'Country' Living for a Birthday!

As a young father, I always (and still do) want the best for my daughters, and we always wanted them to want to be at home.  My income level though sometimes prevented purchasing the best, and is why several of their pools were above-ground, before we were finally able to afford building a nice in-ground pool.  But, with the above-ground pools, they thought they were great, and so did their friends, and that is what we were striving for.  We wanted our girls to be home, and we wanted their friends coming to our house; not the other way around.

When I built them their first play house, it really was top of the line, complete with roof shingles, a fully functioning front door, and a partition over the window openings to help shield the rain.  It was built on joists to keep the floor dry, and the T-111 panels and cedar trim edges had 2 coats of paint. They loved it, and spent untold hours playing in it, as did the neighborhood friends.

The same held true when we installed the trampoline.  Wow, how many hours did I see kids jumping on that!?

The same held true when we installed a basketball goal in Dodge City, then on Narcissus, then on Oak, and then on Ashbury Ct.  By the time we had the last one up, the girls had grown to an age where their older male teenage friends would come over on Sunday nights after church for gorilla ball.  It was awesome; such incredible memories.  And yes, other than a lone game of 1 on 1 that I lost to James, my Won-Loss record against these youth went completely untarnished. :-)

Keeping with that theme, and now with six loved ones that call me Pappy or Paps, I still want the exact same thing.  I am blessed that all six still live in the same metro area, and for purely selfish reasons, I want our home to be the one that they want to come to!

This is one reason why we had this really nice play set installed 7 years ago.  It is starting to show its age, but Sunday at WP's party, it still had several visitors playing on it all day.

 



This is also why we have a fresh dump truck load of 12 yards of sandy loam delivered about every 2-3 years.  The pile is really getting low now, as the grass is growing over the base, and we are due for another dump of dirt before spring.  It is amazing how long kids will sit and dig holes in a big pile of dirt, and how many hours of fun they can have.

 

 

 

Due to Pam's allergies, we no longer can burn wood in either of our indoor fireplaces, but when we have friends and family over on chilly fall days; there is nothing better than to build an outdoor wood fire. This is from WP's birthday party, and adults took turns standing under the portable gas heater, or standing/sitting next to the fire that we kept roaring throughout the day.  Yes, that is Pam standing close to the fire smoke, but she did not stay there long.  (It was a very windy day, so 100% of the smoke did not go up the chimney.)

 

 

 

We hosted WP's (Will Parker's) 8th birthday party at our home on Sunday.  WP is totally into football, primarily OU, and this was one table of snacks.  The dining room table was also outfitted with additional OU themed food.  

 

 





 
One of the BIG benefits of living in the country is; wait, let me back up.  It's not really country.  We live in a one-street cul-de-sac neighborhood of 14 homes with lots that range in size from 1.25 to 2.5 acres. 

The neighborhood is between Broken Arrow and Coweta, and I don't call anything that is a neighborhood 'country' (though Pam certainly does) :-).  Ours is on a corner lot, with neighbors a full acre away; it is great.  Our lot is over 2 acres, and after 700 linear feet of wood privacy fence was installed 10 years ago, the back acre is fully enclosed.

This also allows for grooming of a private football field!  We scalped a good size version of field, and then painted the customary boundaries. The first few pictures here shows some of his friends just showing up and engaging in a scrum.  The 3rd picture is 'most' of the kids in a game. This is the one game that eventually had 18 players, and I played QB for each team.  TD's were counted as 1 point each, and WP's team won the marathon game 21-17.  I say marathon because while I lasted about 4 hours, WP and Flap Jack were still playing well after dark, and were the final two off the field. 

The only temporary game interruptions were for cake, singing, gifts, a special father/son game, and a few 'inside' pee breaks (though I was later told that a few of the boys also took it upon themselves to relieve themselves behind the trees.)

 

 

And this is one of many reasons why I love living in the 'country'.  It's only a 24 minute drive to the 'civilization' of 101st & Memorial; but still, one year soon, we will be gone from our current 'country' home as we have decided to downsize.

 

We have had it for sale for 2.5 years, and know that the law of large numbers will have it sold before that number turns to 5.0 years.  When it does sell though, we already own a smaller 1.1 acre 'country' lot at 141st & Sheridan in Eagle Rock that will have plenty of room for a really nice gunite swimming pool, an outdoor living area, and with just a big enough side yard to house a basketball court.  We will be building the home ourselves of course.  Most unfortunate though, there will not be room for a football field so that will make this past Sunday's memory a very fond one.

 

This Pappy will continue to provide things endearing to the loved ones, as we will ALWAYS want them (and their friends) to come to our home for special play times!  It is so much fun.

 

I am a blessed man, a much blessed man.