Angel in Toyland

There are just certain things that go together, like peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter and chocolate, pie and ice cream, salty and sweet, milk and cereal, meat and potatoes, cookies and milk, and ice cold lemonade on a hot day!  Another pair that went well together was Haley and Ashley!  

We are going to stroll down the lane of my once upon a time, or my long past to a time when fanny packs were cool (I'm sporting one to the left), cassette tapes, and some pretty cool electronic/robotic toys!  I could not write about my life without writing about a certain person who was always with me throughout my childhood.  This person was my BEST FRIEND!  Just to illustrate our relationship a little, the term "best friend" is an understatement!  She was like a twin sister I never had.  We were joined at the hip most of our childhood.  We met at age 4, she lived across the street from me.  I don't remember our first meeting, but because her mom took a picture of us dancing to Little Mermaid's Under the Sea, I do remember that day!  For some reason we just had this connection and bond that could not be broken.

When my parents talked about moving down the road to a little town called Parawon I remember the thought of it broke my heart.  I did not even want to think about my life without her right next door.  Sometimes I wondered if maybe we knew each other before this life and we promised each other we would be friends here on earth! It still makes me wonder because it has been interesting to me that each time we talk or see each other now in our adult lives, we seem to never miss a beat.  We could go years without talking and then when we do it's like no time has passed at all, we just pick up right where we left off!  Not only that, but we seem to develop the same mind set about so many things, I don't think we have had differing opinions on hardly anything!

She was such a big part of my childhood, we were both adopted into each others families, so to say.  Most of my childhood memories had her presence in some way or another.  We did everything together, everything from lemonade stands to toy collecting, to team babysitting.  Whenever someone needed a babysitter and they called one of us, they always got the both of us.  People in the neighborhood even got our names mixed up despite the fact that I was a short, stocky, brunette with dark eyes and she was a tall, thin, blue eyed, blonde, haha!  Our looks, totally opposite! We were always business partners whether it was school projects, or earning our own money to buy the next beanie baby.  In the 5th grade we had a project where we had to plan a road trip and map our way across the United States.  We also had to figure out what cities we would stop at to visit and stay the night.  We had to research some of these areas and find out what was there for us to visit.  We had to keep a budget as well for gas, food and overnight stays.  I'm pretty sure I remember this project well because Ash kept everything and we looked through it years later.  It was fun and exciting!

When we were really young we would spend a lot of time playing in my closet.  It was our little hide out.  There was a staircase running above my closet that made it a weird sloped shape on top and it was large.  There was a lot of space behind where the clothes hung.  We would take our toys and stuffed animals in there to play, along with our flash lights.  I remember her saying "I love your house, it feels like anything is possible".  My house did have a sense of magical character of sorts.  It was a really old pioneer house.  It looked very different from most houses in Cedar city except the ones that were built in the same era.

Our childhoods passed with many sleepovers, parties, great toys, and our version of the text message.  We passed notes in class that barred the creases of many unique folds and shapes.  I particularly remember many days spent outside cleaning up after her dogs, making hollyhock dolls, and playing games.  Her Grandparents lived across the street from me and her Grandmother had beautiful hollyhock bushes and we would pick the flowers and make little dolls using toothpicks to connect the flower parts together.  We loved our toys, even the ones we made.  She was a big fan of Barbie, not me so much, I collected her, I wasn't really a fan of playing with her most of the time.  We did play Barbie quite a bit though, even though it was grudgingly from my side.  We both loved Polly Pocket and Giga pets, they were awesome!  Can't forget the beanie baby craze!  We often rode our bikes or walked to the local floral shop, Zion Sun Floral, to buy them.  The floral shop and Bulloch Drug were the only 2 places to buy beanie babies.  They cost $4.99, but then raised to $5.99 later.  Now they cost about $7.99, I guess $7.99 is the new $4.99, haha!

As for our businesses, we made quite a haul with the good old fashioned lemonade stand!  We did hire our mothers to bake cookies and other fine foods to sell at our lemonade stand.  We sometimes had some competition from the girl down the street, but we sold ours at a better price, had more flavors and other items.  Sometimes we made $20 in one afternoon!  Our moms were the best, they gave us a pretty good deal on their goods, I think we only paid them for the kool-aid packs that we used and sometimes not even that, haha!  Babysitting was quite a good business at our age as well.  We almost always babysat together.  We had a few families hiring us on a regular basis.  I remember spending many late nights on the weekend babysitting with Ashley and watching Nick at Nite after kids went to sleep. One night, we were at the brand new house of one of our regular families, it was out in the middle of nowhere, not any close neighbors, and there happened to be lots of large glass windows and mirrors all over in the house.  After we put the kids to bed we were up really late, just waiting for parents to return when we heard this really creepy, loud, squawking sound!  It scared us to death!  We could not figure out what it was.  The high vaulted ceilings caused it to echo so loud throughout the house that I was surprised it did not wake any of the kids.  We were so freaked out, but we searched the house and were relieved to find no intruders.  Finally, in the bathroom tub, we found this old creepy doll that talked, or did talk, or was supposed to talk.  Maybe the water ruined her or she was running low on batteries, but all we could hear was some non definitive squawk.  We laughed at ourselves after that, but still a little scary, lone house in the middle of nowhere, big windows without shades, dark outside, lots of mirrors, and an unidentifiable sound inside the house........CREEPY..............HORROR MOVIE CREEPY!!!

One year for my birthday she decided to give me a special present, a heart attack!  I think I was turning 13 or 14.  She and a few other friends filled my room with shredded news paper.  It was literally above my waist.  I came home from school one day and she and the other friends were buried in the paper in my room and they nearly gave me a heart attack, for my birthday!  That was fun, we played in the paper for probably an hour before cleaning it up. As we grew older we sort of grew apart in some ways.  She played the violin and I played the flute, two instruments in different keys. She attended orchestra and I band.  For a church program we were asked to play a duet.  Well, it was hard to find duet music for a violin and a flute so we transposed our own music so we could play together.  Our paths went in different directions in high school, but we still did things together on occasion.  She made new friends and so did I and some of those friends were mutual friends.  Just like the flute and the violin, we transposed our lives so we could still be friends no matter what!  We don't see each other much anymore, but I still consider her one of my best friends.  When we do talk it's like time stood still 15 or 20 years ago.  We are different people now, but our hearts are mended together still.  Among our childhood, our toy land, there was an Angel!

I have been blessed with many angels in my life, my Mother, my Sister, my Husband, numerous other friends that have crossed my path and the one who never stopped crossing my path, Ashley.  She did not necessarily shape who I became, but she was ever present while the shaping was going on.  She was there with me through thick and thin when other people in my life could not be at times.  I find myself, often, thinking of those days long ago and am overcome with gratitude for the role she has played in my life thus far.  What a blessing it has been to have a friend like that in my life, someone I could call an angel!  I truly believe Heavenly Father gave me an angel to help me through some of the toughest times in my life so I could make it to where I am today!

Who are the angels in your life?  Empower yourself by being an angel to someone else!