Back in the day....

So this morning I received an email from my dad (the old man blogger) and it was a forward from a family that were our neighbors while we were growing up. They were like 2nd parents to my sister and I and their two kids were our best buds growing up. Ken and Kim, Lauri and Julie - that was us always together always brewing up trouble and fun! It just brought back a flood of fun times so I thought "Hey a blog post!"

So we moved to Lynchburg when I was 3 or 4. So we literally grew up with the Marshalls. Kim was closer to my sisters age, and Ken my age so we all hung out together. Just gonna "list" a few fun things we did. Funny me story - when we first moved in I went wandering around (back when kids could wander around) and walked up to their door and rang the bell. When they answered I said "Hi, my name is Julie, I live down the street, can I have a cookie?" It was never forgotten and ALWAYS mentioned! Even on my prom night - Danny (the dad) was the photographer and presented me AT THE PROM with one of those HUGE chocolate chip cookies.. lol

Well of course Ken and Kim were the other 2 band members of our "abba" days. We'd do the band thing, we'd roller skate in our basement dancing and singing, we'd just be kids! until Ken hit my dad's drum so hard he ripped it and then the band was abruptly ended.

Our parents would have parties and we'd all hang in one house, peeping out of the windows watching them have fun. Man its fun to be the parent outside the windows now days sometimes! lol

Ken and I used to play "Emergency 911" - anyone remember that show? I had a Holly Hobby lunch box and fake play red phones. We'd put a phone in a lunch box.. and jump off our deck as if we were jumping down to a injured person and we'd call in to headquarters on our fake phone. OH the fun!

Every Saturday they would come down or we'd go to their house and we'd watch cartoons and eat Ravioli or "Roller coasters" for lunch.

Every Christmas morning after we'd inspected all of our Santa garb.. we would run down the street (2 houses down) in our new christmas pj's/gowns to see what each other got.. that was one of my favorite parts of christmas morning.

Ken and I were always assumed to be married and have kids together. When we were left alone, the 4 ofus that is, our older sisters would tell us "lets play house, ok you two be our married neighbors" and they would go in my sisters room and shut the door. Ken and I would sit there like "ok so what do we do now" and Kim and Lauri would be in her room listening to music, talking about boys, totally ignoring us. Ken and I would go knock on the door to "borrow sugar" to see what they were doing. lol We were great friends and supported each other through all of our teen years and boyfriends/girlfriends and breakups, but that was just good friends.

Fast Forward many years... we've all gone seperate ways and done our own things, starting our own families. But when we do hear from each other or see each other, its like the old days.

I haven't seen Ken or Kim for many many years - like 10ish or so, and I'd love to see them... to sing into a hairbrush.. to watch our kids play.. so just hug them. They are a HUGE part of my childhood...

Good times I tell ya!