This is Max bolting out to the front from the back yard. A minute later he’s wheezing like an old man with asthma.
Max
Max
Max
Mom & Dad’s Backyard
Mom & Dad’s Backyard
This is the field across the street from my parents’ house. It’s empty now, but there used to be a big tree with a swing we used to play on. The trees used to be short and sparse enough that you could see the other houses in the subdivision. Not any more.
Max trying to look ferocious
Dad & Max in the backyard
Backyard
Backyard
Tiger Lilies
Tiger Lilies
When we were younger this house was up on stilts and there was a trap door in the bottom of it with a ladder going down to the ground. I’m not sure when it was brought down, but now it’s like a tiny little house with flowers growing around it. I don’t think anyone uses it any more. Except maybe wasps… I remember wasps liked to make their nests in the roof of it.
Flowers
The willow has been my favorite tree in the yard from the day that we moved to this house.
Look Alert, Max
Max
Stephanie & Bailey – Bailey used to live with Stephanie and my brother’s family til he decided it was cool to pee all around the whole house. He didn’t take to any of the suggestions the vet had to retrain him or modify his behavior. At their wits end, they decided that it was best for Bailey to live at my parents’ house. He spends most of his time outside running around the yard. He seems happy. My mom said he catches birds even. Not bad for a cat that spent most of its life indoors.
Wheelbarrow -I don’t know why my parents even have this wood. After me and my brother moved out they got a new fireplace. One that you just press a button to light. Maybe this is just for the firepit in the backyard now.
Pine Cones
We used to climb this tree.
Stephanie & Bailey
Crotchety Callie
Green Pepper
Unripe Tomato
After the scrimmage in Green Bay, we went to my parents’ house outside of New London (Bean City), about a 45 minute drive. We stayed overnight there and spent the morning around the house before driving back to Milwaukee to get some lunch and see Amanda off to work.
I took a bunch of photos of the outside of my parents’ house (I meant to take some of the inside too but forgot) mostly because it looks so different than when I lived there. When we moved in the grass was dry and rusty and there were barely any trees or bushes or anything. Then my dad did his best Johnny Appleseed imitation and here’s what we have now, about 17 years later. The outside of the house isn’t all that changed. A few years ago my mom worked with an interior designer to redo the inside of the house too. So now my brother and my bedrooms are an office/music room and a spare bedroom and all of the other rooms look much more put together than when we lived there. I’m sure part of that is because there aren’t any kids in the house any more.
A secondary reason for taking a lot of photographs is because my parents are toying around with the idea of moving to Waupaca, where my mom now works and where many of their friends and favorite restaurants and stuff are. And even though I live a lot closer to them now, than I have in the past, not having a car makes it hard to get to New London, about a 3 – 3 1/2 hour drive from Chicago. So who knows when the next time I’ll be back.
And on a sad note, our poor Max and Callie are getting so old! I remember when we got Max, a springer spaniel mix, for my dad for Christmas. We went and picked him out of the litter and kept him a secret at my aunt’s house. When my family came over to celebrate the holiday we tried to talk loud over any barks from the back room and then gave Max to my dad, wrapped up in a box. Callie is the sole survivor of a string of about 100 cats (it seems) like we had. They just kept having babies and babies and more babies. Now there’s just Callie. Recently, my brother’s cat Bailey, after having many many many accidents all over their house and refusing to be retrained, went to go live at my parents. Outside. He seems to love it and I’m sure he’s giving those old geezers, Maxie and Callie, a good work out. Max seems to have some problems with his back legs, maybe arthritis. But at one point I was across the street in the empty field (where’d the tree with the tree swing go!?!) and Max came bolting out running from the back of the house to come by me. But it was all show.. after he stopped running he was wheezing like an old man with asthma! That guy needs a doggie inhaler. Still it was nice to see he’s still got some spirit in him.
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