FAMILY

When I was small I always dreamed of being a mommy and being married. I remember playing paper dolls and cutting out all the different outfits and picking out the perfect man paper doll for my husband, the cutest baby paper dolls for my children. I made their house with shoe boxes, spools of thread for the stools and jewelry boxes propped on nail polish bottles for a table
and anything else I could come up with to make the perfect home. Then I would play for hours and the house would stay up for days. The pieces of material cut out for the table cloth and the curtains for the bedroom changed about every week. My friends and I would spend hours on our dreams of a being a family and having the perfect home.

I remember playing cars with my brothers and their friends during the summer. We spent hours building roads and building our houses and garages out of sticks. The neighborhoods we made ran all through dads flower gardens along the driveway. Our neighborhood had it's own gas station and grocery store. We even had a city play ground. My brothers and I were creative geniuses. We would choose our favorite cars and trucks. My brothers always got the best ones and that was ok I just wanted to be part of their fun. Dad would come home from work and never griped or complained that we made a mess of his gardens. We always made sure that we cleaned up and put his gardens back to the perfect beauty they were.

I remember walking over to the new housing project going up a few blocks away. We would gather big pieces of broken sheet rock and haul them home. We then would draw roads all over the driveway and the street. We drew stop signs and a railroad track, a gas station and parking garage. We got on our bikes and proceeded to ride the roads. Sometimes we even had car accidents and the police would throw us in jail, or we would take our bike to the garage and fix it.
We would then take the hose and wash off the driveway before retiring for the day.

I remember in the summer my older brother would have us help him do a neighborhood carnival. We would sale lemonade, make popcorn to sale and put up a fish pond. We would gather little toys that we didn't want and have the neighbor kids fish for them. My older brother would make a sign and get on his bike and ride through the neighborhood yelling , "Carnival, we're having a carnival, come to the carnival". We always had lots of kids come.

I remember when we were a little older, Junior high maybe. Randy and I would decide to clean out dads storage room in the carport. We would drag everything out, tools, fishing, garden supplies, paint cans, camping gear etc. We washed out the floor with the hose which ended up going down the gutter to the neighbors. I'm sure they appreciated that. We would organize everything while putting things back in the storage room. My mom and dad were so pleased when they came home from work.

I remember when my brother Randy was old enough to recognize the rivalry between our ward and the 12th ward boys. He started playing church sports and did not like the boys in the 12th ward. They were cocky and of course the boys in the 22nd ward weren't. He wanted to start a CLUB now days known as a GANG. He took teeth off of some dead dog or something and drilled holes in the teeth and put one on a string for each one of the club members to wear around their necks. They carved swords out of pieces of wood and painted them. Their head quarters were in our storage room in our carport. He would have his meetings and then they would get on their bikes and ride over to the 12th ward neighborhood and seek revenge. This is one time he would not let me be a part. I remember looking out the front room window and watching him ride off with his club yelling and screaming. I never remember a bloody nose or black eye. At one of their meeting Randy put gasoline a a bucket of dirt and lit it so they could have a fire and ended up burning down the storage room!

I remember playing the game "PRISON" night after night in the summer with the neighborhood kids. We waited til it was dark. There were two prison guards with flashlights, and the rest of the kids were the prisoners. The guards went around yelling at the prisoners to get to work ( pretending to be pounding on rocks ) the prisoners would knock out the guards with their shovels and the guards would fall on the ground and close their eyes while they counted to 50. The prisoners would go hide only in the chosen yards. The guards would then go out and try to catch the prisoners in their hiding places. Meanwhile if the prisoner could make it back to the staring place before they were caught they wouldn't have to be the guard the next game. No one wanted to be the guard. It was much more fun to hide. We had a blast playing this game. We would play sometimes til 11:00. Mom and dad trusted us and knew what we were doing.

These are just a few things remember growing up. The thing that makes these memories so close to my heart is that they all took place with my brothers and myself. We did a lot of things as family. It bonded us. We have always been close. Even if we never see each other for months, and have our differences, the feelings of love and closeness remain and will forever in my heart.

I remember when we were in junior high/high school. We would play "Truth or Dare". It ended out being Dare most of the time. There were about 5 boys and two or three of us girls. That is where I learned to kiss. All the dares would be to kiss whoever. Think about it. Kissing all of my brothers friends night after night, Strange!

My hope and prayer today is that my kids will try to stay bonded with each other no matter what life brings or what circumstance's they may find themselves in. Hardships and challenges have come to all of them, some far worse than others. When we strive to keep the spirit with us daily and live the commandments to best we can and continue to serve others the comforter will keep our family bonded and will keep my children close. When we let our busy lives and the glamour of the world take priority it will destroy the family.