Young Love

I had a great childhood, plenty of time to play outside, get dirty, use my imagination, etc.

One of my 101 goals is to write a book of childhood stories, 

to share the fun days, crazy stories, and silly activities.

Like this story, about Young Love.

Meet Emily and Kendall. Emily's my younger sister, and Kendall is my cousin, my best friend's younger brother.  Aren't they adorable?! I just love old pictures....

Many times during the year, my family would head down to the Porth house in southern Iowa for a few days of pancakes, swimming in the creek, playing in the playhouse, and watching the Brave Little Toaster. (If you never saw the Brave Little Toaster while growing up, you're seriously missing out. But that's another story....)

One particular visit, when Hannah and I were about 8 or 9, we had been playing dress-up and came across a beautiful white dress. Sadly, this dress was too small for either of us to wear, but the perfect size for one little sister.

Spark! Ideas immediately started running through my head, and from the look I got from Hannah, she was headed down a similar path. Our brains ran wild with ideas about a wedding. We had the perfect dress, a girl to wear it, spectacular jewelry, and of course, a gorgeous ring. There was music to select for the ceremony, food for the reception, guests, a preacher... the list in our minds went on and on.

However, the attention span of an eight year old, though longer than that of a four year old, couldn't wait for the entire list to be completed, so we settled on the basics of a wedding ceremony.

Emily and Kendall were both very willing participants, especially since Hannah and I spent half of our time sending our pesky little siblings away - who wants to play with your sister/brother when you've got a cousin to play with?

We sent Kendall away to change into some nice clothes while Hannah and I dressed the beautiful bride, fixed her hair, and coached her on the necessary parts of the ceremony. We dressed ourselves too, since you can't have a wedding without at least a couple guests. We picked a handful of clover flowers for the bouquet, and rounded up our mothers to witness this momentous moment in lives of their youngest children.

We processed down the stairs instead of down the aisle, making the young groom wait for his bride by the windows of the living room, holding aside the curtain over the stairs for Emily's grand entrance.

The littles played their parts beautifully, though the bride was not having any of that "you may now kiss the bride" stuff. Cousins, geesh!

But together, the two left the 'alter' holding onto one another, the perfect picture of the innocence and fun of childhood.