Birthday Parties

This Saturday I am going to a birthday party. The coolest part is that it is MY birthday party. It is not a "milestone" birthday or at least I don't think 43 qualifies. One of my dearest friends asked if she could give me a birthday party as her present to me. After a couple of moments I said, "Heck ya!".

It will be a very nice evening with friends. Right now it looks like about 15 people will be in attendance and some of them I don't get to see very often so I am looking forward to it. It will be nice to be surrounded by my favorite people knowing that they took time out of their schedules to be there. That is the nicest gift someone can give.

When I was growing up I remember a birthday party at the park the most. Not sure why, don't remember how old I was, but that is the one that I remember the most until now.

Maddy had two birthday parties that were big shindigs. For her second birthday we had just moved back to Houston so everyone who missed the first birthday were there to celebrate the second one with us. I think we had around 20-25 people.

My favorite birthday party we gave her was when the petting zoo came to our house. We had pony rides in the back yard and in the front yard we had ducks, deer, baby goats, a llama and other assorted animals. The llama did not like our dog and spent most of the day eating the fresh flowers the hubby had planted earlier in the day. Everyone wanted to ride the pony and Maddy kept telling everyone since it was her birthday she would get to ride the pony first. Once the pony arrived and was ready Maddy took one look at it and said "I am not riding that thing!".

Hopefully on your next birthday someone will give you a party and it will be fabulous!

Car trips

Remember when you had to take a trip in the car with your family and there was nothing to entertain you? You had to either sit and look out the window or interact with your family and play goofy games.

These are the things I remember doing to pass the time on long car trips.

I Spy
Alphabet with either the signs or license plates
How many state plates could find. Since I lived in Texas we did not play this much.
Twenty Questions

I tried to explain Slug Bug to Maddy the other day and she just rolled her eyes and said that was about the stupidest thing she had heard. Why on earth would you hit someone because a car went by.

Finally when I was a bit older the walkman came out and then for a little while you could do your own thing in the car.


Now kids don't know how long a trip is in time or miles, just how many movies until we get there. They have freaking video games in the car when they travel now as well.

I think that time when you were pretty much forced to interact with the family was a good thing.

Send To Phone

Remember When they gave swats?

Where I went to school if you got in enough trouble you would get swats. This pretty much applied to the guys in school, but once in a while a girl would get a swat or two.

You had the coaches or wood shop teacher who would look for kids to give swats to. They had the paddles with the holes in them and some of them would let the kids sign them after a particularly bad "swat session".

There was always one little old lady still teaching who thought she could still give a mean swat. That is who the girls always got sent to. If she attempted to give swats to a boy and they laughed..they were sent on to receive more swats where it would be most unpleasant.

For the guys in high school for some it was a game to see how many swats they could get in a year or from how many teachers. The best was to pull a prank, blame someone else and then witness them getting swats.

Today teachers can't touch the kiddos, but we lived through it just fine.

Remember When?

Remember when you would go to the skating rink? Real skates not these new fangled things with the wheels in a line. The cool kids had their own skates with sparklie laces and pom poms on them. There was couples skates, reverse skate, and at the skating ring I went to the night ended with the hokey pokey.

There was usually poorly stocked concession stand and you could count on the same music being played every week. For me it was this song:





And there was always one creepy guy that lurked about at our skating rink it was a guy named Todd. Kinda makes you think about this scene:





Until next time keep the good times rolling!

Remember When Wednesday

Just a few memories from the good ole days!

1. Remember when you got things in the mail. The real mail, birthday cards, packages with presents on holidays. You would save up labels from cereal boxes to get toys in the mail. You had at least one friend who had a pen pal from a really cool place.

2. Polaroid cameras were so cool when they came out. You could have a picture immediately!

3. When you wanted to talk to a friend you either called them on the phone or you walked/biked to their house. When you were at their house you interacted with their entire family and you did whatever their parents said.

4. Speaking of phones, they were attached to the wall and you had to dial the number, push button phones were amazing when they came out. If you lived way out in the country you had party lines, so you had to make sure none of your neighbors were on the phone before you could use it.

5. You had a record player and if you listened really, really carefully you could hear the secret messages when you played the record backwards!

Can't wait to hear what you remember/miss from the good ole days!

Remember When Wednesday

I am still fairly new to the blog world, but I noticed quickly that for almost any day of the week there is a theme you can use. I have not seen this yet, but I am sure it is out there somewhere. I have decided to start Remember When Wednesday and spend some time reflecting on the "Good Ole Days".

The first one is for the Dr.

1. Remember when the best water in the whole world came from straight from the water hose. Sometimes you were so thirsty you could not wait for the warm water that was sitting in the hose to run out first.

2. How about before the ATM/Pulse machine. You went to the bank drive through on Friday afternoon and they gave out the mini rolls of Lifesavers. If you did not get to the bank before the weekend, you had to make due with no money.

3. Sunday nights were all about the Wonderful World of Walt Disney followed by Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.

4. Life was not fair, you got your feelings hurt, you did not always win. You got knocked down and you learned how to stand back up again. We were better people (in most cases) for have a few hard knocks along the way.

5. When a thong was a shoe not underwear!


Hope you enjoy and feel free to add your own memories in the comments section.