The Backyard

Oh, how I have missed the desert. I am home in Utah for the next ten days, and I got to soak up the sun in my parents' backyard. 

I sat in the hot sun for hours, and finished reading Second Kiss, by Natalie Palmer. Natalie and I went to middle school and high school together. We suffered through zits, boys, and drama. Second Kiss is a novel about a teenage girl who is finishing up middle school, and touches on some tender growing pains that many kids go through (we certainly went through them.) It was so much fun to read a book about middle school, by one of my very own middle school bffs. I loved every word of the book, and I highly recommend it. It is meant for teenage girls, but so are Mary Kate and Ashley movies. I love those movies, but I love Second Kiss more.  

I kept picturing the halls of our middle school, and her awesome house, and even my backyard.

 As I finished the book, I became nostalgic and took a few moments to look around my parents backyard. My folks' house is not the house I grew up in. I grew up in the house just next door (you can see the roof in the above picture). The plot of land that their current house is on, was my childhood backyard. We even had a little tennis court for a while on that spot, and all the neighborhood kids would regularly gather to play on it. 

We also had a perfect little tree house that was built by one of the older neighbor boys. It was so awesome! It was two floors, with two separate ladders, a porch, and a roof (all made out of beautiful/hideous particle board ;) ). I could play in the trees and in that tree house for hours. It was constantly a mess back there, but we never had to clean it. That is, until Mom and Dad decided to build their new home back there. 

By the time my parents built their new house, I was well past the age to play in the tree house. I was 18, and didn't mind too much seeing the old thing torn down. 

Today, however, I wish I could see it one more time.

There are still a few tiny reminders of the old tree house.

 Like this little bit of wood, still nailed firmly to the tree trunk. I think this held part of the "first floor."

A rotting 2x4.

The cement blocks or "the porch."

And, of course, the trees that held our tree house. 

If I stared really hard, I could almost see it.

Almost smell it.

Almost get a horrible splinter from that horrible rough particle board.

PLUS! It's my awesome little brother's 27th birthday today! Wo. We used to play for hours in that gosh darn treehouse.

Happy Birthday, Gravy!

xo

Alli