Baby Sister and The Stolen Bikes

We have had some bad news in the past few weeks. It sounds like our baby sister is very sick. She might be born soon, or she might be born later like we expected, but anyway she might not live for very long. This makes all of us very sad, especially Mommy and Daddy. But we pray for her and give her hugs and kisses even though we can't see her yet. Mommy told us the other morning that there is something extra in each of her cells (a third 18th chromosome), and that can mess up lots of stuff as she is growing. She also has a hole in her heart, and other problems. So I told Mommy that they should take all the extra stuff from each of her cells and fix the hole in her heart.

We also want to tell everyone about our amazing bike story. While we were visiting Christina last month, we had our bikes stolen from the garage--Mommy's, with the trailer, and Daddy's, with his helmet. We now have all of them back--except Daddy's helmet. But Mommy's fits him. Anyway, here's how it went down...

Sunday afternoon we called the police to report the robbery, and then didn't really expect much from them. Monday morning Daddy went to borrow a bike that had been offered by friends from church, and on the way back he saw his own bike chained to a lamppost. He eventually called the police to report that, and they came to check it out, and the person whose house it was at (the old Shoup House, for those of you who know where that is) said he found it behind the recycling bins at the College, and had chained it there on 15 so the owner might see it. So that's how we got Daddy's bike back.

In the meantime, one of our neighbors heard the story of the stolen bikes and mentioned that he had seen a bike trailer without a bike at Bruno's Pizza in Waterford, and had remembered that since it seemed odd. Incidentally, we had found the trailer flag stuck in the grass across the street from our house on Sunday morning, and a hat from in the trailer on the street a bit farther south, so it made sense that the miscreants had been traveling south. In any case, to make this long story a little shorter, Bruno's staff had taken the trailer in and kept it, also thinking it looked odd, so we got that back. Now where was Mommy's bike?

Well, Daddy had the brilliant idea to put an ad in the good old Goshen News to see if any other good neighbors could help out, since the police seemed to be swamped. The same day the ad ran, someone in the Waterford area called and said he had seen a bike like that show up in his neighbor's yard a few days earlier. So Daddy called the police, reported this info, and was told that if the officer could see the bike in the yard he would turn the case over to the detectives.

Fast-forward one week, during which we didn't hear anything, but were busy worrying about other stuff. Daddy finally called the police station, and was informed that the officer had NOT seen the bike, and had NOT reported the case to a detective. Well, we were pretty frustrated. Daddy got the number of the person who called earlier, and he said that the bike had disappeared from the yard a few days earlier. Daddy made one last attempt--he actually went to this house himself. There are lots more details here, BUT--in the end, we got the bike back, slightly damaged by a teenager who claimed he hadn't stolen it, but was happily "customizing" it for himself.

And guess what? The police officer that let the case drop still hasn't returned the two phone messages that Daddy left for him. And guess what else? Daddy and Mommy have garage keys on their key chains now. And can you guess what else? I can open the garage using the key, all by myself! So I guess that's a pretty happy ending.

This might seem like an odd combination of topics for a posting, but that's how life is right now. And we want to close by thanking you for your prayers for our sister, and your care for us.