where my family and I laid down our deepest roots. After years of moving from one place to another this is the house we finally settled down in and still consider "home" today. It's also one of the last places my mom and I stopped while we were in KC. When we moved in the house was stained brown and the shudders were a dark burnt orange. The tree in front was about 6 feet tall and the shrubs weren't planted until shortly after we moved in. Around that same time my dad installed the basketball goal which still stands on the right side of the driveway and apparently is still in use after more than 23 years. A year or two after we moved in, my dad and grandfather finished the basement adding another tv room, work room and game room with a pool table. While we lived here this house had more visitors than most will ever see. There were few weekends it wasn't overflowing from the basement to the rafters with people my dad knew from Volleyball crashing on the floor, couch or guest room in sleeping bags. As my brother and I grew this house became the hangout for our friends too. Our friends loved coming over and hanging out for a few hours or all night. Some of them even called our parents "mom and dad." Looking at the front of this house, my room was on the top behind the two windows on the left. The walls of my room went through as many changes as I did evidenced by the plethera of posters that were constantly replaced and ranged from ballet slippers and whales to teenage heart throbs or various friends and teenage crushes. It's the house where my brother and I had our pictures taken before our first and last high school dances. It's the house we both lived in when we graduated from high school and eventually returned to after college. This is the house where my family and Bird's joined together to celebrate becoming one. I spent my last night in my childhood room and this house as a bride with her new husband. The very next morning I said good-bye to this house and my family and set out to begin a new family in Wyoming. This is the house my parents sold a month later in order to move to California. This is the house my brother and I grew up in. I don't think any of us were together the first time we returned home. My first visit was 2 years after my family and I had moved out of it. To say my emotions caught me off guard would be an understatement. I was a blubbering mess. Seeing "our home" had been painted white and the family inside really wasn't mine was more than I could take. Monday afternoon, as my mom and I drove down the street toward it I worried how I might react. Who knew what other changes had taken place that might catch me off guard. The back seat of our rental car held one very obvious change in the 10 years since I stood in the driveway saying good-bye to it and my family. Just thinking of Yaya took the hurt out of seeing the new changes to our family's old house. Instead, I looked at the house in a new light and shared with Yaya the happy memories I had from when I grew up in it. She was thrilled to see and hear about the house and neighborhood I grew up in. Are you familiar with the song Kansas City by Fats Domino? It's the song everyone sang when we began our move to what would be our family's last home together. Click here if you want to listen.
