Life With Briana: 23rd Anniversary Recap

May 6, 2020

23rd Anniversary Recap

Our 23th Wedding Anniversary landed on Sunday, but we actually ended up celebrating it the entire weekend.

Saturday morning, Doug got up early and spread mulch around the house...

And then my parents came over to drop off a few anniversary gifts for us. We hadn't seen my parents since early February. It was so nice spending some time with them as we physically distanced on my driveway. :) (It was hard not giving them a hug!)

Doug and I showing off our gifts from them...

They also gave us chocolates...

And cookies...

Me and my best gal...

Briana played some guitar for Gramma and Papa...

Here is a very short video of what she is learning...

Mei Mei watched us from the screened porch...

After my parents left, we watched a movie. Bri and Mei always fight for Doug's attention...

The next morning, Doug and I exchanged our gifts. My gifts to Doug (which included an EMS foot massager)...

Doug got me this gorgeous lamp that I had admired online a few months ago...

I didn't send him a link for it, so he had to do some investigative work to figure out where to get it from (he did good!). Here is the description...

Absolutely stunning...

Briana's made us a lovely drawing...

We relaxed in the morning and then things got a bit weird after 1:30 PM. Doug and I were running a bit late but planned to take a drive around that afternoon and enjoy the pretty day. I looked out my window and saw cop cars and gray SUVs lining up on my street. I realized those cars lined up were all around the corner onto the next street. I yelled to Doug and said that something was going on. He looked out and was as surprised as I was.

I immediately checked my FB neighborhood group and found out that a hostage situation was going on around the corner from my house (a man with a gun had his wife and daughters in the house with him)...

Swat guys started putting on gear and then the swat truck showed up (a firetruck and ambulance parked in front of my house too)...

We snapped these photos above from our upstairs screened porch. We tried to hear what was going on, but we just heard yelling and couldn't make out what was being said.

We decided to just go inside and wait it out. I am so grateful we were running late now. I would have freaked out if I had left Briana home alone with a situation like that going on.

Right around 3PM, Doug and Bri heard a big boom (I was on the other side of the house and missed it). Come to find out, the swat team rammed in the door and threw in a flash bomb to get everyone out. Everyone got out safely. The suspect was taken out in handcuffs - and I heard he was using profanity, yelling racial slurs and saying he had Covid. He was not in his right mind. He was sent for a psych evaluation and is in jail now.

From what I hear, he got into an argument with his neighbors over a barking dog and started waving a gun around. The police were called and he refused to come out of his house. So the swat team was then called. He refused to negotiate still so then he was forced out.

So here is the really crazy part (if all that wasn't already crazy)...

On Saturday while I was visiting with my parents, a man was jogging by wearing boxing gloves. My father said hello and the guy stopped on the sidewalk. He was quite friendly, but very hyper at the same time. He started talking 100 miles a minute - saying he had just moved into the neighborhood in March, telling us his and his wife's names (which he spelled for us) and said he was originally from Trinidad. He said people here aren't as friendly here as they are in Trinidad. I tried several times to tell him my name but I couldn't get a word in. He said his wife was walking a bit behind and asked me and my parents to do him a favor by saying hi to her, tell her to have a good day and use her name. He made us promise. He took off and a few minutes later his wife walked by on the other side of the street. We said hello to her by name and she smiled but seemed a little embarrassed and said hello back. I told my parents it was a bit strange that the man didn't allow me to introduce myself.

Come to find out - the suspect was him. The man we talked to on Saturday. I thought he was a bit unusual that day, but I would have never imagined he was capable of something like this.

I'm hearing now he is ex-military and the family has had some loss and financial difficulties. Of course this is hearsay, but in this environment, it doesn't surprise me that someone could snap. Which is what I think happened.

The whole thing was so sad and very scary. I feel so badly for the man and his family. It definitely made for a very memorable anniversary for me and Doug.

We were several hours late going to take our drive, but we decided to take a short one anyway around dinnertime...