playing at Nana's House with cousins

  On Wednesday, we had a  beautiful sunny 70 degree day here (yes, it is Jan. in Memphis) so we decided to get out of the house and go to Nana's.  We love going to Nana's house because there's lots of fun paths to walk on and trees to climb outside. 

smelling tree branches

dinosaur Eva hiding in the bush

Unfortunately, most of my great outside childhood is gone now.  The "bamboo forest" in which I would hold Greenpeace Jr. meetings with old friends like Anna Lockwood, Vivian Jaynes, Anne Bailey, etc. (sorry if I only referred to you as etc) is now gone.  The treehouse that we would spend nights out under the stars that my Dad built is now gone as well when the huge hackberry fell over in Hurricane Elvis.  But the old magnolia tree in the front still stands - missing most of its branches - but its still there.  And as Eva marched in the leaves and climbed the low branches, I remembered the fun times as a kid when Laura Bandura and I would sit high (and I mean really high) up in the tree and make animal sounds as people walked by and laughing hysterically to watch their reaction.

Later on that day, cousins Olivia and Maddux came over while Shannon ran an errand.  The kids had a blast racing in the back yard.

Olivia didn't stand a chance against competitive Eva and Maddux. 

lots of yelling was involved - usually about who won