Sunday, December 7, 2008

Repost with pictures!


So hearing everyone talk about their obsession with facebook, I finally made an account. Low and behold I find my best friend from when I was 3! Rachel Elizabeth (which happens to be my cousins name too) While having one of my bouts of insomnia I did a little jog down memory lane. These are some of my memories with Rachel:
We went to preschool together. One day my mom dropped me off at a friends to be babysat. When she picked me up the lady had cut my hair and permed it so I looked like Annie (totally wish I were kidding). In our preschool pictures with teacher Cynthia Rachel has these long lovely locks and I have my lovely Annie hairdo (only puffier if that is possible)
I played at Rachel's house. I have a bunch of memories there. We would ring the doorbell and pretend we were the maids there to clean the house. We pretended we were getting married in her front yard at least a dozen times. Rachel had one of those great wooden train sets I loved to put together. We played in her bar area. ( I of course had no idea what it was, but there were miniature glasses that were just our size (aka shot glasses) Rachel had a great pool in the backyard and we swam a lot. I remember our brothers walking off the diving board saying "this is Howard Coselle" the pretend they had gotten shot and fell into the water. (complete with Howard's voice. Why he got shot? I guess so he could fall in the water) I remember waiting outside the bathroom while Rachel would get her breathing treatments for asthma. I remember sitting outside that same bathroom while Rachel was in timeout and her talking me into moving the timer so she could get out quicker. In Rachel's kitchen there was a treat drawer. They had those real fruit leathers, not the junkie kind kids have now. They also always had push up pops. I remember walking around the block with her wagon collecting those (we called them itch bombs, but they were on maple trees. They hung down and were ball shaped with pokies on them (great description huh)) We would take the balls, break them apart and the insides were soft, but itchy. We filled the wagon up in hopes of making a cat bed! Her next door neighbor had a slot machine, and you could play it for free! Rachel's grandma lived with her and had beautiful roses. I always thought it funny that she covered them up with fabric! I remember going to "Two Guys from Italy" with Rachel's family. By now my hair had grown out and we both had long hair, but mine was permed. I remember the waiter thinking I was the daughter and Rachel was the friend because Rachel's mom had naturally curly hair. I loved that! I was very shy as a kid, and Rachel wasn't. She always excelled at sports. We both joined gymnastics together and I dropped out when she was moved up to the next level. She of course rode a two wheeler before I did. I was so embarrassed to ride on the kiddy seat behind her mom while Rach rode along by herself! One time when I was having a sleepover I swallowed a gobstopper. I was sure it was stuck in my throat. Her dad (a doctor) thought it wasn't really stuck, but had just scrapped my throat when I had swallowed it. We had ice cream a few minutes later. I was sitting at her bar, in their leater bar stools, eating the ice cream. I look one bite and up came that gob stopper and the ice cream. I am thinking it really was stuck. We would go skiing in the winter time. I remember sitting on the back of her Jeep Waggoner sipping on hot chocolate while wearing my moon boots. My mom always brought me egg salad sandwiches to eat for lunch, and I hate egg salad sandwiches. Of course Rachel was a better skier too!


During this time we also went and got our pictures taken together. We wore matching blue Izod sweats. We also wore pink gunnysack dresses and skirts with fancy white blouses. Because I was shy, Rachel is smiling in all the pictures and I think you can see actual teeth in maybe one of my pictures.


The year of the cabbage patch doll: I had a blond girl with pig tails...Rachel had two of them! Boy was I jealous! I remember sitting while she practiced piano (I think her teacher was my neighbor Mrs. Heinrich.) Rachel had this lovable lab...I think her name was tootsie. We have a video of Rachel, Aaron Waite and myself on the first day of kindergarten. It is the last year when Rachel and I were in the same class. Here I am with my fro and Rachel with her locks of glory and shy little Aaron in his polyester pants scooting along after us (I look at it and see how dang adorable he was) I also have on with my fro and polyester blue floral dress....it was a winner! When I was in the 4th grade my dad had to have major surgery. So I stayed at Rachels while my parents went to Salt Lake for the procedure. We called up the "Ninja Love Line" which was the request hot line for the radio station. When we were freshman in high school we went with our families to Las Vegas where our brothers were playing in the State Baseball tournament. We stayed in the Tropicana and had a room to ourselves (with Sara Walters, our friend whose brother was also playing) It was the first time I had ever taken a taxi, we rode in it to the baseball field). I have so many memories of Rachel. We did a lot together. Most of my young memories include her. I thought of her mom as my second mom. It was sure fun to find her again and get caught up on her life, she lives in Sweden now! So the moral of the story?! I guess I like facebook too. Oh and if you go the babysitter, don't let her touch your hair!

2 comments:

Linz said...

Wow, you have a really good memory! Old friends are so great!

Marleen said...

You seriously have the best memory. I am so impressed.