Personal History #8
Tell about what you did while visiting your grandparents or aunt and uncle.
My Grandma and Grandpa McClellan lived in Hayward, California. My Grandpa owned a construction company, and much of the materials storage and management must have been based at his home because the long, downward sloping driveway led past the house, past an office, garages, woodpiles and tool sheds, on its way to a river that marked the end of the property. The huge area was a great place to play hide and seek. I have memories of looking for raspberries or blackberries to pick in the very back of the property, and pineapple guavas from a plant closer to the house.
Inside the house, there were wonderful things to look at and see. I remember a statue of a knight in armor, a plethora of books, and lots of paintings and knickknacks that seemed fascinating to me. There was a collection of toys stored in small tables in the living room, including beads that could be strung together in long chains and a stereo picture viewer where we could insert pictures and look through the lenses and the images would appear in 3D. (Similar to this.) I remember watching Grandma put together a puzzle, and maybe solving a puzzle or two myself at her house.
My Grandma and Grandpa Asay lived in Bountiful Utah during much of my childhood. I remember a creek running across the back of their property as well, except they had a small bridge crossing it. I remember playing in that creek once or twice. We must have visited them in winter once because I also have a vague memory of playing in the snow on their downward sloping back lawn. I remember helping Grandma pick cherries from a tree in the back yard. They were delicious! Card games and puzzles seemed to be the past times at their house. I remember that the walls of Grandma Asay's house always seemed to be covered with her paintings and photographs, and it was fun to look at them and try to figure out if I knew the people in the pictures.
As I was growing up, every Memorial Day we went to my Aunt Noreen's house for a family reunion. They had a home outside Greenfield, California, up a canyon, where there were horses, a colony of wild cats, several dogs, chickens, a swimming pool, swing set, basketball court, an outdoor kitchen with a large table containing a lazy susan, a guest house with a pool table in the living room, and a large yard where the annual wiffle ball game was played. When we lived in Goleta, we could go up and return home in a day, but when we moved to Mission Viejo, we had to go up the day before and spend the night there. We would spend the morning playing with cousins, waiting for it to get warm enough to go swimming, and then swimming for as long as possible. Lunch was a potluck with hamburgers, salads, chips and usually a birthday cake to celebrate my Grandpa's birthday. (My birthday was the same day as his, and I remember opening birthday gifts in the car one year and having the wind blow out my candles another year when we were camping near their home the night before Memorial Day.) After lunch was the wiffle ball game, and then time to return home, usually utterly exhausted. Those were fun days. I don't remember spending much time at other aunts and uncles' houses, so Memorial Days were our chances to really get to know our cousins.
My Grandma and Grandpa McClellan lived in Hayward, California. My Grandpa owned a construction company, and much of the materials storage and management must have been based at his home because the long, downward sloping driveway led past the house, past an office, garages, woodpiles and tool sheds, on its way to a river that marked the end of the property. The huge area was a great place to play hide and seek. I have memories of looking for raspberries or blackberries to pick in the very back of the property, and pineapple guavas from a plant closer to the house.
Inside the house, there were wonderful things to look at and see. I remember a statue of a knight in armor, a plethora of books, and lots of paintings and knickknacks that seemed fascinating to me. There was a collection of toys stored in small tables in the living room, including beads that could be strung together in long chains and a stereo picture viewer where we could insert pictures and look through the lenses and the images would appear in 3D. (Similar to this.) I remember watching Grandma put together a puzzle, and maybe solving a puzzle or two myself at her house.
My Grandma and Grandpa Asay lived in Bountiful Utah during much of my childhood. I remember a creek running across the back of their property as well, except they had a small bridge crossing it. I remember playing in that creek once or twice. We must have visited them in winter once because I also have a vague memory of playing in the snow on their downward sloping back lawn. I remember helping Grandma pick cherries from a tree in the back yard. They were delicious! Card games and puzzles seemed to be the past times at their house. I remember that the walls of Grandma Asay's house always seemed to be covered with her paintings and photographs, and it was fun to look at them and try to figure out if I knew the people in the pictures.
As I was growing up, every Memorial Day we went to my Aunt Noreen's house for a family reunion. They had a home outside Greenfield, California, up a canyon, where there were horses, a colony of wild cats, several dogs, chickens, a swimming pool, swing set, basketball court, an outdoor kitchen with a large table containing a lazy susan, a guest house with a pool table in the living room, and a large yard where the annual wiffle ball game was played. When we lived in Goleta, we could go up and return home in a day, but when we moved to Mission Viejo, we had to go up the day before and spend the night there. We would spend the morning playing with cousins, waiting for it to get warm enough to go swimming, and then swimming for as long as possible. Lunch was a potluck with hamburgers, salads, chips and usually a birthday cake to celebrate my Grandpa's birthday. (My birthday was the same day as his, and I remember opening birthday gifts in the car one year and having the wind blow out my candles another year when we were camping near their home the night before Memorial Day.) After lunch was the wiffle ball game, and then time to return home, usually utterly exhausted. Those were fun days. I don't remember spending much time at other aunts and uncles' houses, so Memorial Days were our chances to really get to know our cousins.
Our home memories are very different because we are so distant in age, but our memories of visiting relatives seem to be similar, although my earliest memories of Grandma and Grandpa Asay were in St. George. I love reading these MaeLyn!
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