Being at the end of a dead-end street means that the plow creates a giant mound of snow right outside my house. The downside is the sound of the plow waking me up at 3 am, and the back-up beeps sending Maddox into a panic. The upside is that I get to enjoy "Snow Mountain" and all the winter fun that it brings. For the first few months, I'd see children race their scooters to the edge of the snow, then run up the bank, slide down on their butts, and then race away again. This went on for a while, like they'd made up a triathlon of sorts. I love that my new neighborhood is a go-outside-and-play sort of place.

It wasn't until a few months later that I met the whole family.