Grapes and Other Good Times

I went home for the Labor Day weekend and spent quite a bit of time out riding our quad. It was a beautiful weekend and I was glad I took my camera along for the ride. I spent some time riding the trails around my grandparents' house and found myself reminiscing about growing up. My grandparents live right next door and they watched my brother, my cousins and me from the time we were babies until we were old enough to stay home alone.

One of my earliest memories of my Grandpa was when we would walk down to the mailbox and get the mail and on the way back, we would stop at the apple orchard.

We would walk around the trees and find the best looking apples. Grandpa would lift me up so I could reach to pick two apples. He's set me down and we would walk back to the house holding hands. We'd go inside and Grandpa would wash the apples in the kitchen and we sit together in the living room and eat them.

I can still remember the first sweet, crisp bite of an apple still warm from the sun.

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Passing Grandma and Grandpa's grapevines also brought another memory to the surface.
When my brother, Michael, and I were younger, we would spend many days of our summer over at Grandma and Grandpa's house even though Mom didn't have to work. We would love to be at their house because our cousins, Joyce and Sam, were there everyday. We would go over and play for hours. Let me tell you, we were (and still are) some spoiled rotten grandkids. How many grandkids get a full playground in their grandparent's front yards?

Or a full-sized, sandbox with lid so the sand stays clean?

My point exactly...anyway...

Almost everyday, we would play outside-building forts, making up games and chasing each other all over. Most of the games would end up girls vs boys....unfair, I know, but it happened.

Toward the end of the summer, Grandma and Grandpa's grape vines would be loaded with bunches of grapes.

The perfect ammunition....

We would split into pairs, me and Joyce vs Sam and Michael and collect grapes in pouches we would make in the front our tshirts. After we were fully "loaded," we would give each pair a couple minutes to hide and then the war began. We would hunt for each other and then chase one another around the yard and fields, all the while pelting each other with unripened grapes. Let me tell you, unripened grapes sting when thrown hard enough!