Memory Lane

Did I mention how much I enjoyed spending time with family while in Moses Lake for Grandpa's funeral?  It was like a mini family reunion.
 We stayed up late laughing and talking and reveled in every minute we were able to spend together as an immediate and extended family.  Hollis and Barry and Brent and Lora were especially kind to open their homes to family for several gatherings.  We ate delicious Chico's pizza (the best pizza on earth - I promise) one of the nights.  Scott, Ali, Kara, and I had a sibling getaway to get hot chocolate and Starbucks and we laughed so much that we couldn't even talk.  
I love my family and it was so much fun to be with them for a few precious days.

On the day most of us left to drive or fly home, we met in the morning for a whirlwind tour of Moses Lake (except for Kara and Lauren, who had left for home early that morning with Uncle Nyle).  The ML tour was mostly for Ali's benefit, as she hadn't been back since my wedding reception in 1989.  I have toured all my old stomping grounds a number of times over the years, but this time was especially meaningful, as we were able to talk about the places and events as a family.  Oh, memories . . .

We started the day with breakfast at our hotel where we did our best to not talk about politics. At least I did.

Any tour of Moses Lake must include the public library, where we spent a lot of our time as kids.  It still looks and smells identical to how it looked and smelled in 1970, and that isn't necessarily a good thing!

This little building used to be a drive-in shop where we bought milk in glass bottles.  Scott, Ali, and I remember that they always gave all the kids in the car a sucker, so we were always happy to go along on this errand.

This is Frank's Market, which looks exactly like it looked in the 1970s.  We would stop here every Wednesday afternoon after school to buy penny candy, as we walked from school to the church for Primary (which was held during the week until 1980).  We felt so delightedly independent as we spent our pennies and savored our candy on the way to the church.
 
This is, apparently, the first house I lived in as as baby.  I don't actually remember this, but my parents said that my Uncle Stan lived with us and he would lay on the floor and let me practice crawling over him repeatedly.

Next we lived in a house on the base, but we didn't take the time to drive all the way out there. After that we moved to this home on Cascade Avenue. We moved here in about 1975 (I think).  This is where Ali and Scott were both babies, I believe. This is also a home I remember very vividly - running around the back yard, storing my bike on the left of the house and grabbing it each summer morning to ride for hours around the neighborhood.  This is also where Kara and I began our illustrious musical career, as we sang along to our record of Neil Sedaka while singing into the handle of a hairbrush.  Lots of good memories here!  The house seemed so much bigger when I was little.

 

My Dad was Bishop of our ward just about the entire time we lived in this house.  We took a picture of him in front of the churchhouse, which is a few blocks over.

In 1978, we moved from this home and rented "the yellow house" in the country, not far from the home we were building. We lived there for a year. We stopped to take a picture of the house, which is still yellow, and Dad knocked on the door to let the nice couple know what we were doing. They invited us inside to look around but we were in a hurry to get Ali to the airport (which is two hours away in Spokane.) 

 
Once we moved to the yellow house we were in a new ward - Moses Lake 4th Ward. This is the ward I remember the best, as I attended from age 8 until almost 16 (when we moved to Utah).  It is a huge building.  Kara, Ali, and I attended an 11 a.m. Sacrament Meeting in this building on Sunday morning, and it was fun to look around the congregation to see if we recognized anyone at all.  For the record, I recognized exactly two people, but there were probably lots more people I should have recognized.

Finally, we spent quite awhile at the house that my parents built in the country. I am amazed every time I think about how brave they were. As a young and less-than-wealthy couple they bought the land at an auction and then planned and built the house all by themselves. And they had never done anything like this before!  My mom always likes to say that prior to building the house, the only fix-it thing my Dad had done was replace a toilet seat. They did an amazing job - my parents have great vision and an incredible belief in their ability to learn how to do just about anything.

This is the front of the house.  The window in the basement just to the left of the hose box (behind Mom) was my bedroom.  I helped my Dad finish it - at least I pounded quite a few nails.

This is the back of the house, but we always used it as the main door.  The house is at the end of a long lane off the main road, and the only way we got this close to it was that we totally trespassed. Luckily, the family wasn't home as we drove right up to their home and walked around the yard.

 

 These are the fruit trees we planted.  They were still tiny when we moved in 1986.

This is the view of pasture in front of the house (taken from the vantage point of Potato Hill Road) where our cows grazed.  It's also where I moved big irrigation pipes every day when I was 10 years old and where we sledded in the winter (with the sled tied to the back of the car).  The ride got extra bumpy when we hit frozen cow patties.  What country bumpkins we all were!

Ali took this great picture of the intersection closest to our house - these streets are loaded with memories for us.
 

Now the land surrounding our previous home is filled with nice houses on acre lots.  But, when we were kids most of the area nearby looked like this - very open and with fields of corn.

 It was great to visit the house with my parents, and they told us many stories we had forgotten. They got emotional talking about how hard it was to leave the home to move to Utah (where they both eventually attended graduate school).  They were ready to move from the small town of Moses Lake, but it was hard to leave something they had poured their whole hearts into.