Happy Days...............

The past few days have been bad days for me. The weather hasn't helped, being cold, rainy, and all out blah!!!!! Today, however, the sun is shining, and I'm fighting to get out of the funk that I've been in for the past few days. As I was driving around Findlay today, some happy memories of my mom came to mind, so I thought I would share them. My mom and I were very close, and in my younger years, we had so many fun times together. I think I was the lucky one to be the youngest in the family, and the only girl, because I think my mom and I shared a special bond that she didn't have with the boys. Not that she wasn't close to them, but it's just that our bond was special. One of my favorite memories of mom was a time that my parents and I went to Disney World over Christmas vacation. We were at the park, and I had decided that I wanted to ride the sky ride, where you sit in a car and ride on a wire across the park and look out over all the rides and millions of people visiting the park. I will be the first to tell you that heights have never been my forte, and it's also the reason that my dad decided to stay on the ground and wait for us! So, mom and I got in line and just as we were about to board onto our "car", the ride operators said that they would be shutting the ride down for some routine maintenance. Well, as soon as I heard this, I decided that I no longer wanted to ride this thing! I quickly began looking for a way to get out of there! I saw some stairs that led to somewhere, so we decided to see where this led! When we got to the bottom, we saw what looked like a big garage area, so we ventured into this area, figuring that somehow, we would be able to get back to the main park. As we entered, we realized that this was like a miniature city! An underground city! We found out that this indeed was a city, with street signs, and everything. As we were walking through there, trying to act like we knew what we were doing, we ran into Mickey Mouse, taking his head off, and also saw many characters getting ready to put their costumes on. Finally, Cinderella asked us if we needed any help, and my mom explained how we got down there, and she very graciously showed us how to get back to the main park. I look back on that memory now and realize that my mom could have "blown a gasket" when I decided not to ride the sky ride. But, she took it all in stride, and later on, we had a good laugh about the whole thing. Another fun memory of my mom was when we went to King's Island on another vacation, and there was a ride there that resembled a bobsled, and she got on it with me. She had so much fun on that ride and laughed so hard that she had everyone waiting in line laughing along with her! Her laugh was very contagious. She also loved to ride the scrambler, and every time we got on there, we'd laugh until we cried! I would try so hard to not slam into her once the scrambler started moving, but she'd always make me laugh, and into her side I'd go! Another memory was when we were at the mall to pick something up, and Curly, from the Harlem Globetrotters was there for a meet and greet, and he picked mom out of the crowd to help him with one of his stunts. She was the star of the show. She ended up getting to keep the basketball and got an autographed copy of Curly. Mom was always a good sport, and a great example of this was when our youth group decided to have a "haunted house" for halloween in the basement of the church. We were coming up with ideas to make it scary, and mom taped herself singing in a really screechy voice, that we could use when everyone walked into this room. She and I had a blast making this tape, and, once again, laughed until we had tears coming out of our eyes! This particular halloween party was also a costume party, and my parents dressed up as the Pillsbury Dough Twins! They were the hit of the party. As serious as they could be at times, it was fun to see them "let their hair down" once in a while so that everyone saw the fun side of them. These are just a few memories of mom that make me smile everytime I think of them! I'll share more in the days and weeks to come. I also have special memories of my father, which will be my next entry.

Until next time.....................