Flashback Friday::The Next Door Neighbors

Or should I say The Boys of Next Door? What can I say? I loved to make out and you'll find that is a theme of all the boys I hung out with...most of them anyway. Just be forewarned.
So on to the memories.
Oh my. This is going to be a long one! I LOVE this house and all the memories it holds within those walls!
Wow, this house floods me with emotion. Joy and sadness. This house was right next to ours. When we moved in the Jensen's lived there.
THE JENSEN'SDave, Kathy, Julie, Denise, Amy, Eric, Davey, Marie and Steven. I was right in between the ages of Amy and Eric which, by the way, were born in the same year, just 11 months apart, one in January and one in December. Crazy! I really appreciated both of our mom's for what they instilled in us. We had so much fun with them. But we were kids so of course there was conflict. Our moms NEVER got involved. If we tried to tattle we were quickly sent outside to fight our own battles and resolve our own issues. I think this has helped me immensely in my life! It taught us to problem solve. And because both moms agreed on this, there was never one mom blaming the other kids for being trouble makers and so on. That happened a lot with other kids in the neighborhood.
I remember when they decided to put an above ground pool in. They decided to dig down two feet. We all helped. We spent at least a week digging. And when it was done and the pool was in, it was so rewarding! It wasn't huge and was only 5 feet deep but that didn't matter. Everybody would work together and run the same direction in a circle. That would create the best whirlpool to where we could eventually just lay on the water and glide. Then of course one of us would try to go the opposite way and get swallowed under. So fun.
One time we got into a big fight outside. I particularly remember Denise and I. They all went running into their house to get away. Denise was at the end of the pack. We tended to get physical with each other. I couldn't catch them so I grabbed the really long metal pole you use to turn on sprinklers in the ground. I chased them and right before they slammed their door closed and I was able to get that thing in the door and slam it down, hitting Denise right on the head. Hey I never said I was nice! That time, Dave was home and I got in trouble.
Whenever Eric and I would fight we'd gather our dad's tools and stand in our own backyards. We'd throw them over the fence and try to hit each other with them while we yelled our verbal attacks. Soon enough that was forgotten and were back in the front yard pulling the legs off spiders and pinning grasshoppers to the fence.
We all loved to ride our bikes together and play in the park. We'd spend hours in the tennis court trying to hit each other with tennis balls. None of us were actually very good at playing the game.
Under their stairs in the basement, normally used for storage, their dad cut a window and made it into a play room. We'd use it as a restaurant. We'd place our orders through the window. We'd use it as a kitchen, a house, a school room.
We'd have sleepovers on the trampoline almost every night of the summer.
So many memories.
They moved a few blocks away when I was in 5th grade.
That's when the Bateman's moved in!
THE BATEMAN'S
Rich, Deb, Ashleigh, Nate, Isaac, Jed and Mackenzie.Ashleigh was 1 year younger then me, my brother's age, and Nate was 3 years younger. But we all got along so well! And I had the biggest crush on Nate. He was way taller then me, which doesn't take much, but that made him seem older. We shared our first kiss two years after t hey moved in. And boy did we like to kiss! We all did everything together. We'd play basketball together, ride bikes, play in the park. Nate was the one that first taught me how to hit a baseball at Frontier Elementary. We still played in the room under the stairs. We'd jump on the trampoline. We'd put the sprinklers under the tramp in the summer and sleep under the stars. We spent almost all of our time outside. As we got older we caused trouble in the neighborhood. :) Deb would do my hair before school because she was so good at French Braids and doing them lots of different ways. Mackenzie became like a little sister to me since she was a baby when they moved in. I'd take her everywhere I could.
A funny memory about their house is one winter there was a pretty good snow pile in the bushes next to the walk way to the door next to the grass. Look in the above photo to see the window above the door and the teeny tiny roof. We all convinced my brother that he could ride a sled off the roof and actually land on the snow. Oh my. My poor brother. If we ever wanted to see if something worked we could talk him into it. He was forever the guinea pig. Well there was no way that sled was going to make enough speed to jump clear across the cement and land on the grass. No. It nose dived and landed right on the stoop. He landed on his butt and I'm sure his tail bone is still cursing him. Or maybe he landed on his knees. Perhaps that was the start to his knee problems. Either way, he was hurt and pissed! :0)
They moved away to Twin Falls falls when I was a Sophmore. The two days before they moved Nate and I skipped school. We hung out in Kyle Hudson's basement in his room and made out! We knew it would be our last time for likely ever! (Turns out there would be one more time, 5 years later when I went to his sister's wedding in Twin. And boy did we start right where we left of as far as our friendship. He even drove back to Boise with me so we could have more time together and had a friend pick him up. Fun kid.) On the second day we freaked out when we heard the garage door open! Kyle's dad came home from work. Crap. We were grabbing our stuff as fast as we could, got out the window and went running through the neighborhood! :) I missed him terribly and we wrote all throughout high school.
That's when the Allison's moved in.
THE ALLISON'S
Gregg, Kathy, Bryce, Brent, Bart, Briea, Brittny.
Bart was a year younger then me but in my same grade at school. He quickly became my pot smoking boyfriend for over a year, spanning my junior and senior years. My mom always knew that he smoked, unbeknownst to me, but she never told my dad because she knew me and she knew my dad. She knew I wouldn't smoke. She also knew that my dad would make me stop seeing him. That would just make me want to see him more and likely smoke with him. Smart lady! Everyone loved my mom! She was mom to all our friends.
Anyway he did stop smoking after 6 months when he was caught by his parents. I began to love this knew Bart even more. For our 6 month anniversary he gave me a ring. I still have it and where it on my toe. He also used to make me really cool stuff like wallets and necklaces.
Unfortunately his grandma died about a year into the relationship. He was so close to her! He went back to Oregon for the funeral and spent two weeks there. He was depressed and with his old buddies and started smoking again. This continued for about two months but he was lying to me and I just KNEW he was doing it. I finally resorted to checking out his old hiding spots in his car. Sure enough. So we talked and I told him I like him better not high and that's not what I really want in a guy. He said that's what he wanted to do for the remainder of our senior year so that was that. I said good-bye. That was so hard! He still wanted to take me to prom but two weeks before the dance I decided I just wasn't into it. I hated dresses anyway! What was the point?
And I did the unthinkable too. I was hurt that he chose pot over me. I gave my keys to his car to his sister, who had become a sister to me. She was so hurt that he was smoking again. She was stealing his stashes and then giving them to me to throw away. Yep, you guessed it. I kept one of the stashed as well as the pipe and I tried it because I wanted to know what the big deal was. They moved back to Oregon two weeks after we graduated. His whole family slept at my house the night before the move and all of our buds in the neighborhood came over. We had an ll night party. We swam all night long! Well, Nikki and I sneaked away from the party for a bit to the park to smoke some of the stash. And guess what, he came looking for us and caught me and was soooo hurt because he knew what my standards were! (little did he know it was his stuff---his sister and I denied it for a long time.) He felt totally responsible. He cried and it was so sad. We sat in his car for the rest of the night talking and laughing and he said, "If you were going to do it why didn't you just join me. It would have been so fun and we wouldn't have had to break up." Yeah right! Anyway, I loved our relationship while it lasted. Some teen relationships are so dramatic but we never fought. We went to dances together. We liked to make out. We had so much fun together. He worked at McDonald's for a portion of that time and me and the gang would go through the drive-up window and he'd give us free food and happy meal toys. I remember one week they had these mini plastic license plates that came with letter stickers to decorate them. I'd write a message on them and then go leave it on the visor of his car and then he'd write me a message and put it in my car for me to find later. This went back and forth for a couple of weeks. That's how he told me he loved me for the first time. Writing it with stickers on a license plate. We had keys to each others cars so we'd leave little notes and such. He called me his sugar booger. Our song was Smashing Pumpkins--Disarm. he chose it while I was at EFY the summer after my junior year. I loved it.
We loved hanging out with our gang. I was usually the only girl with 8 other boys from the neighborhood. We did everything together! We'd all hang out in my garage listening to music almost everyday when it was nice outside.Bart had beautiful long hair. After school we'd sit in front of my mom and she'd scratch our heads and play with our hair with her long nails.
He and the gang found out from my mom that she thought I was a boy while she was pregnant and I was supposed to be named Matthew David. (They didn't know till I came out that I was a girl and didn't have a name picked out. They heard the song Just Call Me 'Angel' of the 'Morning' on the radio on the way to the hospital and Angela Dawn it was. I love that I was named after a song.) Anyway, the gang all started calling me Matt and that last months and months. That's what they'd say when they called me too. They ask anyone in my family if Matt was home.
I used to sneak out at night and sneak in his window and we'd talk and talk for hours and watch movies until the sun came up and I'd sneak back home. His parents were my parents and vise versa. (expect my dad because he was the bishop and that was just weird for all my friends) We called his mom Momala. She loved it.
One of my scariest memories was the last day of school of our junior year. Nikki invited all of us, about 18, to go to Lucky Peak with her family and go boating and camping. The boys were going to sleep on one side of the lake with her dad and brother and the girls on the other side of the lake with her and her mom. Well for Keri(my very best cousin and friend) and I that would never do! We always had to be sneaky. She was seeing Ben at the time. Neither of our boys could be there for the boating. Besides we didn't want to have to be on opposite sides anyway! So we lied to Nikki's parents and said that we had to be home that night. They dropped us off at my truck and then we drove to a prearranged spot that we were supposed to meet our boys to camp for the night. They were supposed to meet us at 10:00 because they got off work at 9:00. 11:00 passed. Midnight passed. 1:00 am passed. We were so worried! We weren't supposed to be with them so we couldn't call our parents! Finally we decided to go looking for them at 2:00 am. Imagine our horror to be driving down the highway and see Bart's car on the back of a tow truck! We both started crying and freaking out and trying to get the drivers attention so he could tell us where the hell he got that car and where the guys were. He pulled over and we were so thrilled to see Ben and Bart jump out of the tow truck. We hugged and cried and were so happy they were ok. They had made a wrong turn and then tried to do a u-turn on this dark road and slid down and embankment. Being as dumb as we were, we still camped with them that night in the back of my truck since all the gear was in Bart's car.
That summer they had a tent trailer set up in between our houses. He and I and his two sisters spent so many nights in there playing card games all night and camping out! I'm pretty sure my brother was with us too.
I played the game Mall Madness for the first time with his sister's in there and we laughed so hard! It's the most hilarious game. But only the old school version. When they moved I thought I'd never see that game again. 5 years later I found it at Savers! Me and my two nieces love to play it and we laugh just like I did back then and at the exact same parts.
I love these memories!