The house that built me

This is the house that I say "I grew up in". After this house we lived in 2 others but this is "the one". I have great memories in this house. The garage was where we parked the big blue maxi van that we had. It is also where I remember Eric always running away to.
The front room has the same red carpet that my parents put in. This was the formal living room that we could go in when we were in our Sunday clothes. I also remember doing puzzles with my Grandpa Van in that den area (with the hard wood floor).
This is the MASSIVE staircase that we used to slide down in sleeping bags. Why is it not as big as I remember it back then...I think it shrunk. The swinging doors went to the kitchen. We loved running through those. This is the basement where we had the laundry room. I know it is hard to see but you can kind of make out the cubbies that my Dad installed to sort our laundry into. Each cubby had a different color. Maybe mine was purple...maybe it was someone else and I secretly longed for the purple one. Anyone remember?
This tree had a big tire swing in it. We would have worn out that playset had we had it. Dana, Amy and I had rooms up in the attic. They had huge closests. This was also the infamous "window Nathan crawled out of".
I loved this house and loved growing up with all of my brothers and sisters here. After we moved to Idaho we were teenagers and friends became more of our focus.

It was great to just be together!

Life was simpler back then...at least for us kids.