Oh how I miss...

So, don't get me wrong, I love my life (most days), I love living here in Idaho (most days), and I wouldn't change the way things are, but some days I just get a little "home sick". Most of you know that I was born and raised in Louisiana and lived there until I graduated high school. I lived in the small town of Westlake, lived in the same house, and had the same friends my entire life. And on some days, like today, I start missing some things and really wish I could just go back and visit....

Oh how I miss...

1. Maw Maw Fruge and her delicious cooking, like gumbo, crawfish ettoufe, and the best roast ever. I miss living a block away from her and getting to see her and hear her "oh so thick" cajun accent whenever I wanted.

2. Maw Maw and Paw Paw Nope. Every Sunday after church we would take a nap, and then get woken up to go have dinner at their house. I miss going to garage sales with them. Paw Paw always had bubble gum in his pocket and would hand it out at church to all of the little kids in our ward. Paw Paw also replaced the tooth fairy, he paid much better than the tooth fairy ever would.

3. Having holidays with both sides of grandparents. We all lived in the same town so they never missed seeing what Santa brought us Christmas morning.

4. Thunderstorms. Oh how I miss that sound! It seemed like we would get one every other day, and now I never get to hear them.

5. Warm weather. We never had much of a winter, mostly just cold fronts that would pass through and leave it cold for maybe a week or two, then go right back to being warm.

6. Tornados. Yes this is a weird one!! I never want to see people or homes get hurt or destroyed, but I would always get such an adrenaline rush everytime we had a tornado warning.

7. The Westlake warning sirens. Westlake was surrounded by chemical plants, and on every Monday at noon, the town tested the warning siren system that warns people if there is a chemical spill, and as weird as it may be, I just miss hearing it, probably because it was just a part of my childhood.

8. Night plan. As a kid, all of the neighborhood kids would do what we called the "Night Plan", which is staying out after dark playing games. Like hide and seek. It was the best!

9. Riding my bike to the snowcone shop.

10. The food. Some of my favorites were... Popeyes friend chicken, Casa Manana, Pronia's, Tony's, Picadilly, and I can't remember the name, but it was the seafood restarant that had the best smothered okra. Yum!

11. The bridges. There were two bridges you could use to get from Westlake to Lake Charles, and I guess I miss them for some reason.

12. Softball tournaments. Softball was my "big" sport, and there was nothing better than spending an entire weekend at the softball field with all of your teammates.

13. The accents. Most of you probably wouldn't believe that I had a THICK southern accent. I was probably the worse in my family. But living up north has taken it away. Sad I know!

14. Yes mam and yes sir. You would never hear someone NOT say mam or sir in their sentence. And if they did their parents would probably slap them across the head! It was very disrespectful not to use mam or sir. I miss that so much. When I first moved to Utah, I was obviously still in the habit of saying it, and I would get weird or rude looks from cashiers or whomever I said it to, almost as if I was implying that they were old or something. So I dropped that habit very quickly! Man how I wish Idaho could adopt that habit. Its just so very polite!

15. Trees. I never realized how many trees there were until I moved away. The interstates and highways were surrounded on each side with trees. My house had huge trees everywhere. Here you have to live in a very old house or up on the mountain if you want any trees.

16. Humidity. When we took a trip to Hawaii recently, I came to realize that I actually miss humidity! It kinda felt like being home at times when I would hear the wind blowing through the trees and feel the humidity on my skin. I really didn't know I missed it until I was back in it.

17. Crawfish boils.

18. Cajun/Zideco music. I didn't listen to it much, but I recently heard some of Wayne Toups old songs, and it just brought me back home.

19. Lightning bugs. (or you may call them fireflies.)

20. Summer nights.

Well, I could go on and on about the things I miss, there are so many, and mostly it just made me feel better to write a few of them down. The south is really a completely different world. The lifestyles are just so different. (Some of it good and some not so good!) There are lots of good people that I miss down there, though I have met tons of great people here. I love living here and raising my kids here. I just need to buckle down and plan a trip to visit my old town so that I can stop feeling so home sick!