a new Christian school is being built on the same property.

-there is a library about a block and a half away. We walked there Friday to see a puppeteer.

-Rowan's pre-school is less than a mile away. We walked the other day when it was nice.

-from what we can tell, most of the families are planning on being here long-term. One near-by neighbor even recently remodeled their kitchen, even though it makes the home exceed the value they could re-sell it for, simply because they don't want to move.

-FROG soccer. Not sure what FROG stands for (Friends of Gary, I think?). It's an informal gathering of neighbors (drawing from a larger area than just Allerton) that meet at a near-by park every Monday evening for 6 weeks after Spring Break. A very ambitious woman organizes it all...but it's basically a laid-back, low pressure way for kids to get acquainted with basic soccer skills. It's free, you don't have to sign up...just show up. They divide kids by age, do stations of simple soccer drills, have a scrimmage, then a snack. It's perfect for a kid like Rowan, who insists that she doesn't want to learn how to play any sports, to have a low-pressure way to be exposed. She spent most of the first session hanging back, observing, kicking the ball around with her dad a bit. Maybe by the end she'll join in! But the whole thing is just a great example of a community coming together, serving each other, having fun together, all on their own!

Okay, I'll stop gushing. We just feel so blessed to be on this street!

There are a few photos of the neighborhood, mixed in with other random photos, if you follow the link here to Flickr.

There are also some photos up of Easter and the egg-dying, which I'll blog about eventually, posted to a set here.