Remember when....

I was going through some old pictures today after cleaning and found this picture of me from when our family lived in the house my dad built in Springvale. (see below) Old pictures bring back lots of memories, not just of the picture itself but the small things I thought I forgot. Remember the winter boots we wore as kids, the kind that your shoes fit right inside and then you zipped them up the front? I also recall the homemade mittens mom used to make for us and that awful smell that they created when drying out on the radiator after a long afternoon of playing in the snow. This picture also evokes memories of the neighbours that lived in that house across the road. They have long since passed away but I still remember the wonderful cookies Mary used to bake and share with me when I went over to visit. I also recall that they didn't have running water in their kitchen, but instead had an old fashioned hand pump right there on the kitchen counter!
We didn't sit around the house playing video games or chat with friends online way back then. We would walk the mile down to Springvale, pulling sleds and toboggans to where all the village kids gathered to slide down Pierce's hill, much like the kids down here building ramps in my back yard and making their own fun.
We had a long laneway when we moved up the road to the farm and my dad used to plow it with the tractor and blade making huge piles of snow. We used to tunnel into the piles and make forts and slide down the sides of the huge bumpy mounds. I also remember going outside early Sunday mornings before church and hiding in the fort in an attempt to be able to miss the service which only proved fruitful occaisionally.
Funny how an old picture of a little girl in a snowsuit brings back a flood of good memories. Think I will go out and take a walk in the snow!