Five Minutes of In Between

Joining in with Lisa Jo Baker's Five Minute Friday today.  The rules are simple-write for 5 minutes flat for pure unedited love of the written word, then link back to her blog and invite others to join the party.  Don't forget to leave a comment for the writer who linked up just before you.

Y'all know how I feel about 'unedited', but I'm jumping in anyway.

Today's word-In between

I live in the land of in between. That time and space known to some as middle age, but to me as the great gulf of in between. The place where I wait for what's next. The place where my young adult daughters are making some of life's most important decisions, decisions with consequences that will stretch far beyond their own future season of in between.

The place where they want to steer their own course, yet know in their heart of hearts they still need their momma to listen, encourage, and pray....to resist telling them precisely what to do, yet confirm the direction they're heading is the right one.  They need a soft touch, a gentle suggestion, prayer as deep as the ocean.

I have one daughter living in a city that is not here, completely independent yet still calling home when her car won't start, she's lost her keys, or she needs a splash of the unconditional love of a mother for her daughter.

I have another daughter, also living in her own apartment in a state that is not here, finishing graduate school, job-hunting,  preparing to move to yet another far from home city. A daughter who occasionally still needs her momma to get on an airplane and sleep beside her as she wrestles with a future that is full of excitement, possibility, and questions for which there are no sure answers.

The land of in between is a place where your twenty-something daughters sometimes give you a sweet glimpse of their seven year old selves. A place, where for a minute, you long for the glorious days of young motherhood, yet know if actually given the chance you wouldn't go back.

It's the place where you look at your once upon a time pony-tailed, hula hooping, dress up wearing, children of your heart and say wow. It's the place where you have a spectacular view of how God's design for the seasons of parenting is good and perfect. Where your heart is fuller than it ever was, and where you realize each stage you've walked through with your children was your favorite.

The land of in between is a place where a husband who has worked hard all his life dreams of retirement. Where the dream is close enough to taste, but not quite close enough to touch. The place where instead of an office or an airport, he'll spend hours tinkering with a boat at the end of a dock. A place we can both see as clearly as if we were standing there now, except we're not. We're still in between.

The land of in between is a sometimes restless place. A place of looking back and looking forward, but struggling some days to look at the now. A place where time is easily wasted waiting for the what's next. A place where you feel young and still full to overflowing with plans...still dreaming of accomplishing much and big and meaningful, working to reconcile what you feel on the inside with what you see on the outside.

The land of in between is a place where I've met God anew. It's in this season He has given me the gift of empty spaces to be filled up with the knowledge of Him. The place He knew I'd need to be way back when I was still reading bedtime stories to freshly bathed little girls in footie pajamas, whose soft sweet curls made me feel all was right with the world.

It's a place to think, reflect, and plan. A place to pray more and deep and big. A place to rest after walking the winding trail to here. A place to make us ready for what's across the gulf of in between.

Some people call me Maurice....

I've been at my mom's since Tuesday which explains why I've been mostly incommunicado from the blogosphere this week. I faked you out with my Hodgepodge posts, didn't I? Can't let the criminal element know I'm out of town....I'm certain they sit around reading my blog.

Anyway, I'm home now and it's Friday afternoon and I've opened my email inbox and my blog inbox and my facebook and WOW!...a lot happens when you don't check in regularly. I'll catch up this weekend but today I wanted to join Flashback Friday over on Linda's blog. You can read the full prompt here but essentially she's asked about what sorts of fads and expressions were popular when we were growing up. Since it's such a huge topic I've decided to focus on the expressions because I'm kinda all about words here.

I consider myself a child of the 1970's. My birthday and age aren't really a secret since I wrote a post or ten about my BIG day back in September. I'll go ahead and save you the trouble of doing the math and tell you I turned 10 years old in 1970. I'm sure my undying love of music from that decade is all tied up with the fact that it was the soundtrack to my adolescence. And also because it's the best music ever. Period.

When I read the prompt I started thinking about what words and expressions were popular back in the day and there were zillions. It's possible a few of them seeped so deeply into my vocabulary that I continue to periodically throw them out there today, not so much in public but definitely in my own home.

I asked my hubs what expressions he remembered and the first word that popped out of his mouth was, guess what? Psyche! I already wrote about his love of that term here so I won't rehash it now but wow, has it been around for 30+ years? Were the 70's more than three decades ago? Am I old?

C.B. radios were a big thing back in the 70's and came with their own lingo, some of which spilled over into everyday speech...Hey Good Buddy, Smokies (police officers) and especially 'Keep on Truckin' although I am pretty certain I never uttered the words, 'Keep on Truckin'. I mean, C.B. radios were big out on the interstate highways but not so much in the leafy suburbs of southern NJ.

The television show Saturday Night Live debuted in the 70's and many popular expressions made their way into our everyday speech as a result...'Well, ex-cuuuuuuuuuuuuse me!' was huge. Steve Martin used it regularly and thus so did teenage America. He also used the phrase, "Everything copasetic?" and I still like that one.

Another word you heard a lot in the 70's was 'turkey' as in, 'Don't be a turkey.' Insulting, but usually meant in a joking way.

We could still take a joke in the 1970s.

How about the word, 'bummer'? Do people still use this word...besides me I mean? I definitely used this one growing up...'that's a bummer', 'what a bummer', or just plain 'bummer'. Oh, and also ripoff...that was huge. Because when you're a teenager and parents put the kibosh on your fun it felt good to shout, 'What a rip-off!!!' as you were sent to your room.

Another word that was huge back in the day was 'duh' or even better, 'no duh'. Said whenever someone stated the obvious which must have been often because I remember it becoming really tiresome. And it had to be said in a particular tone so that the person on the receiving end would be made to feel like an idiot.

Evidently Charlie Sheen is bringing it back, as in-'I'm a winner, duh.'

He's seriously not right.

No duh.

Speaking of drugs, ahem...when it comes to words the drug culture of the 70's also added to our vocabulary. I have a crystal clear memory of riding somewhere in the car with my sweet mom when Steve Miller's-The Joker started playing on the radio. My mom looked at me, her innocent and naive thirteen year old daughter, and asked, 'What's a toker?' I remember feeling nervous and embarrassed as I did my best to explain. Did I even know?

More importantly, what's 'the Pompatus of Love?' and why didn't she ask me that one. Isn't that the question most people ask when they hear The Joker? I still can't answer.

I could go on and on but I need to book. This was cool-city and I was stoked to be part of Flashback Friday today...it rocked to the max. I hope your weekend is decent and you get to hang and chill with your peeps.

Oh seriously, I never talked like that.

Okay, maybe that last bit might have been me but for the most part while I didn't use a lot of slang I did hear a lot of slang and those words and expressions are all tangled up with my childhood memories.

Have I mentioned my favorite thing about the decade was the music?

Turkey Talk ala Flashback Friday

Today's Flashback Friday prompt is all about Thanksgiving traditions and memories. Thanksgiving is my favorite of all the holidays and I love everything about the day...the family time, the foods, the season of autumn, and the feeling of thankfulness that this day stirs up inside of me.

My mother has always been an excellent cook and I remember Thanksgiving as a happy day filled with wonderful smells and a delicious meal. My grandparents and other extended family lived mostly on the other side of the country so we typically didn't have relatives sharing the meal with us. And I don't think we ever traveled anywhere for the holiday. Quite often though, we'd share the meal with another family, longtime friends who also had four children like my parents.

One of the things I remember especially looking forward to on Thanksgiving Day was the shrimp cocktail. As a family we did not have a lot of meals in fancy restaurants or even a lot of meals out so many things were considered a treat to us kids that may not be perceived as a treat by kids today. Shrimp cocktail was one of those things. My mother made spicy cocktail sauce and mixed it with the shrimp and then put it all into beautiful long stemmed crystal glasses lined with lettuce. She set each one on a plate on top of our dinner plates and this was our starter. I remember feeling very grown up eating shrimp cocktail this way.

This picture is in a scrapbook my mom made for me. I guess my dad was taking the photo which is why he's missing. You can see the shrimp cocktail on the plate in front of my mom. Fyi-I'm the one on the left with the long hair. Growing up we always dressed for Thanksgiving dinner (no sloppy jeans or t-shirts at the table) and I've carried that tradition on in my own family too. Usually my sisters and I put on dresses and my brother and dad put on collared shirts and dress slacks. My mom also has a knack with flowers and she'd make a pretty arrangement for the table and light candles. It made the day feel extra special.

I have vivid memories of my dad making a production out of carving the turkey. He liked to save the carcass and make something called carcass soup the next day. The name lacks appeal but essentially it was a turkey broth soup and it tasted good. And my sister and I always got to pull the wishbone apart which was a big deal to us as kids.

I prepare a very similar meal to the one my mom made throughout my childhood. I think Thanksgiving dinner is one of those meals nobody in the family wants messed with too much. My mother's cornbread dressing is my favorite thing about the meal and that's the recipe I use. My own family would rebel if I changed up the dressing in any way shape or form. Our favorite sides are corn pudding, creamed onions and in recent years I've added brussel sprouts cooked with pancetta which are totally yummy. Dessert is pumpkin pie and fruit salad and I've added hubs family's angel pie too which I could personally eat in its entirety.

My mom always had a fruit salad as a dessert option on Thanksgiving Day. It consisted of red grapes, diced oranges, diced apples and crushed pineapple and was topped with whipped cream. That may not sound like anything really special but there is something about the combination that is just right. This is another tradition I've continued in my own family because sometimes a bowl of fruit really is better than pie after a big meal. As kids, my sister and I were given the task of pitting the grapes for this salad and I remember so clearly sitting at the kitchen table pitting grapes while my mom got the turkey ready to go in the oven. Nowadays I just look for them already pitted which is kind of a shame.

As a kid I might have watched some of the parade in the morning and we usually had our big meal in the mid-late afternoon. I like to do this in my own house now too because I love to drag it all out for seconds later in the evening. My dad always said grace before we ate and we always took a family picture somehow around the table. In my own family we also like to say some of the things we're especially thankful for each year before we say grace.

Thanksgiving feels like the hush that falls before December barges in with all her lights and colors and sounds and most of all, her expectations. Perhaps that is what I love best about Thanksgiving...it's a day whose only expectations are good food, sweet family, and a heart filled with gratitude for blessings too numerous to count.

It was a dark and stormy night...

I'm linking up over at Mocha with Linda for today's Flashback Friday. The theme is Halloween memories...

Halloween was celebrated in our house when I was growing up but we didn't go overboard. We had parties and parades at school but it was really all about the candy for my sister and I. We did have a jack o lantern and I guess we helped with the creating but I sort of remember my dad doing that and us just watching. We probably helped scoop out the seeds but he enjoyed making a scary face and putting a lot of detail into the actual carving. My mom would attempt to get us to eat something nutritious for an early dinner and then we grabbed our big pillowcases and were off.

We usually bought a costume or came up with something from our dress up box which was extensive. I grew up in NJ and the weather was always a challenge. You had to consider that you might need a parka over your outfit or at the very least a rain jacket. One memory in the costume department really stands out...I think I was nine the year I dressed in a Japanese costume which I'm sure is very non-PC now but honestly it was a beautiful gold kimono with a sort of geisha type mask over my face. When I was a kid a costume was not complete unless it had one of those horrible plastic masks that covered your face and was held together with a piece of elastic that wrapped around your head so tightly that your hair hurt all the way down to the roots by nights end. The mask made your face sweat and sat so close to your skin it was hard to breathe and then had tiny slits for eye holes so you could barely see where you were walking. Safety back in 1970 wasn't quite what it is today folks.

Anyway, I had some shoes that were a velvety flip flop style on top with wooden soles that clip clopped when you walked. My dad brought them back from Japan so I was feeling very authentic. The problem was the kimono wrapped very tightly around my legs which meant I had to take very small steps when I walked. My sister was a year younger than me and my brother was five years older so he was the lucky one assigned trick or treat duty. He had a friend who lived on the next street over and we used to avoid walking in front of this particular house on regular days because the family had a great big German Shepherd that barked like there was no tomorrow. But my brother knew the boy so naturally he had us stop there for trick or treating. And do you know, as we were stepping down off of the porch that big giant German Shepherd came barreling out of the house right at me and I tried to run in my very tight around the ankle kimono while wearing wooden soled velvet flip flop style shoes and I did a face plant on the sidewalk. I also developed a fear of German Shepherds that stayed with me for a long long time. Until I was 26 years old in fact and we adopted a mutt that had been abandoned in our neighborhood. A mutt that looked suspiciously like a German Shepherd. I learned to love a German Shepherd.

With my own children the hubs was in charge of trick or treat duty and I stayed home and doled out the loot. When my girls were toddlers we lived in North Jersey. Our neighborhood was really dark and hilly so hubs got quite the workout pushing a double stroller up and down the mountain that was our street. We moved to Maryland during their elementary school years and lived in a neighborhood with cul de sacs and lots of kids. Halloween was a very social thing and the dads used to take the kids around in a big group and again, for my kids, it was all about the candy. There were parties and parades at their school and we carved pumpkins (usually outside with Dad in charge because that's best). And of course part of the Halloween fun was dumping all the candy out afterwards for inspection and to make trades and so hubs and I could see what we might want to eat once they'd gone to bed for the night. Sorry girls!

Last year I wrote a post detailing a very funny incident that occurred around Halloween one year. It involved daughter2 because she and crazy mishap know each other well. You can read that post here if you're so inclined.

In Linda's prompt she did ask two very important questions-

"Do you like candy corn?"

and "What is your favorite Halloween candy?"

I like candy corn as long as I don't overindulge. However I am lacking in self discipline so if a bowl filled with candy corn is sitting in front of me I generally end up eating a few too many. My new favorite way to eat candy corn is to mix it with a jar of peanuts. Tastes just like a Payday which, as it happens, is my favorite candy bar.

Have a safe and happy Halloween weekend everyone!

Fun and Games

I had to participate in Flashback Friday today because this week's prompt is all about games from your growing up years. My family will tell you I like to play games. I also like to follow the rules when I play games and they sometimes refer to me as the game nazi. Whatever.

Growing up we didn't have a family game night that I can remember but my younger sister and I shared a room and played lots of games. We especially liked Trouble, Sorry, Clue, and Go For Broke. And one of my absolute favorites was a game called Masterpiece where you bought and sold art which may or may not have been forged.

I do remember a game called Hands Down where you were dealt a few cards and when you got a certain combination you slapped the plastic hand on the board. That one stressed out the 10 year old me. I didn't quite have a handle on my competitive nature back then.

My family might say this is an area that could perhaps still use some work.

How many of you remember the game called Cootie? It was essentially a race to put together a plastic bug. Whoohoo! But it was fun and that word cootie took on a life of its own when I was a kid. Telling someone they had 'cooties' was about the meanest thing you could say. It was the equivalent of saying they had fleas or a contagious disease. Sigh. Times do go a-changing don't they?

My parents liked to work jigsaw puzzles and every now and then they'd set up a puzzle on a card table in our living room. My mom always got a jigsaw puzzle for Christmas and we'd all help put it together. We didn't use our living room except on special occasions and I loved sitting out there in front of the fireplace as family members rotated in and out around the table. Sometimes you need to walk away from a jigsaw puzzle and come back with a fresh eye.

In my own family we usually work a jigsaw puzzle when we take a beach or mountain holiday. We find a place to set one up and work on it all week long. I still like puzzles of all kinds and since getting my Ipad am loving Words with Friends. If you play, email me your screen name and I'll look for you. Unless I've scared you off with all this talk of competition.

We also played loads of outside games back in the day, like Freeze Tag, Hide and Seek, and Capture the Flag. Our neighborhood had lots of kids of every age and we all played these games together. My favorite was Kick the Can...we'd divide into teams and then put a #10 can in the middle of our street and would run and hide two or three streets over. The sense of freedom was something I will never forget.

My sister and I had big imaginations and we played lots of make-believe games with our across the street neighbors. One of our favorites we called Naugahyde which essentially involved running and hiding from a monster by that name. I never thought much about it until I was sharing this with my hubs family and they looked at me and said, 'Naugahyde? Like the fake leather upholstery fabric?" Don't ask me how we turned this into a scary game of chase but we did. Like I said, we had big imaginations.

I played a lot of games with my girls growing up. My least favorite was Candy Land and I used to stack the deck so that darn picture card wouldn't turn up at the end and send the near winner all the way back to the start. I know I said I'm a rule follower but I'm also a big believer in mama maintaining her sanity. Which reminds me that my girls used to play Aggravation and they had a song they'd sing while we played and it was, well, aggravating.

My favorite game to play when my girls were growing up was Pretty Pretty Princess. Hubs would play too and was a good sport. We also liked Barbie Dream Date, Kerplunk, Mastermind and Mancala. We played Sorry too although my oldest was too tender hearted to ever send anyone back to their start so that one often ended with her in tears. She is ruthless in Monopoly though so go figure. When my girls were teens we spent many an evening sitting around the kitchen table playing Hearts. Hubs would play too and also act as DJ because music was essential and made it more fun...we all loved those times.

I confess I still like to play games. We went thru the Trivial Pursuit phase and the Pictionary phase but these days my favorites are Scrabble, Scattergories, Mexican Train Dominoes, and Backgammon. My hubs will play cards with me if I pester him but he's not a big game player unless I'm suggesting golf or pool. When we get together with extended family on either side we play games like Outburst, Cranium, and Catchphrase.

I really do think that playing games is good for the heart and soul of a family. Its fun together time and a place where memories are made. As the saying goes...the family that plays together stays together. It's kinda true.

For more Flashback Friday posts visit Mocha with Linda by clicking on the button at the top of this post ...or better yet, share your own flashback and then link to the party.

I hear music...sweet, sweet music

Today's Flashback Friday post is all about music so I couldn't pass that one up. Even though I have had overnight guests here who needed breakfast and we have a child to pick up at the Newark airport in Friday traffic I am still going to play along. Daughter1 is coming home for a long weekend so she can attend the wedding of a childhood friend and we can't wait to have her home with us for a few days. She hasn't spent much time in this house and it always makes me smile to see her sleeping snug in her own bed.

Okay, I'm supposed to be talking about music which happens to be one of my favorite things in the world. I love music. Lots of different types of music. However, I myself am not musically inclined. As a young girl I always wanted to play the piano but we didn't have one growing up so that didn't happen. I did enjoy singing in our church youth choir all thru my high school years but let's be honest and say that was more about the friends I made there and not so much about my singing ability. Which, lets also be honest and say is minimal.

My husband is very musical and comes from a family where everyone plays an instrument and sings in tune. Well, not sure about my fil but everyone else, yes. Hubs played the trumpet growing up. And he sings and as I've mentioned here a time or ten, he never met a microphone he didn't want to step behind. He definitely has an ear for music...sometimes he annoys me when we're in the car and he changes the radio station before I even know what song is playing. I mean I haven't even caught the first note and I need several to identify the song anyway and he says 'oh, we don't like that one.' He only needs one note, sometimes only a half a note. I wanted my girls to have music because I think it adds so much to our lives. Both of my girls thankfully got their dad's genes here and both have lovely singing voices and between them play the piano, violin and guitar.

Growing up we listened to music on a transistor radio and we listened to a lot of am stations.WIBG, WFIL Philadelphia anyone? I remember getting my first stereo which also contained an 8-track tape player. Exciting times they were. I remember buying albums and finally seeing what the band actually looked like...no videos back then or video channels and of course no internet either so unless you saw a band in concert or bought their album you had no idea what they looked like. Even then sometimes the covers were something funky and you still had no clue. I know the sound is better on a CD but a CD case does not evoke the same feeling as the one you got perusing a brand new album. We still have our stereo up and running and sometimes play our albums.

My parents were pretty good when it came to what we listened to. I mostly remember going in my room and closing the door and if I wanted to play it loud (which is how I like my music still) I would put on my headphones. And headphones when I was a teenager were not teeny tiny little ear buds. They were huge. We did not know that CD's, walkmen, MP3 players and later, something called an ipod would be a part of our future. We listened to our albums on stereos with speakers the size of small children and we liked it.

I have siblings who are five and seven years older than me so they were teenagers in the late sixties and early seventies and I grew up listening to their music. I loved it...The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, Herman's Hermits, too many to name really. Sometimes my younger sister and I would go into my older sisters room and we'd blast her stereo and dance on her canopy bed. We had little carrying cases of 45's too...remember the little insert that went in the center hole so they would play on a regular stereo? My younger sister and I shared a room and my brother's room was beside ours. He played the guitar and I remember the early days of his playing and listening thru the bedroom wall as he strummed House of the Rising Sun over and over and over. And over and over and over.

My dad loved country music which was not really anything like today's country music but he loved his Johnny Cash and Charlie Pride. My dad could not carry a tune at all but that did not stop him from singing along. My parents played a lot of Christian music too which I guess was contemporary in its day but I don't think they called it that back then. I loved the Gaithers and I can still remember the sound of George Beverly Shea singing "How Great Thou Art" which is one of my favorite hymns of all time.

What I really love about music is the ability it has to make you feel deeply and suddenly. Music carries you back to a place and time and I love the way I can be plodding along thru life and hear a song and suddenly be transported back to 1977. Or 1997. Music and memory go hand in hand for me.

I could never pick a favorite song but every now and then hubs and I will hear a song and say, 'Oh that one's on my all time top 10 list.' Which I kind of keep in my head and have never written down. I like the music of the 70's and early 80's the best probably because it was the soundtrack to my teenage/young adult years. And also because it was the best. I like country music today. I like beach music. I listen to a lot of contemporary Christian music and I like a lot of music from Broadway too. I never get tired of the soundtrack to Phantom of the Opera.

If I were naming favorite tunes I'd have to do it by category and even then I'm not sure I could do it. Music is as much about the mood I'm in and what is going on in my life as it is about the actual notes. There are a few songwriters who I think have a bit of the poet in them and I keep a running list of favorite song lines in my head too. A lot goes on in my head people. Jackson Browne, Billy Joel, Jim Croce...they fall into this category.

If I had to choose I'd say my favorite bands are The Eagles and U2. Fantastic music with lyrics that actually say something. If we are talking country music I love Kenny Chesney, Rascall Flats, and Brooks and Dunn. In the Contemporary Christian genre I listen to a lot of David Crowder Band and Point of Grace and I love old hymns too. My new favorite band which crosses lines when it comes to genre is NeedtoBreathe...they are amazingly talented and I have played their Outsiders cd at least a thousand times.

I feel like I need to link to a song here but how in the world can I pick just one? But I will...this is one of my all time favorites...one among hundreds...how can anyone not love the music of The Temptations?

And just in case you don't know NeedtoBreathe I feel I need to educate you...my daughter1 got me hooked on their music back before they were very well known. Bear attended the same uni as my girls and the band played at some fraternity events where daughter1 heard them and fell instantly in love with their music. Their song Something Beautiful is played a lot on the radio now but here's the title song....

Be sure to stop by Linda's blog today to read more Flashback Friday musical posts.

Stuff that makes 'em crazy

Inside the walls of every house there lives a language. Family talk. Sayings and expressions you say that maybe your parents said to you and you swore you'd never say yet, whoa there they go..right off the tongue and out of your mouth. You can hardly believe it yourself.

Then there are the things you say that belong to your own family, some come out when you are being mean mom or cautious mom and others erupt when you are being fun
dad mom. Expressions that make only your own family laugh. Or in the case of a certain Generation Y, expressions that make them roll their eyes. They can't help the eye roll...their parents are just so ridiculous sometimes. Secretly they like that.

Today on Flashback Friday we are invited to write about those sayings and expressions our families said when we were growing up. Or when our own children were growing up. Mine is a mixture of cautions and fun expressions and it's possible my baby is turning 20 but we still say 'em. These words and sayings have been, and continue to be, part of the fabric of our family. I guess this post is part flashback, part everyday life.

You may have noticed I like words. So do my girls. We talk a lot. It is quite common for my husband's head to spin around 360 degrees at the dinner table as he tries to follow our conversations. I like crossword puzzles and scrabble and er, blogging. There's a long list of sayings and expressions I could post here but I think I'm gonna go with a top 10 things we say that make our kids alternately roll their eyes/stomp their feet/and laugh when they don't feel like it and sometimes when they do.

10. 'hip'...I cannot explain why this word appeals to me but my girls hate to hear me say it. When I do, they inform me that anyone who uses the word is not. Hip, I mean. Whatever. I still like it and continue to throw it out there now and then. And they continue to laugh at me.

9. 'Psyche!'...my husband loves this word/expression and it must be said very loudly. He cracks himself up and will look for ways to interject this into life here. He loved nothing better than the year daughter2 took Psychology in school which he felt gave him a legitimate reason to shout the word at least once a day. He also likes to say everyone uses it but um, no...they don't. Once we heard a character on tv say Psyche! and hubs spent the rest of the night saying, "Told you so." If you are not sure how this expression might be used imagine a nearly 20 year old daughter who loves chocolate reaching for the last m/m in a bowl. Just as it is almost within reach of her dainty little fingertips Dad swoops in and pops it in his mouth. This is followed by a loud Psyche!

8. 'SOUSKI!'...this word must also be shouted. Don't ask me what it means but my husband loves to say it and loves to teach toddlers to say it too. Parents of young children love him...he is a walking bundle of hidden talent and entertainment.

7. "Do everything without complaining"...and this one must be sung. Loudly and off key by moi. When my girls were younger they had a cassette tape (yes I'm old) called Hide 'em in Your Heart. It was bible verses set to music by Steve Green and this was one of those verses (you can listen here...#52 in the playlist). When my girls had chores to do around the house and needed a little 'encouragement' to do them cheerfully I'd break into this song. Really really loudly. They would rather dust and vacuum than listen to me sing. I occasionally still break it out when anyone offers a complaint about anything. Seriously, this tip should be published in Practical Parenting.

6. "You look like a Hootie in the Woodie"...This sprang from an expression my dad used to say anytime me or my sisters and brother had hair that needed to be combed, or in the case of my brother, cut (hey, my dad was a Marine, remember). He liked to say, "You look like a hoot owl in a bush." Years later I started saying the same thing to my own girls if they got up with bed head. In their adorableness they morphed it into 'hootie in the woodie' and it stuck. And if I'm being honest these days there are mornings I wake up, look in the mirror and think it about my very own self. Sigh.

5. "Be careful"...if my children had a nickel for every time those words have left my mouth they would not need to phone me with one of their favorite sayings which is, "Can you put money in my account?"

4. According to my girls I have a mantra and my mantra is this-"Call me when you get there." Kudos to my parents for surviving four children's teenage years with nary a cell phone in sight.

3. "I'm just sayin' is all"...said when we want to interject our opinion but, in a nice way. We all throw this one out there a lot. It's fun.

2. "Perception matters"...this one always gets a big eye roll because it is usually associated with their request to do something that I am going to nix. Like co-ed sleepovers in high school (I don't care if nothing is happening, perception matters), unsupervised parties in the early teen years (I don't care if everybody is a 'good kid', perception matters)...you get my drift. Hey Washington-perception matters! Oops, tangent-sorry.

1. And now... my most favorite of all which my kids will know without even looking...."No hanky panky!" They used to get slightly annoyed when I'd say this but they came around and as they would be walking out the door they would look at me and say, "I know, I know...no hanky panky." In fact in recent years daughter2 has been known to end a phone conversation with me with the words, "Remember mom, no hanky panky." Hey, isn't that why we got married? That's not TMI is it?

Three cheers for the red, white and blue

So do you have plans for the 4th of July? Hubs returned home this am very, very early and will actually be staying put for the long weekend. He was traveling again last week which I think I told you was his modus operandi for the summer. Brazil this time... he even managed to be there during World Cup play which apparently they take pre-tty seriously. Plus its winter in S.A. so he got a little reprieve from the lovely humidity we've been experiencing. Anyway, we don't have much happening in the way of plans but there will be a bbq, a baseball game, and fireworks thrown in there somewhere.

Flashback Friday's theme today is 4th of July memories from your childhood. To be honest I don't have real specific memories of the 4th. We probably went to the pool, we may have cooked out on the grill or sometimes had a cookout with family friends, and we often made homemade ice cream. We always churned the ice cream in the garage...it required a lot of sweat on the part of my dad and brother while my sister and I took turns sitting on top of the machine to keep it from 'walking' while they cranked. Today you just plug them in and voila, ice cream without all the work. It still tastes good but something is missing....I think the hard work made it just a little bit sweeter.

When our girls were young and we lived in Annapolis we used to love going over to the Naval Academy to watch the fireworks. My hubs office was downtown so we always had a parking space and we'd bring the red wagon and load up the cooler with a picnic and sit on a blanket on the sea wall lawn with lots of other families. We all loved this and sometimes friends came too. We always brought a few things for the kids to do while we waited for darkness to come and my daughters entertained everyone around us with their amazing hula hoop skills.

Annapolis always had fantastic fireworks out on the river and its an absolutely beautiful spot so lots of sweet memories from those days.

I suppose I cannot write a post pertaining to fireworks without mentioning a little 'incident' that occurred one year when we spent the week of the 4th at the beach with friends. My hubs grew up in Tennessee where you buy your fireworks at the fireworks super store and we'd been to Tenn earlier that year so we did a little shopping in anticipation of the 4th. As you might imagine I was not a fan of setting off your own fireworks and spewed out danger warnings and tales of potential mishap, but hubs would not be deterred.

Anyway we had rented a house with friends and their little girls at a beach that will remain nameless for the week of the 4th. Hubs brought his fireworks along and was so excited about shooting them off later in the week. The problem was, the first day we were there we saw a 'no fireworks' sign posted as one of about 15 'do not do' things on signs along the boardwalk. He was wildly disappointed.

The night of the 4th we were sitting out on the beach when all of a sudden somebody in a house a few blocks back set off some of their own fireworks. That was all it took and hubs was out of his beach chair jogging back to the house to get his stash. Rules schmules. He and our friend J set up what they liked to refer to as the staging area and J's wife (C) and I gathered up the children to go stand far far away on the boardwalk. It was pitch black so you couldn't see the guys at all but boy, you could see the fireworks. He definitely got his money's worth as attested to by a boy standing near us with his mom who uttered, 'Wow, these are better than the city's show!"

About that time my friend and I and our small children heard another voice...it was heard over the static of a police radio and it was uttered by an officer on a bicycle not a foot away (where did he come from?) who said, "I think I've got the perpetrators in sight" Whaaaat??!! We scooped up our children, discreetly of course, and herded them towards the house before they could proudly exclaim, "that's my dad!" C hustled over to the staging area to tell the boys ixnay on the ireworksay. As we hustled the girls along we began to note all the very many bicycle officers on duty, all poised for when 'whoever' was shooting off the fireworks lit the next fuse.

The small children were crying just a little by the time we got back to the house concerned the Daddies would go to jail. We moms kind of worried about the same thing but assured them by saying, 'No, we'll just have to pay a whopping big fine and oh yeah, say goodbye to this sweet beach town because we will never be able to return.'

All's well that ends well though and the 'perps' were not apprehended...they arrived safely home a short time later. And our girls had some great material to use in their back to school essay come September....you know, "What did you do on your summer vacation?" Daughter2's answer may have involved 'we ran from the police." oops. No haters now...we learned our lesson. Well, the girls and I did anyway.

I'm linking this post up with Flashback Friday over at Mocha with Linda's...stop by to read more July 4th memories.

Have a wonderful holiday weekend...God bless America!

"Sisters, Sisters..."

This post is part of Flashback Friday hosted by Linda...you're invited to link your own post on today's prompt-siblings. Visit Linda for details and to read more Flashback Friday posts.

'To the outside world we all grow old. But not to brothers and sisters. We know each other as we always were. We know each other's hearts. We share private family jokes. We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys. We live outside the touch of time.'

~Clara Ortega

When I was expecting my second child I was pretty sure I was having a boy. I never had a single ultrasound in that pregnancy so I wasn't basing that thought on anything other than a feeling, but everything about my second pregnancy was different than my first so I just thought 'boy'. And I remember one of my first thoughts when I heard the doctor exclaim, "It's a girl!" was, 'I'm so happy daughter1 will have a sister'.

'Siblings are the people we practice on, the people who teach us about fairness and cooperation and kindness and caring - quite often the hard way.' ~Pamela Dugdale

Sisters are special people. Even when they annoy you. Borrow your stuff without asking. Touch you when you are jam packed in a seat in the back of a station wagon on a multi hour car trip in the days before portable DVD players and hand held games. When they want to play with your friends all the time even though they know that because they are younger they will always be assigned the role of boy or dog or bad guy in every game you play. Even when they blab to your parents at dinner one night about a road trip you took to the beach when your parents thought you were at uni studying for exams in order to take some of the attention off of her own moment of misbehaving that was being called into question. Even then sisters are special.

I have two sisters, one older and one younger. I also have an older brother so I'm #3 in the sibling food chain. I'll talk about my brother another day but suffice it to say he's easy to get along with, everybody likes him and his sisters all love him. I'm sure having three sisters isn't wasn't always a picnic but he's a good sport.

Back to my sisters.... We are three very different people but the ties that bind sisters are tightly woven. My older sister is seven years older than me. I have loved her since the day I was born according to my mother.

I think she probably saw me as 'her baby' and in family photos we're always sweetly sitting together. My mother made me a scrapbook a few years back and one of the things she included was a letter I wrote to my parents when I was 'running away from home'. I can't imagine why or where I thought I was going but I am guessing maybe I just liked the idea of running away. Anyway, in the letter I let everyone know I was running away but I did include a p.s. that states, "Tell #1 sister I love her." Even mid temper tantrum I knew.

She has a heart of gold and I can tell her anything and she responds with the appropriate sympathy, empathy, or advice. She lives near my girls and I can always count on her to be there if I need her to be there. When I graduated from uni she and I shared an apartment for one brief year and we had such fun. Oh it was fun. Really really fun. Did I mention we had fun?

Now, you know how I said in all the family photos sister #1 and I are sitting sweetly together? Well, sister#2 and I not so much.

Okay we do look pretty sweet in this one. But in many family photos I am crying and/or pouting in the background and her face is front and center with a great big proud toothless smile. She was an imp as my dad used to say. We're only fourteen months apart (I'm older) and we shared a bedroom growing up. Do people still have their kids share bedrooms? Sometimes we absolutely hated sharing that room. Other times we were glad for the company of a sister, for our mirror opposite just across the room. People always thought we were twins but we didn't think we looked anything alike. And there was plenty of sweetness but some saltiness too. We could get into some pretty good arguments over the most ridiculous and trivial things when we were kids. I guess that is the essence of most kid disputes-trivial. My mom worked part time when we were in jr. high/high school and we'd sometimes call her at work to settle an argument. You can imagine how much she loved that.

'She is your mirror, shining back at you with a world of possibilities. She is your witness, who sees you at your worst and best, and loves you anyway. She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark. She is your teacher, your defense attorney, your personal press agent, even your shrink. Some days, she's the reason you wish you were an only child.' ~Barbara Alpert

Time does funny things to our memories... I have to work hard to remember the bickering now but I do remember lots of other bits...giant games of paperdolls spread out the entire length of our living room, barbies and kiddles underneath the big tree in the back yard, making up skits, the dress up box, sharing clothes, toys, books, and secrets. Sitting on either side of our mother while she read us the novels of our childhood. Sitting in the tree fort on our grandparents farm. Riding bikes. Coloring pictures. Hanging out at the pool. Having inside jokes. The comfort of having another person always there, to talk to, confide in, and even to argue with. Home.

'Sisters share the scent and smells - the feel of a common childhood.' ~Pam Brown

We're all grown up girls these days with children of our own and I'm more thankful than ever to have sisters in my life. And I love having daughters who are close in heart to one another. My own girls are each other's best friends and that is how I see my sisters.

Linda asked how we felt about our birth order and having or not having siblings. I only know what I know. I imagine I'd be someone different if I were the firstborn or the last, if I were an only child or had only brothers or only sisters.

'A sibling may be the keeper of one's identity, the only person with the keys to one's unfettered, more fundamental self.' ~Marian Sandmaier

Each person's childhood is unique and if we're honest most of us would say we lived a range of emotions and experiences... happiness and sorrow, elation and disappointment, boredom and wonder, in our growing up years.

I think my childhood was rich. Not in material possessions but in the sense that I was allowed the time and space and love I needed to grow into the person I am. Third child, second daughter, a sister. That's me. And I wouldn't trade that for anything.

Sandy Cove, Camp I Love...

I'm linking up with Flashback Friday today. For more posts on summertime memories visit Mocha with Linda...

I have lots of happy summertime memories but without question, my favorite are from summer camp. My first real camp experience was at a Chrisitan camp called Sandy Cove. The girls camp was situated on the Northeast River in Maryland, not far from the Chesapeake Bay. I can say in all honesty that some of the happiest memories of my life are tied to that place.

I started out there as a camper and went for just a week the first year. My sister came too but we were in different age groups so she was a 'Papoose' and I was a 'Maiden'. We stayed in cabins, ate in a dining hall, learned to canoe and sail on the river, played massive games of Capture the Flag, rode horses, shot arrows in the archery range, poured sand candles in the beach, made the requisite leather crafts, held 'rap sessions' (there's a term we don't hear anymore) and Bible Study under the trees, drank bug juice, dined on the infamous Sandy Cove Stew and cooked rice krispie treats in a #10 can over a roaring campfire...I could write forever here. Every week was themed-Water Week, Olympic Week, anything Can Happen Week...just to name a few. We called our counselors "Chief" and I loved mine that first year...Chief Judy.

I returned to Sandy Cove two more summers as a camper before entering their CIT (Counselor in training) program. The first summer of the program revolved around a two week 'survival course' and our group of 8 CITs along with our two fearless leaders counselors spent 8 days backpacking across roughly 60 miles of the Appalachian Trail. The very first day, almost the first hour actually, I hyperventilated on the trail in a serious way. I passed out and worried those two counselors quite a lot. I bet they still remember me : ) I recovered (obviously) and stayed on without any more issues but it did get things started with a bang.

My second summer as a CIT I worked at the waterfront, teaching canoeing. The waterfront instructor was an absolute hoot and we had so much fun. I found confidence I didn't know I had and I loved the sense of accomplishment I felt at perfecting a skill. I also loved the fresh air, the exercise, and spending days in the sun. In the final year of the program we were assigned to an age group and I worked as the relief counselor for that group all summer. This meant subbing in different cabins on the regular counselors day off. I was so sure I would be placed with the little ones (papooses)...after all, I'd always loved working with young children and I thought that was where I had the most to offer. The CIT 'chief' saw things differently however and I remember having a moment of panic when she told me I'd be with the squaws (teenagers). But you know what? I've worked and volunteered with teens in all sorts of settings since those days at Sandy Cove...in youth groups, Young Life, scouts, even working in the public schools, and it was at Camp Sandy Cove that I learned to really love that particular age group.

I know this is long but I have a lot of memories and I want to write a few of them here. I went back to Sandy Cove several more summers, both as a counselor and later as a tripper (I do love that term)...As a trip counselor it was my turn to act as one of two fearless leaders on a backpacking trip with a group of young high school girls. I think I learned more about myself on those backpacking trips than perhaps almost anywhere else I've ever been. There is nothing like days and days of hiking in beautiful, rugged terrain and quiet wilderness to have some serious talks with God about who you are and why you are here.

There was a boys camp (5 miles away) and eventually the girls camp was moved there too...the camps were still separate in their day to day operations, they just shared the same large piece of property. And from the counselors perspective it was way more fun to have the boys nearby. Just sayin'

I could write a thousand and one memories from my days at camp but they wouldn't mean anything to someone who hadn't shared in the experience. Roughly 30 years have passed since my last days of summer camp and in the course of those 30 years there have been moments where for an instant, I'm back at Sandy Cove. It might be the smell of a fire, the sight of a sunset on a river, or the sound of a whipporwill singing that does it, but in that moment I am carried right back to those sweet days of camp...I can see the playing field, the chapel on the bluff, the steep path down the hill to the waterfront... I remember silly songs, cleaning latrines, counselor hunts, the camp store, standing at the flagpole, 'waitressing', quiet talks after dark, the stars, the dirt, the bugler's song in the morning and the quiet strum of the guitar at night. I remember candles floating out to sea. I remember the music...always, always there was music.

Two things in particular stand out to me from those long ago summers...the first thing is this-Sandy Cove is the place where God was made real to me. The place where the faith I'd had since early childhood finally became my own.

And the second is this-when you live with people in a setting like camp you develop friendships that are unlike any other. There were summers of laughter. There were moments of heartache. We came from different states, different backgrounds, and different denominations, yet we shared a common faith. We worked, we played, we grew in every way. Including up.

♫ Sandy Cove, camp I love ♫

Rocks and trees and beauties

that are from above ♫

♫Skies so blue

Friends so true ♫

♫Take me back to

camping days at

SANDY COVE ♫

What about prom, Blaine?

Name that movie. This week's Flashback Friday theme is 'your highschool prom' and I'm thinking its going to be all about the pictures. I don't have a lot of memories from the actual event but I do have a lovely picture. Aren't all prom pictures oh so lovely?

I went to a huge highschool. Our senior prom was held at a catering house that people could rent for banquets and weddings and such, and it could accommodate our very big crowd. I spent four years of highschool homeroom sitting beside the boy whose family owned the place because alphabetically that's how we rolled.

I didn't have a boyfriend then so a friend played matchmaker. I haven't seen that friend since highschool but we've recently connected again on facebook. Don't you just love the miracle of the internet? Anyway, she put us together and I went with a very nice boy. We talked on the phone a few times and we went out once before the prom I guess to make sure it wouldn't be extraordinarily awkward but essentially the prom was our big date.

I definitely remember the theme song. Having a theme song was the tradition in our school. Several songs were put on a ballot and sometime early in the year the whole class voted. My brother graduated a few years before me and his theme was Precious and Few. Some songs are just meant to be a highschool prom theme.

Ours was ' The Goodbye Girl'. The movie had come out the year before and I don't remember what the other choices were but this one fit that prom theme genre. One class before ours used Kiss Today Goodbye and Point Me Toward Tomorrow...try putting that on a souvenir glass. Because isn't there always a souvenir glass? When we saw my in laws at Easter they brought a few things from their house to hand over and one of them was hubs mug from his senior prom. Always and Forever in case you're wondering about his theme.

Back to my memory...we didn't get a limo..maybe some people did but I don't think that was as popular then as it is now. I did get my hair done. And there were flowers. And I will preface the posting of the picture by telling you that it was 1978 so be kind.

My daughters laugh at this picture...they say it looks like we're getting married and I guess they do have a point. The off white Gunny Sax dress, the baby roses....it does have a bit of a wedding feel I suppose.

I don't have any specific memories of the actual event. We had dinner, we danced...I think you know how I feel about 70's music. It was a fun night. David Gates was the lead singer for a group called Bread...do I need to tell you this? I feel I need to tell some of you this. Because some of you who read here weren't even a twinkle in your parent's eye when I was at my highschool prom.

'...Goodbye doesn't mean forever...Goodbye doesn't mean we'll never be together again...'

I'm sure that lyric is why we chose the song as our theme. There is something that makes soon to be graduates feel nostalgic and emotional...like they want to hang on to those days for a little bit longer. When you're 17 and you're leaving friends behind to venture out into the world those lyrics are comforting. We had no inkling there was a facebook in our future. In fact we had no inkling there was an internet in our future. All we knew was that these were the people we'd known since childhood and we weren't quite ready to say goodbye.

Visit Mocha with Linda for more prom memories...better yet, share your own. Or post your prom picture if you're reading this on fb....you know you want to.

Happy Birthday to Me

No, it's not my real birthday. I'm linking up with Flashback Friday today and the theme is birthdays. Believe me, when my real birthday rolls around you're gonna be hearing about it. It's a BIG one. HUGE. Rest assured I'll be mentioning it a time or 50 on my blog.

Now on to my flashback...I don't remember having a birthday party every year but I do remember having at least a few. I found a couple of pictures in a scrapbook my mom made for me of my first 20 years of life and apparently my mom always made sure there was a fabulous cake.

Here I am on my 2nd birthday. Just look at this cake! My birthday is not in December but I love the peppermint sticks around the edge. I'm the one with the present. Pebbles is my younger sister. I'm glad the cake is out of reach because she looks like she is contemplating some mischief and I'm pretty sure that's exactly what she was doing because that was her modus operandi back in the day.

And check out this fabulous coconut cake on my third birthday. You may not have noticed the cake because you were distracted by my cousin's awesome glasses. That's my brother beside me. He looks like he's pretty impressed by the cake too.

Thinking back to my elementary school days I remember pinatas and goody bags and my favorite kind of party...the sleep over. Here I am getting ready to leave for a friend's sleepover birthday.

From the looks of this photo it was the dead of winter and we were sleeping outdoors. Check out the size of that sleeping bag! I love my little case though. I do remember that ovenite bag. I cannot imagine what in the world the present might be...a desk blotter? Hmmm...

My parents always made our birthdays special but they didn't do extravagant parties. They had four kids and the world was different than today. No ponies in the backyard, no performing circus animals, no blow up bouncy castles...but still, happy days. Fun days spent with friends feeling special, like the day was all mine.

I did have a sleepover on my 12th birthday. I remember playing Truth or Dare, pulling pranks on whoever went to sleep first, my dad coming downstairs telling us ENOUGH! GO TO SLEEP!, and then of course the girl sleeping beside me throwing up in the middle of the night no doubt from all the junk food we'd eaten. Good times.

I'll leave you with this fantastic photo from my 10th birthday.

I got a hot pink bicycle and it was precisely exactly totally and completely what I wanted that year. In fact I was so excited to hop on and go for a ride that when my mom told me to first put on some socks and shoes I was in such a flutter that I did not take my usual care to match my too cool knee socks to the rest of my outfit. When I look at this picture of course I see the socks because, hello...they CLASH...but I also remember being 10 years old and oh so happy to have that bike, to ride it all over the neighborhood, to ride with no hands, to jump on and go to a friends and not come home for hours...to feel the freedom of being a kid.

Playing House

Several blogs host a meme each week known as Flashback Friday.

If I'm being honest my whole blog is kinda like one giant flashback.

One of the reasons I blog is to have a place to record some of my memories...

to put into writing some of what has up to this point only been saved in my head.

And in my heart.

This weeks prompt is All Grown Up and the idea is to write about some event in your life that made you say, 'Hey, I'm a grown up'.

Feel free to join in with a post of your own but be sure to link back to

Mylestones so everyone can read along.

When I was a little girl I loved playing house. My friends and my sister and I would set up houses outdoors, name our imaginary children, and dress up in my mother's old clothes. Mortgage payments, home repairs, points, escrow and taxes were never a part of our game. Innocence. I've been going thru boxes of photos in recent weeks and I came across some pictures of our very first house. When we got married we moved into a two bedroom apartment in Knoxville Tennessee. We'd been married less than a year when my husband took a new job with his current company and we moved to Richmond Virginia. We had a college friend in Richmond who happened to be a realtor and he found us a townhouse to rent. We spent a year there before making the move into our very first house.

I remember how scary it was to get the mortgage papers and see

it would be 'officially' ours in the year 2016.

Crazy.

I'd be in my fifties then.

Too far away to even contemplate.

And the money.

Oh my word it felt like a fortune.

And to a couple of 20 somethings back in 1986 it was.

I remember going to the closing, carefully pouring over every page

before signing our names forty two times.

We were home owners.

Officially grown up.

We loved that house.

It was a saltbox and the stairs came down into the kitchen which

had two walls of windows. We bought the house from a single man who

had greatly overestimated his green thumb.

Lots of good intentions but not so great at the follow through.

The yard was a mass of brambles and weeds but plunked down throughout was one plum tree, two big apple trees, two peach trees and two apricot trees.

Do you have any idea how many apricots one large tree produces?

Just ask our lawn mower.

I picked and washed and cooked pies and jams and turnovers and cobblers and I gave away by the armful but short of opening my own farm stand there was no way we could have consumed the amount of fruit these trees produced.

We had big plans for that back yard.

We had to pay someone to come in and pull out the brambles with

a machine but after that it was all my husbands baby.

He mowed and weeded and fertilized and aerated and watered and had

that grass looking like a putting green.

No one could believe the end result, most especially the man who had sold us the house.

As it happens that was the first of many green lawns we

would care for and own.

We were in the house only two years when we were transferred to Columbus Ohio.

Brand new house.

Brand new neighborhood still under construction.

No grass.

Lots and lots of mud.

Soon, brand new grass.

And a brand new baby.

One year later, almost to the day, we are transferred.

To North Jersey this time, another house and another yard, this time with

some woods to explore.

There may have been more than a few leaves raked here.

My husband had a brutal commute.

We had another baby.

Five years zoom by.

Transferred to Maryland.

Another house.

In no time at all hubs had the grass looking like Augusta.

We grew impatiens the size of shrubs.

Our cul de sac was lined with Bradford pears that bloomed like snow fairies every spring.

Nine happy years in this sweet little cul de sac and then blink.

Its off to England.

Renters once more.

But the most fantastic garden of any house I've ever lived in.

A dream garden.

And a gardener to take care of it so what's not to love?

2009. Back to NJ.

Closings aren't scary anymore.

Just tell me where to sign.

But I still remember that first house.

We loved fixing it up.

We went to NC and bought our dining room furniture and a big

cherry desk for our office at the showrooms there.

It was the nicest thing we owned.

We loved that furniture.

We still love it.

In that very first house we set up home.

I developed a real love for cooking there.

We got our very first puppy...

a shepherd collie mix that someone had

dumped on the road behind our neighborhood.

Abbey.

She moved three times with us.

She was loyal and protective of me.

She was a good dog.

We hosted a bbq the night before my sister's wedding.

For family and friends.

It was 100 degrees.

Our air conditioner died.

Our first taste of the 'joys' of home ownership.

Still, a happy night.

We had fun neighbors.

It was a small cul de sac and we had lots of friendly get togethers.

We were young.

But we felt like grown ups.

We were.

We had hubs' whole family for Christmas in that house.

How fun it was to decorate for the holidays and pull out all my wedding

china and cook Christmas dinner.

And it was in this house we first heard those magical words-

'You're going to have a baby.'

We're a long way from that little saltbox on a cul de sac in Virginia.

But we remember those days with a smile.

We were truly on our own for the first time in our married life.

No parents nearby.

In hindsight I can see it was making us ready for a lifetime of moving

and living away from family.

We weren't kids playing house.

We were grown ups.