My Stories

My friend gave me this cool book when Samuel was born called My Mom, Her Stories. Her Words.


I never filled out the pages and now that I have two kids, I thought my blog would be a better way to answer the questions.  This way both kids can read about me.  I'm thinking of answering a question every week.

Today's Question

Mom, what kind of house did you grow up in, and what was the old neighborhood like?

My parents bought their first house in Everett a year before I was born.  It was a cute 1 story built in the 60s off of Mukilteo Blvd.  It had 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom and a toilet in the laundry room.  There was a big back yard with a large garden, greenhouse, and lots of fruit trees.  The front yard had beautiful flowering cherry trees.

I'm not sure how old I was but my parents redid the kitchen and added on a master bedroom.  My dad built a huge deck in the back yard and painted his old swing set hot pink and black.

Mom, Grandma B, Me, Dad in our old dining room

The above picture is our old dining room.  I loved that room as a kid, the big picture window looking out to the back yard and the old oak table.  Recently my mom found the receipt for that table, it cost about $500 in 1978.  The table has gotten a lot of love.  I am currently writing this post at that table in my dining room.  My parents always threatened when I was a kid that the table was coming with me when I moved out.  Two days before our wedding it was carried up the stairs into our treehouse, where our kids are adding to it's character.

Grandma B, Mom and Me in our old living room

This couch and it's matching love seat sat in our living room in both of my childhood homes.  It also witnessed lots of family events.

Dad, Mom and Me sittin under my baby quilt

The baby quilt in this picture was made by my Grandma H.  She loved to make quilts and other artsy projects.  Somehow though most of her quilts ended up hanging on the walls of our house.  My baby quilt hung in the living room until we moved, then it hung in the entry way.  It is currently wrapped up safe some where.  I need to pull it out and find a wall to hang it on in my own house.

Me in our family room

Our family room was very large with a wood stove and large windows.  This couch served as a room divider, behind it was my mom's sewing area.  The back of this couch was also about 10-12" wide, the perfect size to sit on.  While my mom worked on projects on her cutting table, I would sit on the back of that couch and watch.  Then one day my parents bought a new couch and my mom says I cried, a lot.

Our neighborhood was comfortable, all the houses where of the same era and when I was 4 I met my best friend.  Stephanie moved in and I was so excited that there was a girl my age to play with.  We had so many adventures in our backyards.  We even got my dad to paint his old swing set hot pink and black.  We loved to do tricks on the bars of that old A-frame swingset.

There was another cool feature of our neighborhood, a farm.  Yep, a farm, in the middle of our neighborhood an entire block was a farm with horses.  My sister and I drove thru the old neighborhood recently and there are still some farm building but they are surrounded by McMansions.

When I was 6 or 7 the woods across the street were torn down and houses were put up.  My mom missed her forest and we were ready for a bigger house.  So one day on the way home from church we stopped at an open house and mom was sold.  The move was hard for me, this was the only house I'd ever known.  I loved that house and that neighborhood, my best friend lived there and now we were moving.

We moved in to our new house November 1, 1989 to start a new chapter in our family story.

Next week:  Mom, what was your favorite holiday as a child, and how did your family celebrate it?