Back in the day

All this sesame street talk has lead me to travel down memory lane a little bit. To think about my childhood and growing up. I am lucky because all my memories are filled with friends, family, laughter and unconditional love. We grew up in an isolated area of a small ag town. We were surrounded by orange trees and even owned a cow at one time! The house we lived in was nice and big. Infact one of my first memories is walking into that house when it was still empty and we were moving in. We called it the ultimate party house and party we did. We had Ouie's b-day parties with games like bucket brigade, Elaine's 1 st b-day party with the clown, my slumber parties where we would dress up and watch little shop of horrors (I will never forget patty as a nun on roller skates), and of course the Halloween costume parties. Most of my memories are of playing outside on the swings where my Mom would swing and sing with us, or reading books, even making our own books, watching Sesame street and Land of the Lost, waiting for my Dad to come home from work, getting to sit on dads back as he did push-ups, the video log we kept of the movies we rented and watched, standing by the heater in a Mickey Mouse towel after a bath and I remember my Mom smiling at us. Of course we had some times when we got into trouble, the occasional fight with Ouie, or some spilling of Mom's expensive perfume but overall the memories are good. I know now that we didn't have much money then. We never knew it at the time, my Mom never let us feel like we were lacking for anything. We had a beautiful extended family who spoiled us with affection and parents who loved us and taught us to be happy kids.