...Not Again....

So we had a great day of work and play outside today. We head into town (Decatur) to have dinner. After dinner Jim needs to run into Lowes for something (that now neither of us can remember..irrelevant). I sit in the truck with the kids and thought I'd check my phone to make sure I didn't miss any calls. I have a voice mail....it's from Brinks...home security.............. With my heart in my throat I call Jim in the store and tell him about the call and we are 90 to nothing in truck to the house. Jim calls our next door neighbor...no answer. He then calls the neighbors right behind us and he tells Jim he sees a car and flickering lights either in or around the house. I'm shaking, adrenaline's pumping...I can barely dial 911 on my cell. I tell 911 what's happened and they tell me that they don't show an alarm to have sounded. I say Brinks called me and my neighbor (Todd) sees a car and it's now leaving my property and his in "pursuit". They keep asking us to ask Todd what color the car is. I try to tell them ...duh, it's a dirt road...all he can see is white dirt!!! Jim also calls our other neighbor (Paul) and he goes to see if he can see any damage at the house ...and Todd's still in pursuit. On our road (4010) you have two exit routes....either stay on the whole 8.5 miles of 4010 till you come into town, or turn onto 4213 which tees into FM 2264. We are currently blazing down 2264 in hope to catch the SOB that has once again violated our home. Hell no we ain't going down without a fight this time!!!!!!! The 911 guys keeps asking me where they are on 4010...and we tell them we don't know (cell service sucks on that road). Finally we get word from Todd that the car has turned on 4213. We can just now see where 4213 comes onto the road we are on (2264). We see headlights, but it's a truck with trailer...so we KNOW that we WILL cut them off before they hit 2264. We turn onto 4213 and we see headlights coming our way. Jim turns the truck sideways in the road. The 911 guys telling us to stay in the car and don't block their way and let the sheriff's office handle it...I say "where the hell are they...we need them NOW!!!" He tells me they should be there shortly. I say "hell NO...HELL NO..this has already happened to us once and we aren't gonna let it happen again..." As I say this the car sees us and you can tell they are slowing way down and starting to come to a stop. Jim hops out and I'm trying like hell to open the truck door...damn safety locks!!! So as I'm frantically trying to get the damn door open and go "help" Jim... and the guys hollering at me on the phone to stay put.... I get my first glimpse of the car in question. It's white with familiar brown stripes down the side and what appears to be a light bar on top.....it's the Sheriff's office!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jim still flaming mad and the deputy shines the light in his face then turns it off as Jim says (something along these lines) "why the HELL where you at my house when your dept says that no ones be called out yet??" ...as we told Matthew, cops can steal too! But then I watch as Jim's head drops and that goofy "you got me" smile creeps up on his face. They talk a few mins more and then the 911 guy says "Ma'am I'm gonna hang up with you now". Jim comes back to the car and say that our alarm went off a long time ago and he was there to check it all out and he said everything appeared fine. We just sat in the car and looked at each other and just laughed. Adrenaline is still racing thru us...as Jim said "enough to fuel an elephant for a while..." So the car Todd bravely chased was Wise County's finest and those were the flickering lights he saw. Paul called and said that everything looked fine also and would be at the house when we got there. We drive up feeling like fools. But what else were we to think?? Brinks had told us it was alarm #5 which I thought was the new sun room. Which that alarm meant a window was broken. But that wasn't it. It was the motion detector. I was still a little...ok a lot...on edge and NEEDED to know what tripped it. We looked high and low to see what fell or shifted that set it off. Jim was ready to give up but I needed to know. Then the light bulb went off when my ity bity baby say "beyoon" in a questioning voice. Beyoon = balloon. Nat had a Mylar balloon with her flower arrangement that got untied and had been bouncing around on the living room ceiling since Jan. 30th....and it was gone...no where to be found. Matt gets out of the shower, heads into his room and says "hey, the balloons in my room??!!!" And there it was, the beyoon had finally lost enough air to drop enough to go in front of the motion detector and then have the vents blow it into Matt's room.

Soo...no...not again.... we are now most likely on the Sheriff's wall as the family that cries Wolf. But we have damn good neighbors!