The summer my mom graduated from high school my grandparents bought a narrow piece of waterfront property out on hood canal. The next year, my grandparents had a double wide mobile home put on the property and had it placed up near the water. As a kid, I have MANY fond memories of spending my summers out there playing in the saltwater, digging for clams, shucking oysters, campfires with my crazy cousins, hanging out with extended family and just walking the beach when the tide was out.
The mobile home was never anything fancy, just a weekend place for my grandparents to escape to after a long work week up north. As a kid, we’d always stop off at Tacoma Boys for fresh fruit {and the samples} before heading over the Narrows bridge to my grandparents vacation home.
My grandparents loved that property so much, that by the late 70’s they had bought a newer, larger double wide to put on the property. With the help of my grandmother’s three brothers and Father Delayo, they spent an entire week there moving the old trailer to the back of the property and hooking the new one up front. {I have a picture of my brother and I there as kids, but I think those photos are at my mom’s house}.
Anywho, fast forward to the mid 1990’s and after a very LONG and cold winter in Wyoming, the HH and I decided to pack up our cars and move to Washington state. As luck would have it, my grandparents trailer on the back of the property {which they had been renting out to friends for the past 15+ years} was available for the low price of $400 a month.
Which, looking back, I find it totally out of character that my VERY Catholic grandmother let us rent the place together seeing how we were living in sin and all. 😉 {Mom, if you are reading this…. do you know the back story on that one!?}
But hey, the trailer had new carpet and came with a couch and a coffee table and grandmother had found us a mattress set for $50 at a garage sale just before we arrived. My aunt and uncle had a house on the adjacent property and so my cousins would come over from time to time and help me with various projects to spruce up the place.
The HH and I got married a year later.
When your kids were little did your husband change their diapers? Because seriously, my husband only changed 2. The drama of it all {and the fact that it took him like 30 minutes to mentally prepare for the task} was just too much for me to handle. I’m not sure if this was a clever move on his part {like pretending to be asleep when the baby is crying in the middle of the night} or what, but I can’t be the only one out there who’s husband was this dramatic about the whole diaper duty thing.
A few things I think are especially interesting about this photo:
- I was crafty! Even when we had no extra money. Look at the mini quilt and stenciled heart on the wall.
- Who changes a baby’s diaper on the couch with out a changing pad below? Ewwwww
- That sheet hanging over the window to the left of the couch? It was placed there after I got the wood stove to hot and the blinds melted.
- Costco socks!
- That was the ugliest sleeper couch on the planet. And yet, it was all we had so we sat on it anyways.
The HH and The Girl. What a pair of cuties!
{My first garden}
I didn’t realize it until I was looking through our old photos, but that little trailer, and it’s super tiny backyard, was where I planted my first garden. It wasn’t much, just a handful of peas and 6 strawberry plants, but it was a start. 😉 If you would have told me back then that someday I’d be living in high maintenance suburbia and growing 2,000 of vegetables in my backyard for fun, I would have thought you were nuts.
Life, it goes by fast. Soak it up. Dream big. Keep moving forward. Be happy.
~Mavis
More stories in this series:
- The First Apartment
- The First Mobile Home
- The First House
- The First Home in a Suburban Development
- The House with the Hardwood Floors
- The First House We Built
- The House Where This All Started
- The HOA House
Pam H. says
My husband changed the babies’ diapers for the first three days of their lives…. and then never again! He did this for all four kids. I didn’t change a single diaper for those first three days and then they were all mine to change until the kids were potty trained. LOL!!!
I can’t wait to hear the back-story about Grandma! I hope your mom comments soon!!!
CAROL SCOTT says
Thank you for sharing this part of your life!
Kari says
My hubby would only change their diapers if I wasn’t home (which was a rarity.) He swore they always filled their britches the second I pulled out of the driveway. Those kids have perfect timing, I’ll tell you!
Angela says
Omg, I live on the hood canal and am in love with the beauty of it. Humble beginnings teach us gratitude as we move forward and gain more.
Jane says
Loved this! The early days seem so sweet looking back, don’t they? We have lived in Wyoming for 3 years now so I can totally appreciate the “after a long hard winter in Wyoming” part. This might be the last one this girl can take 🙂
Rachel says
I was promised I’d only have to live in Wyoming for two years and I just hit 6.5 (wahhhhhh) — I hope you get out sooner rather than later! 🙂
Jane says
Haha! I truly love it here in so many ways and if we leave I will miss a lot!! We are pretty remote and it does make life challenging sometimes! I’d love to have a cabin to come back to for summers and occasional snowboarding!!
lynne says
Thank you for sharing your beginnings! Love it! By the way, in the snowman pic…is that a cigarette hanging out of frosty’s mouth?? LOL!!!! LynneinWI
Mary Ann says
Looks like a green onion to me.
lynne says
keep looking…. the green onion is obvious. to the right on greens, is something white sticking out of his mouth.
eliz says
Your husband is lucky to have met you. I admire your fearlessness.
Sandra says
My HH was the master diaper-changer. I was on chemo until our daughter was a year old. Chemo made me tired and queasy (and my immune system wasn’t good), so my HH did most of the child raising. He was and is wonderful!
Patty P says
When my husband and I were first married I moved into the “Little House” that he was renting from his uncle. It was on his uncle’s farm and was TINY. The insulation was so bad that we decided to close off the second story (that basically had the access to the attic and our bedroom) during the winter to save on heating costs , and live on the first floor (a kitchen, tiny living room, a bedroom that just had room for our double bed, and a bathroom that may have had the narrowest door ever made on it). We were on an “island” (surrounded by driveway and road), and it was always so dusty (you know, farm driveways and all), but we really loved it. We always talk about the little house and how much we liked living there so close to all of his family (and my family being closer to that area than we are now). There have been many family members who have started their married life in that house…it’s pretty neat! The current tenant of the little house is my husband’s cousin and his wife who are expecting their first child any day now. 🙂 Humble beginnings make us appreciate so much more I do believe!
Carol B. from Lake Tapps says
Yes, thanks for sharing your story with us, Mavis. Hood Canal is so beautiful – what great memories you have!! Well, my husband was a master diaper changer!! He had a double charcoal mask (the kind with two black round air vents…he looked kinda like an alien!). The babies were mesmerized and just stared at him. He couldn’t smell a thing with that mask on! (Btw- we lived in sin and have been married 25 years. Cheers!!)
Mavis Butterfield says
The double charcoal mask comment was HILARIOUS!!!
Ellen in Clackamas says
I had that hide-a-bed couch!!! Only mine had orange stripes on it! My Dad helped take care of my #1 daughter (he was out of work and I had just gone back full-time). He had never touched a diaper when we three kids were babies but now he was in charge! Many a time I would come in the door and hear gagging and swearing from the bedroom. Then he (or my 13 yr old brother) would come charging out the door with their t-shirt over their face, run outside, get big breaths of fresh air, then go back and finish the task. I couldn’t help them because I was laughing too hard!
Tracy says
Boy are you dragging this out! Get to the new house already! You’re killing us.
MEM says
My husband was the stay-at-home parent and he changed ALL of the poopy diapers and most of the other ones. To this day the smell of a poopy diaper makes me want to hurl. His sense of smell is quite weak whereas mine is too sensitive.
Barbara says
I am enjoying your stories so much!! I can’t wait for tomorrow’s!!
Gail C says
Enjoying the story of your early married days. As an aside, do the Costcos in Washington still carry THE Costco socks? Down here in California they carry a newer type that just does not measure up and is narrow to boot. My poor HH is down to a bare minimum of those great, old Costco socks and wants me to find another source for them. So far I haven’t!
Leanna says
I can’t find any either here in southern Nevada.
Mavis Butterfield says
They don’t sell the old ones here either which were so much thicker!!
Lace Faerie says
My HH and dear FIL loved, loved, loved those socks! HH spends 50-60 hours a week on his feet and their cushy-ness is dearly missed!
Em says
My friend has been saying nice things about the socks at Sam’s Wholesale Club. I wonder if the Costco socks moved there?
Vicki in Birmingham says
Thanks for inviting us into your early life!
Linda Bick says
Gosh Mavis, I just love this post! Yes my husband never changed any diapers because of the gag barf factor!!!! You’re not alone! Happy New Year!
Joan Sullivan says
Ha, you are a talented writer. I smiled as if I fondly remember those times too, and I wasn’t even there.
Libby says
Love these posts. Our first house together was in the basement of a lady who hoarded weird things everywhere like plastic kitchen wares and coat hangers. My husband picked the rental bc of the cheap price and the proximity to our jobs. I didn’t have a chance to see it but boy I was surprised! We had to fill an entire storage unit with her hoard and then put it all back when we moved out. But we were never happier than those simple days. Also yes my husband changes ‘loads’ of diapers and he would have hell to pay if he didn’t! These are his kids too and half of those stinky messes belong to him lol.
Em says
I have one of those sleeper sofas right behind me as I type this. My parents even saved the receipt.
Lace Faerie says
Thank you for sharing your memories and prompting my own trip down memory lane.
Our first apartment we only lived in for 6 month. When I discovered crockroaches had invaded our apartment and were showing up in a closed microwave, I was darn near driven into a neurosis. Seriously. I burned my hands cleaning everything with bleach both before and after each use.
I remember quite fondly our lovely second apartment. It was a ground floor apartment with the ‘showing apartment’ above us so no one there at night. I filled the tiny patio with planters crammed full of assorted flowers. We were close to complex pool and as my baby-fever was growing, I loved hearing the kids playing in the pool! We had a fireplace even! What I really miss was that I could clean our entire apartment top to bottom, including windows inside and out, including laundering and replacing our linens, and scrub all the floors on my hands and knees in less than 3 hours!
Man I wish I still had that energy!!