Really? Why?

...That's what I said when I realized all that we lost when our house was broken into. 

So, I don't have pictures of this event, and don't really like reliving it, but feel it necessary to document it. 

At 11:30 Monday, December 5, I left to take Parker to Mom's and then head to school to do a little work.  After a couple hours, Mom and I went to do some shopping and then to Monterrey's.  Brad and I headed home.  It's important to note that I turned around to give Mom something out of my car.  Parker was with Brad and Pax was with me.  Brad called, and I immediately thought it was because Parker was hungry.  However, he was calling to tell me that someone had broken into our house!!!!!!  Those are not EVER words you want to hear come out of anyone's mouth! 

So, we headed to Mrs. Tracey's house to wait for the cops.  Once they finally arrived and did their thing, we were allowed upstairs to look at all the damage.  I immediately noticed that the video camera was gone.  That was the ONLY thing that I hoped they hadn't taken.  I had a lot of time to think about all the items in our house, because Brad was with the cops for about an hour and a half before I went down there.  The worst thing about the video camera was the fact that I had EVERY single video ever recorded in a book IN the camera case!!!  Hindsight tells me that wasn't the best place, but I shouldn't have to worry about that in my house!  That's one of the things that makes me the most angry about the whole situation. They didn't WANT those home movies of Pax learning to walk and talk, or those nights where Pax was wide awake so I went to film his sweetness, or how about his birth!!!  Not to mention all of the birthdays and both boys being baptized!!!  Man, even as I type this I tear up of all the memories that we lost!!!!  :-(  I know we can make new ones, but we'll never replace those precious first three years! 

Moving on, "the bad guys" as Pax calls them, threw a rock into our back basement window, opened the garage door, and pulled their truck (most likely) in, shut the door, loaded up, and then left, leaving the door wide open.  We think it happened between the hours of 12 and 4, and we didn't arrive home until around 9.  They most likely got scared off, because they left the flat screen tv from our bedroom in the hallway, and left a filled backpack at the bottom of the stairs.  That's the funny part---they had taken our halloween candy, dumped it in Brad's hunting backpack, and left it in the house!!  I thought they had stolen it, and sweet Pax said, "That's alright, we didn't need all that candy!"  That is reason number 1 why we think it was kids.  Reason number 2 is the fact that they stole Brad's nice Nike running shoes.  Only kids would take the time to mess with these two things.

They also managed to carry Brad's 5/6 foot steel gun safe with 4 guns in it out of the house.  My great-grandfather's gun was in there.  :-(  I have no clue how they are going to get into the safe, but they took it anyway.  Everything can be replaced but that gun and the home movies.  So sad! 

Other things they took: Wii system and games, video camera, our good SLR camera with an extra lens(there weren't ANY pictures on that because I had JUST uploaded them to Shutterfly), another digital camera, 2 computers (one didn't even work), a GPS, the pearls that I wore in our wedding, another pearl bracelet, and about $500 cash (that was my Christmas money, and our anniversary money).  We also lost all the contents in our refrigerator and freezer because they left it wide open after looking for money!  I think that's just mean of them!!!  It was really difficult to clean all that out and throw away brand new food!!

Well, I have no clue why they chose to stake me and my house out.  But, I am so thankful that we were NOT home when this happened!  We have a security system now, and just have to clean up, replace everything, and wait on the window to come in!  It's so sad, because I don't feel safe in my own home, and it's so creepy to think that they were in my babies' rooms!!!  I am also very thankful that Mom and Dad live so close so that we could move in with them until our window is replaced. 

I sure don't wish this experience on ANYONE!  However, I have learned where would be a good place to hide valuables and where NOT to hide things!