I was cleaning the basement and I found a CD that was labeled “Pictures”. I threw it into the CDROM on my computer and I found a ton of pictures from years past. I could not think of a better use of those pictures than to go ahead and throw them up on the pictures page. The pictures page now has 2004 and 2005, which is long before I even started this blog. This is a list of the events that I added from oldest to newest with my own observations of where we were in our lives at that time.

This is an Easter where I had all three children in the old apartment. Easter is really my time of the year, and that is mostly because my Grandmother always insists on us all going to church. I get all the kids together, we dress up nice, and we go to church. You can tell as much from the pictures. Everyone gets a basket and while there are no pictures of it really everyone gets a little present as well as candy. I remember having to count all the candy so that each child would receive the exact same amount. In some of the pictures you can actually see them checking what is inside the others baskets, and you can bet that this is the exact reason. I do not know why they assume that someone would get more than them, but they always do.

This is two pictures of the kids from that Halloween. The amazing part is that I do not know what Eddy is supposed to be, but I remember him knowing. Patty is quite obviously a witch, but Eddy said that his costume, which is really a mix of two other costumes, is something. I just can not remember what he called that. The kids never want to hang around for long on Halloween, because they want to hurry up outside and get to the candy. This must be a fairly warm Halloween in Ohio, because I do not see either of them wearing a coat. There have been many a Halloween where it was very cold, even snowing.

This Christmas takes place at two different places, which is why the tree and the location changes half way through the pictures. The first half of the pictures are from the apartments my parents and my brother used to live at in Maryland. My parents have since moved to a house. The apartment was nice, but I do not think that anyone is going to miss it. Much like the second half of the pictures are from the apartment that I used to live in with the children. The most notable difference to me is the tree. I had such a terrible tree. My tree is still fake and terrible, but it does look a sight better than that one.

Even before I moved to Akron the kids and I would all go to downtown Akron for the fireworks. I never really prepared enough, which is to say, I never had chairs or blankets. We just kind of drove down, found a place to sit or stand, and watched the fireworks. I must have still been friends with Lee at this time. I have not seen him in forever and honestly do not know where he has gone off to. We used to hang out a lot when I lived at the apartment.

This was a particularly poor birthday. Birthdays were so hard back then. I had to save up the money just to buy the kids anything. I wish I would have taken more pictures, because honestly the only thing I know is that she got a doll and that radio. The doll was some sort of collection. I believe that she still has the doll somewhere and it is meant for being displayed on a shelf. I know she loved that radio. It was certainly something that she asked for. It played MP3’s if you burned them to a disc! I can not believe that used to be expensive technology only a few years ago. I do not know what happened to that radio, but something tells me it got broken.

Eddy has loved DragonBall Z or Sonic the Hedgehog for as long as I can remember. This birthday was no exception as he got action figures from both of those series. Today you could add Pokemon to that mix, but he has also been buying Sonic the Hedgehog comics. People who do not have kids often remark that it always seemed as though Eddy would receive more gifts than Patty. On his birthday, for Christmas, and so on. The fact is everyone knows that boys toys are cheap. Eddy wanted action figures and he got them. You can get a ton of action figures for what a radio or a nice doll costs. I think even Barbie’s tend to be almost double what I paid for any action figure.

My mother decided that what would make a great birthday gift for me is tickets to go see the circus in Cleveland. I had enough tickets to take my Grandmother, Michelle, Patty, and Eddy. It was a great time. We showed up early enough to watch a preshow with the clowns. I really do not like the camera I had back then, and so a great deal of the shots are really terrible. I am very thankful though that the shots of the kids turned out so great. It really is something to see them all in clown noses!