Criminals aren't that bright

the backyard in the early morning last fall

Well.  Woke up at 5:45am all of a sudden with a pain in my side and wondered if getting up was an option.  Figured not and rolled over.  Then about 5 minutes later, the dogs began to bark.  All of them.  Got up and one son was already at the door looking out the curtain.  It was still dark, but one of our neighbors who was talking on his cellphone appeared to be thinking about walking up to our door, or had already been up there which triggered the dog explosion.

Fast forward a couple of minutes.

Went back to bed, since the neighbor got in his car and drove off without stopping here.  Dogs went nuts again about 5 minutes later with this neighbor and a cop at the door.  Adrenaline rush.  (Gary was handling the situation from this moment on.)  Turns out the neighbor (who was getting ready to leave for work) saw a guy on a bicycle trying to get into our trucks, and he called the police who happened to be in the neighborhood at the time.  Caught the guy!!!

Nothing was stolen from us, but he tried to take my radio, which is the pop-out kind.  My dumb truck.  It has an alarm, which I always set, but my door lock is the only one that won't go down even with me pushing it manually.  The guy got in on my side, the alarm didn't go off (not sure why) and he even tried to break my steering column but the neighbor must've interrupted him.  He pulled off parts, but even with the radio, they fastened back just fine.

He got into another neighbor's truck as well, got stuff, but of course everything was recovered.

Here's the ticket, though.  We'd prayed for safety over our neighborhood and our neighbors, plus for protection over our vehicles before we went to sleep.  I'd say that was an answered prayer, wouldn't you?!! Oh, and we're making cookies for our hero this weekend.  I think he deserves them. :)