Sweet Shoppe Designs

For Sweet Shoppe Designs March Portfolio #31a - my childhood home

Christy Lyle and Amanda Heimann - A Place to Call Home
March Template from Simple Scrapper
Fonts: Sunshine in My Soul, Pea Carmen

Journaling reads:
This is where I grew up - 1101 North Clinton Avenue in Saint Johns, Michigan. I actually didn’t even have a photo of this house and I had to go online to the City Assessor’s website and snatch it. Looking at this photo I see so many things that remind me of my childhood. First off, the absence of two trees in the front yard. Both were “messy” as my Dad liked to say, leaving droppings everywhere each summer and fall. My Dad finally had them cut down when I was in college so it always seems strange to see the front yard without those trees in it. Secondly, I see those pine trees that are behind the garage. My parents planted those (about 15 of them) when we first moved to the house in the mid-1980’s. As I was growing up, so where they. The next thing I think about when seeing this photo is how my parents’ store was right next door and we could just walk 50 steps and be at the store to visit with them during the day in the summer or after school during the school year. Another neat thing about this home was that there was a roller rink behind it. I learned how to roller skate on Saturday mornings with my sisters there. On the South side of the home, were our neighbors - the couple who owned the local Chinese restaurant. I have quite a few memories of them - one that stands out is the man started up his riding lawnmower around 11:30pm one night in the summer and proceeded to mow his lawn. Of course, we were all in bed and my Dad did not find it amusing at all! He got up, put on his robe, and went outside to tell our neighbor to mow his lawn at a more appropriate time! After I graduated from college, I moved back home and lived there for a year before getting married. I slept in the same bedroom I had as a child - the only difference was I was able to have a TV in there now that I was a grown up. After I got married in 2002, my parents bought another house on Rainbow Lake. They still own it and rent it out.