When my kids ask for a story from my childhood I usually hand them a story that includes me somewhere in a tree.   There were six kids in my family.  We grew up in the city and the four older ones would play elaborate games of tag/war with all the neighbor kids.  We would  run through the backyard of every home on the block.  We came up with codes and signs for our teams and then would hide out at our bases way up in trees.  It must have looked hilarious to onlookers, a whole block filled with kids in every tree busy doing signs like an air traffic controller.

I spent many hours sitting on a stone bench under a very old lilac bush in my family backyard, or high up in a tree hiding away on some branch with a good book.  Before Coco and Eti were born, I went to visit the old house and saw that they were going to cut down the lilac bush so I took some photographs of the lilacs in bloom and also took some small branches.  I glued the branches all around a frame and that is in Chloe's room now.

One time I was trying to show off to my three brothers and climbed the highest tree.  I climbed to the top and was promptly humbled in my ability to get back down.  I waited there all afternoon until my father came home to talk me down.

Last year I drove my kids over to that very tree and was pleased to find that the height was still impressive to my adult eyes.

We do not have any big trees on our property so you can imagine how happy I was to set Eti and Jeff loose on the tree in Nan's yard.

Jeff is wearing the blue, can you see Eti?

I LOVE this picture below, look at his bare feet!  God is so so good in the way that He lets me visit the happy memories of my childhood again through my kids.

Etienne dropping little pinecones on his unsuspecting sister far below.