quality friday: reminiscing

last week i got to spend a few days in chicago - my first trip back since we've moved out to the sf bay area:) it was great to have a little bit of time to spend with friends and family, and i certainly appreciated being able to head back so soon after leaving.

many times, when my family sits down to enjoy dinner, our conversation seems to find its way back to our early childhood years, and we spend hours laughing about the funny things that we did. dinner on thursday night was no different, and here are a few of the memories we laughed about together:

• brandon (longarm), jonathan (bowser) and i (mainframe), reenacting scenes from "c.o.p.s.", would use our bunk beds as the station, and swing feet first in, nearly kicking each other (or hurting ourselves) with each "police call"
• dressed as wonder woman, and using my magic lasso (remember the gold rope used to tie marshall fields gift boxes?), i was convinced i could get brandon to tell me the truth. favorite question? "who is your faaaather?"
• playing clue master detective EVERY SINGLE day - and hating it when jonathan would play because he always gave up the confidential file!
• making "food" for our restaurant out of play-doh, and then baking it in the oven (with mom, of course) so it would keep its shape. we had burgers, fries, eggs, bacon - anything you could ever want to order from us!
• the constant mess we would make in the living room and dining room as we pulled every cushion off the couch to avoid walking in the water (i.e. touching the carpet), and as we pulled chairs into the correct configuration for a tent, when covered with a sheet

keeping with the memorable conversations of dinner, we cleared the table and set up for a game of scrabble - the same set we have played for years! boy, did we play that game often...and always with a big bowl of homemade popcorn next to us (and a glass of orange juice - still love my popcorn with oj:)

we also got to celebrate daniel's SEVENTEENTH birthday!!! i can hardly believe that my baby brother is so grown up. i distinctly remember holding him in the hospital the day he was born....and getting to name him (after my doll, baby daniel) . it was a consolation for not getting the baby sister that my parents promised me:)

happy birthday, daniel! hope you had a wonderful day yesterday!