The Move to Michigan

Moving to Michigan was a big change! We packed up everything we owned, and the bathroom garbage can was positioned under my feet as we got one last glance at our house. When we arrived at our new home in Troy, Michigan I remember thinking it was the biggest house in the world.

I'm sure for a 5 year old it was pretty impressive! We had a living room, a Dining room, a kitchen, a family room, 2.5 bathrooms and 4 bedrooms. The house was bright red, and I remember thinking it was such a friendly house. The back yard had a swing set with an attached fort and sandbox. It was the perfect house to grow up in.

Soon after we moved in I found out a girl named Karen lived 3 houses down. She loved unicorns and horses and just happened to be my age. We became fast friends, even if we weren't in the same kindergarden class. In fact, in all the years we were friends and went to the same schools we never had a class together (Kindergarden through 7th grade). Karen had an older sister named Elise, a dog, a cat, and two working parents.

I always thought Karen's parents were rich because they always went to Disney Land for Christmas and they had a swimming pool. Looking back the only reason they could afford that was because Karen's mom worked as well as her dad. Although we were tight on money from time to time, I'm extremely grateful my mom never worked outside of the home, even if it meant I've never been to Disney.

The beginning of my Michigan years were simple. Mom would make a list of jobs that needed to get done first thing in the morning, and we were each in charge of choosing one or two to get done that day. When we were finished we could go outside and play! We spent the majority of our time outside imagining up scenarios from adventure/rescue to fantacy and back to a basic game of house.

When we played inside we would bring out the Barbies, Legos, trolls, quints, stuffed animals, or whatever caught our fancy at the time. Sheila and I shared a room, and we probably spent as much time playing together as fighting with each other. The older we got the more we fought. I'm sure it didn't help that I would make up ridiculous lies that only a child would believe, or that she would do her best to copy my every move causing no end to my torment.