Story Time

Tonight during dinner my youngest son asked if we could tell family stories when dinner was over. Since I had been telling my hubby that I felt like our family was isolated from each other and needed to spend more time together just before dinner started, I felt like this was a question that I definitely needed to say yes to. After the dishes, We gathered together in the living room and spent a couple of hours telling stories from our past. I guess I should say from my past. It seems like I am the only family member who likes to talk and I was designated the main story teller or was it that I didn't let anyone else get a word in edgewise? I was asked about my favorite date, which led to the story of my first date, that turned into a discussion about why my parents allowed me to date before I was 16, which was interspersed with the story about marching band in the summer very early in the morning and the national guard members sleeping in their Army green underwear in the halls of the high school which led into the story about throwing water balloons at the national guard guys with my young women leader, and how we were almost killed which then became the story about the national guard group with dysentery and how my dad, the "friendly local behind enemy lines", had to go to town to purchase Kaopectate for them. That was followed up with stories about my childhood friend , Michelle, and our matching Valentine dresses and our matching perms. and how hers made her look beautiful and mine made me look like a poodle. And the first and only time we tried to smoke in the tree house in the orchard between her house and Billie Jo's and we couldn't get the match lit. Which then turned into stories about the mission field and Dave giving up smoking and then getting baptised, and then baptizing his wife after I was already home and couldn't be there to share in the joy. That brought up stories about going to my friend Adele's house and playing Uno, and cheating at Uno, and how her parents died and she became guardian of her sisters. and having to be home from her house before the news was over, and dropping the keys to my dad's Honda Accord in the ditch and having them float away before we could stop them. My dad owned a Honda Accord before it was the popular thing to do. Back when Honda Accord's were so rare that it took months to get replacement parts for it when something broke down because it had to come on the slow boat from China. Oh I guess that should be the slow boat from Japan. That led to stories about when the hubby and I were dating and our first date, and our first hand holding, and our first kiss, and all the people who lived with us after we got married and how the hubby's sister ran off from our house to get married the first time and all her other marriages and other people who had been married more than once and what makes marriages end. When we were done and went in the bedroom the hubby realized he had missed the closing ceremonies of the Olympics and he was sad, but I wasn't because first of all, you know how I feel about the Olympics, and second of all, I enjoyed story time a lot. Today I am thankful that I don't have to speak in church very often. for a son who likes to hear my stories about growing up. for good childhood memories. for Righteous Children. My birthmonth present to me today was a 3 hour long nap. I guess I was tired.