Grandma Watkins' House (for me)

On the fourth of July we parked near my Grandma Watkins' house and we got to walk right by it on our way back to the car. 
(I've had these pictures for months, but haven't gotten a post put together and since I have time now . . . ) 

My dad was born and raised here. 
We vacationed here every year with my Grandma. 
We lived here while Dad went back to school and Grandma went on her mission. 
Ansen and I spent several weeks cleaning it out after she had to move to a retirement community.

I started telling Addison some of my childhood memories on the walk and they just kept coming and coming.  So many things I hadn't thought about in years or almost totally forgotten. 

The house used to be mint green with white trim.  There was no fence and a few more evergreens.  The screen door that slammed shut every time you went in and out is gone, but I do remember how darn hard it was to remember NOT to let it slam shut every time.

 

This is the corner of the sidewalks.  I still love that the street names are in the side walks.  Ryan and I used to "own" different streets and have to pay a toll to ride our bikes on the other street.

 The rain gutters flowed under the street.   If we were feeling adventurous (and disobedient) we'd race our sticks through the gutter to the other side of the street.

These are the neighbor's rose bushes.  Ryan was chasing my Dad, my Dad jumped over them thinking Ryan would stop, but Ryan ran through them and got a million scrapes . . . he cried and cried.

This is the fence that our little neighbor was hanging from when his hand went through the top wires.  I ran for help while Ryan held him up.  The fence used to be about 10 feet tall and somehow now is only 3 feet tall. 

My Grandma threw a peach pit in the dirt next to the back door and a Peach tree started to grow . . . she didn't want to chop it down so she just let it grow and almost take over the doorway (it's actually gone now so it was even closer that the one you see) . . . I always thought that was funny.

We used to sit in lawn chairs on the grass between the house and garage drinking grape soda and eating root beer popsicles while the adults talked.  That's also where I watched my Grandma eat a tomato out of the garden like it was an apple.  Funny, right?

The old red truck always sat in the driveway.  It had a small hole in the floor and you could see the road moving as we drove and even cooler . . . it had no seat belts.

Herb lived next door.  He taught us "See you late alligator" and "In awhile crocodile."  He made Ryan and I carved wooden pins one day.  Mine was a flower and I kept it for almost forever.  He kept his house and yard in immaculate condition.

The flagpole that my grandma really wanted.  We got to help put the flag up and down, but we could not hang on the ropes.  It was several 100 feet taller back then though and it wasn't red and rusted.

I stubbed my toe on a rock (?) while running through the sprinkles one summer and broke it.  I had to wear my mom's big tennis shoe the rest of the trip so my broken toe wouldn't be too smashed.

There were all sorts of cool trees around Grandma's house.  There were 4 in particular that were the coolest.  One had these leaf things that were like airplane wings that we would throw around so they'd fly

Another had pods full of seeds.  We'd pick them and then strip all the seeds out into piles. 

And then there were 2 down the street that had these big, brown nut things and another that made pokey bombs.  Ryan and I would gather the bombs, twist them around by the stem and throw them at each other.

There was a park down the street with a baseball field.  I don't think my dad played, but we'd walk down there on summer nights and watch some games.

And where that flag pole is . . . there used to big this really cool machine gun from some war we loved to play on.  How sad that's it's gone . . . it was seriously awesome.

Grandma's church was a 2-story building.  Primary was upstairs . . . it was so, so neat stomping around upstairs.  We always had to hang around and talk to people after church . . . so boring.

(this is also where I stood for 30 minutes waiting for Ansen to pick me up . . . he didn't want to be slowed down with my picture taking excursion)