Special Memories

In celebration of her 25^th birthday today, my friend Silverneurotic is hosting a blog carnival. Her blog buddies were invited to share their most “vivid or special memories of the past 25 years.”

Hmm… 25 years ago I was 12 years old. A skinny tomboy of a kid with a love for Nancy Drew books, her various pets (cats, dogs, hamsters, gerbils, fish… you name it) and building forts in the backyard. I’ve been trying to record lots of my childhood memories here.

But what would qualify as the most special from the past 25 years?

Although I have lots of happy memories from the decade between 12 and 22, the best adventure of my life began 3 days before my 22^nd birthday, the day my daughter was born.

One of the many advantages of being a single mom is that your precious little offspring ends up being a lot like you.

If mine didn’t come into the world with an innate love of nature and sense of adventure, she developed both qualities soon thereafter.

I remember taking her to the local pool when she was three months old. I set up her little bouncy seat in the shade under a tree, and she wore her little pink sunglasses and beach hat, and she had a blast watching the leaves blowing above her head in the breeze. A woman approached to tell me how brave I was to take my baby out by myself. She said she was afraid to do much of anything with her kids when they were so young because she didn’t think she could handle everything by herself without her husband.

Geez, what would she have thought of…

All of our roadtrips to Maine...

and Massachusetts...

and Rhode Island...

when we didn’t even know where we were going to spend the night, and many times ended up sleeping in the car. We always brought our pillows just in case.

Or what about traveling to New Mexico, and hiking in the middle of nowhere, or driving our trusty rental car over 70 miles of dirt roads to explore the Anasazi ruins?


Or the white water rafting in NM and Colorado...


Or all the camping?? We camped along all 105 miles of Shenendoah National Park...


and so many other places in Colorado, New York, Maryland and Pennsylvania...

Even now, we love to set off and drive, just the two of us, and explore some local trail or historic site we haven't seen yet...

But probably the greatest thing about the past 15 years is watching her grow from an adorable, chubby-cheeked and curious baby into a beautiful young woman.

I can only hope that the next 25 years (God willing...) will be just as awesome, filled with more special memories made with my daughter, and now with my husband too :)