A Walk Down Memory Lane Part 1

So the cool thing about your parents moving back to a town you used to live in ... when you visit you get to take a tour of all the fun places you used to go! Allow my to introduce you to Waldorf MD - through the eyes of an 8 year old ... Our first tour takes us through my old neighborhood: (pronounced Utah Forest - I was very confused on how to spell Utah for the longest time after we moved here)

On our way to the old house we pass on the right my Friwn (friend/twin - we shared a birthday) Kristy's house, she usually came to our house to play but we did have a sleep over there once and played a very exciting game of 'Truth or Dare':

and a little further down still on the right is Mrs. Henderson - a sweet old lady's house (and by old I mean ancient she was at least 90, ok my mom says 80 but I'm not sure I believe her) we used to make and decorate sugar cookies with her - when my mom wanted us out of the house and none of our friends were home.

next to Mrs. Henderson's was a gravel road that led to the electrical transformers... there was gooey blue paint on one of the chain link fence posts that we used to pretend was alien blood ... Ever go on an alien hunt in the forest for a wounded alien? (you should try it sometime) Three doors down My House! A lovely split level house with a half finished basement and an awesome patio. My first bedroom was the two windows furthest to the left (it had hideous huge pink flowers on the wallpaper) which I shared with my sister until my parents got tired of us fighting all the time and gave us our "own rooms" and then my "room" - the walls consisted of 1 desk, a bunch of stacked boxes, a white metal cabinet, and a long row of book shelves with a curtain for the door -moved to the unfinished half of the basement (first window to the left of the door) I was so excited to have my own room ... although my sister was right next door on the other side of the bookcase wall.

Across the street from my house on the left was first Whitney's House - she was my little brother's age and all three of us used to hang out on the steps and read books, her parents and her used to bring our dog cat food that their cat wouldn't eat (my dog wasn't very picky like their cat) we spent a lot of time over there when we were off school for a month because of 8 inches of ice and my mom had laryngitis...

and then Jillian's house, we used to make snow-snow cones in the winter and see who can hold their breath the longest under water in the pool during the summer. She had two brothers, AJ and Sterling who were in high school and used to torture us when we tried to hang out with them (they introduced us to storm drain exploring among other things)

and a little further down ... the sledding hill, with a huge curve - my sister broke her arm running down this hill

Let's turn around now and go to the coolest house in the neighborhood, turn right onto Capt House Rd then left on Capt Demont Rd drive to the end and you will find "the Captain's House" an old Civil War Era house with secret passageways, steep-steep stairs (I'm talkin' 12in high steps) and three stories of fun. The family that used to live here had "Bible School" during the summer that we went to before playing for hours.

There wasn't a gate then or those huge bushes - you used to be able to see the house from the street ... must have new owners (who obviously like their privacy) And that's the end of the neighborhood tour, thank you for coming and we'll see you next time when we visit Lori's house, my elementary school and the church we went to. (You don't want to miss some of the stories that go along with the pictures)

First Memories

Recently I was asked about my favorite memory, if you know me well you'd know I don't have favorites of much of anything, but it got me thinking of all the fun times I had growing up and got me searching my memory for the very first thing I remember in this world. At first I thought about the night my dad hit a doe, a deer - a female deer (I digress)... I can still see it's big eyes in the headlights as the car got closer till BAM! the deer was dead, and the front of the car - mangled, we were on our way to a friends house to eat dinner because it was our last night in Tennessee - we drove/moved cross country to California the next day. But really that wasn't my very first memory, a month earlier my little bro was born and I distinctly remember going shopping for a present for him ... digging through the bin of stuffed animals with my older sibblings, past the teddy bears, the elephants, and whatever else was in there and selecting ... wait for it (this was really good, well worth the wait) ... a cow puppet!! Yes, that's right, a cow puppet, because every baby boy needs a stuffed cow. (He may still have it- or more likely it's at my house in storage- but I think it's still around) So there you have it my first memory.