Yesterday Stacy was outside and heard one of our neighbors calling to her from across the street. This particular neighbor is the collector of all things information on our block, and an apparent rumor had started up recently that the Dashiells are going to be moving to Johnson County. We neither heard nor started this rumor, mind you, so it was good that this neighbor was able to find that there was no merit to what the mill produced.

I like my friends in Johnson County. Nice people, they are. I might even work at another church there some day. However, I am here to unequivocally state that the Dashiells are not moving there. For those of you who don't live in the KC Metro area, you should know that the JC is the wealthiest county in Kansas. According to the book What's the Matter With Kansas, it got that way when KC Missouri was desegregated and all of the rich white people moved out to the unsettled regions of the city where they wouldn't have to mix and mingle with people of other socio-economic and racial backgrounds. Some people dispute this account. I wasn't in Kansas at that point in history, but I think it might have some merit.

So I'm bummed that our friends in our neighborhood assume that since Stacy is now a doctor we are leaving them. Judging by what has happened to the urban core in Kansas City over the past 50 years, it's reasonable to assume that we would join the aristocracy once we gained some type of social and financial mobility. It's what most people do. It is not, however, what the Dashiells will be doing.

We love our neighbors. We love our house. We love our neighborhood. We love the fact that our multi-racial family gets to live on a multi-racial block and that Elli will probably be picking up Spanish when talking with her friends over the next couple of years. We really really really really like those things.

And thus, we are not moving. Just thought you should know that in case you had heard otherwise.

Fair Dinkum