Antiques and Goats

We live in a reasonable-sized city.   I’ve lived in the same city all my life and while the city has expanded and grown outwards and upwards from when I was a child.   I live inside the city not in the center/downtown area but in the area surrounding the central part of the city.  

We have friends that live further out than we do, which puts them closer to or even in, other cities that directly abut ours.  When I was young we used to go visit my parents best friend’s house.   They moved out to what seemed to us to be so far out as to be in the country.   They did indeed have horses and a pond and lots of space.   Today, the city has moved outward to meet their land.

When we went to visit my aunt, uncle and cousin when I was a child we went through farm land on two lane roads.   We counted cows and stopped for gas at a, “fillin’ station” as my mother called them.   It was rural and country.

I think I had forgotten just how close that rural land was until today.   I don’t have occasion to travel in a direct line away from the city usually.  Today, my son had a birthday party that was over forty minutes directly away from the center of the city.  

As we drove we got into farm land.   I talked to my son about what we saw around us since his stomach was bothering him and he needed distracting.   I pointed out the quaint little stores in the little downtown area we drove through.  

I knew we’d gotten fully into the countryside though when I saw a sign on a house of, “Antiques” with a sign on the building just beside it saying, “Goats”.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son went to a birthday party of one of his classmates today.   It was a bit of a drive to get there but it was so very worth it as they had a large trampoline in the back yard.   Pretty much the entire party piled inside and entertained themselves the entire party.   We’d be there still if my son had any say in the matter.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter wen’t to Madison’s eighth birthday party today at a gymnastics studio.   She had fun doing the gymnastics but I think the thing that was most interesting about the day is we figured out is today is her exact half-birthday.   Madison is exactly a half year older.   They had to have more cake to celebrate this fact after they’d eaten dinner.