This is the Sheriff...

That is what I heard when I answered my phone today. I said "ok, but what...you are making me nervous." He informed me that he had my two boys with him and they were caught breaking and entering, trespassing in an abandoned house. I'm a little shocked of course. The good news is that he told me I needed to come get them at the house, which means nothing serious was going to happen. I had to hold judgement a little because I can't say I haven't been guilty of doing the same thing as an adult.

They were supposed to be at a friend's house playing with airsoft guns. Now...I never let my kids play guns or certainly not with them. But, yesterday, they all had ones and were running around out in the desert and it seemed to not be a big deal. Today they wanted to get a little group together and do it again. After talking to Glade, he said it was fun and no big deal, so I let them go. They were supposed to be in the field next to where this house was. I guess one of the boys said it was "abandoned" and they should go check it out. By abandoned, he meant - being built and not yet finished.

I got to the house to find 3 sheriff's cars and the other parent. They had the kids sitting on the back porch exactly how you would imagine, all in a row, staring down at them. The officers were very nice and said that the boys had been very respectful and obviously remorseful as he pointed to my sobbing child. (I'm sure you can guess which one) They explained that a neighbor had seen a group of boys go into the house with guns. They did say that they didn't actually break in, the door was open. One worry out of the way. They were in there playing "tag" with the airsoft guns, which is also not a problem other than the trespassing. The neighbor had been scared because they didn't know they were airsoft guns. Soooooo....according to my very freaked out boys, they were just playing when the cops came in with their guns drawn and yelled "police!" They ordered the boys to come out with their hands in the air, had them lay the weapons down in front of them and not move! Once they realized what the guns were, everything calmed down, but you can imagine how scary that had to be. Stephen cried for a solid half and hour. Nick said his stomach hurt and he felt like crying. One of the other three boys was as bad as Stephen and the other two didn't seem too upset by it. The officers gave them quite the lecture about personal property and what bad things could have gone wrong inside the house if it had been a little darker when they had shown up (someone getting shot). I'm pretty sure their scare tactics worked, and I'm glad for that.

I didn't give them much grief at home. They didn't really do anything very criminal, just a bad decision that went terribly wrong. We did talk about trespassing and what "abandoned" actually means. Other than sometimes experiences like this can be a great teaching tool, I felt really bad for them. All five are really good kids who never get in any trouble. I'm sure the officers could see that so they cut them a little slack. Now I can't say my kids have never been in trouble with the law.