But a room is not a house and a house is not a home...

Often times when I am in the Seattle area I like to do what I call the "Bates history tour", and drive past old houses, old schools, old friends homes, and other "childhood memory" spots. When em and I went over to see the tulips, she graciously went along with my trip down memory lane and helped take pictures.

So in honor of my walk down memory lane here are my...

TOP 5 (or more) MEMORIES ABOUT MY CHILDHOOD HOMES:

9326 (ages 1-7 years old)

1. Jared and I riding around on our trolleys with buckets on our heads and star wars figures in our mouths....I promise we weren't "special".

2. The rope swing in the garage. Oh that thing was so awesome!

3. Playing the "birdie" game with Jared on the bunk beds....it was a stupid game but it made us laugh so hard.

4. Wrapping my first lost tooth in a kleenex and having it get thrown away...I was devastated. The tooth fairy was nice enough to leave me money anyway though...so no permanent harm done.

5. Kim being attacked by the huge neighbor dog "Freida" while Jared and the boy cousins watched and did nothing....not traumatic at all...


9536 (ages 7-13 years old)

1. Playing "ice climber" on the steep staircase. Put multiple mattresses down covering the stairs, sheet side up, and try to climb up them while Jared throws pillows at you.

2. Choreographing dances in our huge kitchen. Kim and I still determine size of rooms by "could we choreograph a dance in here"...if yes, then it's a big room.

3. Our huge huge huge toy area. Rollerskating, trampoline gymnastics, playing office and school with our real sized chalkboard.....what wasn't awesome was the row of nails/tacks that were not so efficiently covered with ducktape and caused a huge cut on my leg when I slid into them while playing.

4. Spying on Jared and his friends through his "cork wall".

5. Our cool single bedrooms (I had to share with Kim alot through the years). My rainbow themed room with pig collectibles and teen beat posters on the walls, kim's cat collection and "poison" poster, jared's penquin collection and massive amounts of odd random posters (church lady, inxs, dead milkman, buckwheat, etc...), mitch's tent bed...I was jealous of that thing.

6. The houseguests that lived with us for periods of time. The Woodruffs and of course my Minnesota cousin Julie. Such good times.

7. The ridiculously steep hills that surrounded our area. Try biking up or down those babies. One time, while trying to bike up it (I should have just walked it up like usual) I paused for a split second causing my bike to go backward at a very fast speed down the hill. I had to thrown myself off of it, and hit my head on the concrete. not awesome. Or the other time when Jared was sledding down the hill, lost control cause of the fast speed, and went under a car....the gash on his head caused me to give up sledding.

8. The time Mitch, as a baby, decided to swim in a puddle of Ammonia he had spilled over from the cleaning products under the kitchen sink. Sure, me and kim were supposed to be watching him...but that's beside the point...right? I think Mitch has forgiven us. Although I will never forget that horrible smell, the blue face on Mitch, or the multiple ambulances that surrounded our house when Mom called 911.

4925 (aka: the House of Roy) (ages 13-20)

1. Watching Douglas walk around in his blue terry cloth wrap around towel...that, let's be honest....was a little too short.

2. Living in a place that had rooms called
-the club room (the family room)
-the wine cellar (empty room for christmas storage)
-the gym (a room with a mirrored wall, tanning bed, and a solo flex)
-the office (just a couple of desks....but it could officially be called an office because he did have a "Lord Nickson" nameplate on his desk)
-the library (to be honest this room did have a lot of books, but I doubt he ever read half of them and we were more fascinated with the african penis cover anyway....)

3. The whiteboard in the kitchen that was often used to diagram stories or write messages about friends calling (even though the names were never spelled correctly...ever).

4. The hot tub. Which was pretty sweet especially in the winter, but the best thing about it was the "House of Roy" hot tub cover....priceless.

5. Both Mitch and Kim knocking over the Urn that held a certain dead mother and having to vacuum and sweep up the remains....don't think he ever found out about that.

6. Dead Misty. Even the thought of peach air freshener makes me want to vomit. so disgusting.


Believe me there are so so much more I could add to this list....

If you have any...please tell me....