I know I’ve said this before, but I love my parents’ house. They love to entertain us and both have such a knack for making this place feel like home, even when I haven’t lived there in almost half my life. In the fall, the sun sets at just the right moment in their backyard. You can just see the cotton field through the trees and if you’re quiet, you can just hear the coyotes howling from afar. The Texaco sign on the barn is all lit up and the entire place smells like a campfire.
We eat hot dogs and doritos and drink gallons of sweet tea.
We do our homework around the fire and complain a little because mom forgot to bring us warm pajamas.
We chase this little guy and keep him from falling headfirst into the fire. We play kickball until it’s too dark to find in the woods and complain about being too full after dinner.
We burn marshmallows and make s’mores with pumpkin shaped Reese’s Cups. We laugh because after giving a speech on how we are doing it all wrong, my dad’s marshmallows slide off the stick into the fire.
We make fun of these two for being twins with their iPhones, but that’s only moments before I join them to post a few pictures on Instagram. The first official campfire of the season can’t go undocumented.
We are all smiles because our aunt is in town for the week and she’ll indulge all of our stories and our giggles and our silly songs. We show her our math skills and try on the new clothes she brought and make spend the night plans for later in the week.
We will regretfully load up our trunks and head home in the dark because it’s a school night and their feet are black from playing outside barefoot and we still have chores to do before bed. It’s late and we’re tired, but I can’t think of a better way to spend a Monday night at home with my tribe.
