When you grow up living in the country, you learn to get creative with your surroundings.  Without many neighbors, my sisters, brother and I had each other.  For my poor brother that meant having to endure dressing-up, playing with girls and learning way too quickly how girls “operate.”  We did, however, have THE most fun despite being 20 minutes from civilization and all of our friends.

Not many people can say that they have been “slung” behind a huge tractor on the top of a sandbox cover through snow filled streets with the entire neighborhood. All five of us.  My granddad had a convenience store just around the corner which meant orange push-ups and fried “tator wedges” at any time of day for us!  We had picnics in the fields and could whip up our very own water park with just a few kiddie pools, the water hose and our sliding board and sandbox.  My sister, Kacy has such a huge heart for animals and was always trying to save an animal or two or three of some sort.  To this day, I’m not sure if mom really wasn’t aware of all of the animals she tried to hide upstairs in her room or she just ignored it.  We hatched eggs, got bucked off of horses, painted rocks, slid down the hardwood staircase in plastic orange sleds, made up dances and plays and performed them for huge audiences of three for small admission prices of course, dressed up Alston, roller skated on our wet soapy driveway, and got into so much trouble!

Although my girls are growing up in the “city limits,”  I”m thrilled that they still experience a bit of what I did as a child.  When my sisters, brother and I get together out at mom’s, it is as if we never grew up. Now, we all play freeze tag in the yard, Mom takes the girls on adventures “hunting” pecans (we finally realized what she was doing), they go on candy shopping sprees at “Pa’s store”, we gather yard sticks for sundown fire pits and mostly, we laugh.  Some things never change.

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