Tuesday, September 20, 2011

House Sitting-House Spying

Mark's uncle lives in the Denver area, and we have been house sitting for him for the last 3ish weeks. (He's been getting MARRIED in Mazatlan and honeymooning... everywhere-congrats Joe & Claudia!).

THe neighborhood he lives in is in the thick of Suburbia, and there are a few houses being built down the street from him.

Over one weekend we spent there, we went on a walk to pick up the mail. During our walk, we passed one of the houses under construction. This brought on a flood of childhood memories...

We moved to Mustang, Oklahoma when I was in the 1st grade. After living in a rent house (in which my sole memory involves my beloved Lassie Dog, a heat vent, an ugly burn on my stuffed animal, and a fear of house fires) we bought property in a developing neighborhood and built a house. Half of our neighborhood was older houses, but the other half, the street we lived on, were houses under construction. Ohhh we kids and our neighbors-Kim and Erica-had a HAYDAY! We would leave out our backyard (our backyard backed up to a barbed wire fence and cow pasture)and wreak havoc on the construction crews.
Because of the cow pasture, most of our neighbors didn't build fences in the back of their yards, just the sides. We could enter/exit anyones yard by slipping through the barbed wire. We were suprisingly skilled at moving in and out and through that fence at top speeds.
Our favorite past time that first year, was to play in the houses as they were being built. We started out cautiously-we played in the houses the crews weren't working on that particular day-dolls, games, hide and seek, house, whatever.

But that soon got boring.

So somehow, the game changed that we would play in the houses WHILE the construction crews were working on them. We would sneak through the barbed wire, enter the house through a door/window, and then quietly tiptoe through the house-giggling at our sneakiness, spying on the workers. I have a vivid memory of
playing in a room,
hearing someone coming,
hiding in a closet (one with the sliding doors),
and a construction man opening the doors and finding me.

So what did I do?

Ran to the window and jumped out of it. =)

We got yelled at everytime, but it was addicting-hiding from our unknowing seekers.

Best year ever. (maybe tied with the one that Dominique Moceanu had that AWESOME floor routine during the olympics...that inspired daily olympic practice on the beam (a long wooden board used to distinguish the flower bed from the rest of the yard), a floor routine practiced on the trampoline, and lots of ponytails and instrumental music.

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