Growing up my closest friends were actually my cousins. To me cousins were such an intricate part of my life that most of my fondest memories involved my cousins on both sides of our family. Mom was very close to her sister, Aunt Joy to me, so it was only natural that Mark and I spent a lot of time together whether at my house or at his. I loved the time we spent together. I recall that we took two tin cans and connected a long string between them and tried to make walkie-talkies out of them. Even though it never really worked we sure were good a pretending that it did.

We had a blast when Mom and Aunt Joy would send us to the movies in Price. They even gave us enough to buy a treat. We would go to the matinee double feature. One summer I remember going to see Hercules several weekends in a row.

Once when we were staying with Uncle LaVell we decided that we wanted to go out to the farm for the day and ride horses. Well, no one would take us so LaVell told us that we could walk if we wanted. We were 10 years old and it was about 5 miles up the road and out across the desert. We did it! It took all day (which in hindsight was probably why LaVell told us we could go) We played in every mud puddle, nook and cranny and even stopped half way and ate a sack lunch that we packed while drinking water from our canteens. We were so grown up! I loved, loved, LOVED hanging out with my cousins all summer long.