When I was in early elementary school, my dad would take me & my sister to the local mall. He would get us all books at the Waldenbooks - he would get a scifi pulp novel, I would get a Garfield book, and my sister would get a Calvin & Hobbes book. Then he’d take us to a restaurant there in the mall, and we’d have a nice leisurely lunch while reading our new books.

• School plays! I got into a costume and acted on stage. There were some parts where I had to sing and I looked forward to those plays so much I would be giddy! The one I remember the most was when I had to dress up as a gold star.

• Building igloos out of snow. Rather than building snowmen we would build chairs, beds, etc. made out of snow!

• Drawing. I remember my mom and dad telling me about how I could just fill up an entire page with different things! My grandma was a painter for most of her life, and whenever we went to her house, she’d go upstairs to retrieve her art supplies and teach me how to paint.

• Swimming. I just love water in general and the tradition was that we’d go to a fast food place immediately after. If it was after a session at a public pool, I’d still smell like chlorine even after showering. The combination of the smell of the inside of a McDonald’s and chlorine is such a formative memory to me for that reason haha.

• Laser tag. I was really good at it!

• School trips! I went to this really cool science museum with my class once, I would love to say the name of it, but then that would reveal where I live. It was one of those museums where you could do practical things and it was really fun. I also loved it whenever we went go-karting even though I’d always end up with bruises on my inner thighs.

Things I loved but don’t do anymore: Climbing trees, building snow forts, making elaborate toy castles. Falling asleep on the floor in a sunbeam next to the cat.

Things I still do: eat chocolate chips out of the bag, walk barefoot in the grass, take mediocre pictures of random things that feel really profound at the time but are immediately forgotten

Christmas morning at grandparents when everyone was done opening presents sitting alone in a corner building a Lego set with no worries about responsibilities or time constraints.

When I was a kid my parents would rent a beach house at the end of summer on the Oregon coast. Their friends from college would usually stay there with us, in the evening we would have a campfire on the beach. The smell of a campfire almost always brings back memories of those days even now that I’m in my 40’s.

Painting my grandma’s face with makeup. I thought she didn’t realize I was painting her like a clown with a red nose and all, and I thought it was hilarious. Was always mildly disappointed whenever she took the makeup off before leaving, but I never lost the hope one day she wouldn’t notice and would walk out with it.

Ah fun times.

Being able to play sports (baseball/football) with neighborhood kids. No organizations like today. No parents interfering. No one drove you to the field, you walked there. Everyone got along and there were no overweight kids because everyday you got plenty of outside exercise.

Skipping stones over the local water reservoir.

I sucked at it, but it was still time away from my sisters.

The house I grew up in had two trees in the front yard. We would tie string (probably a thin nylon rope) between the trees and hang sheets/blankets on the string, creating a “fort”. All the neighborhood kids would hang out there in the summer and we had so much fun pretending it was a fort, spaceship, bus, etc.

Christmas dinner when my grandparents would join us, miss them loads

running around with super soakers

I just want to say how much I love this question! Yes, I should think more often if the things that I really enjoyed as a kid :)

I loved watching the newest episode of Golden Girls with my grandma when I was a kid. It was on Saturday nights I think.

Friends: Other than being outside with friends playing football, soccer, baseball, street hockey, on bikes, playing around creeks, playing in the woods, we played a lot of video games. We had some absolutely wonderful times playing multiplayer Bomberman, any PvP fighter (you name it, we played it), Super Smash Bros, etc. we’d watch each other play all manner of RRGs too. Yes kids, I grew up with the “classics” when they were new!

Family: Long talks around the dinning room table at holidays with family and friends, yearly OBX beach trips, yearly vacations to see family in FL. Christmas’ and birthdays with family.

I’m blessed/lucky to have a family with low drama and we all get along well. I’m also blessed/lucky to have grown up with some really great friends and we still have strong relationships. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Pretty sure this was back around the time of the diamond and pearl anime, but watching that because marathon on TV while having Sonic 3D Blast paused on the Sonic Mega Collections disk we had for gamecube because there was only one TV in the main room of the basement for watching TV and playing games. I definitely played that game collection the most out of me and my 2 brothers.

I also remember getting stuck on a “puzzle” for Starfox Adventures because you needed to shoot a flame to make it hit a holder but it had to be the right colour. I got stuck because I didn’t have the right cord for the gamecube, so I’m pretty sure I was using something like a PS2 avi cable, which made the whole game grayscale. Not saying I was happy to get stuck, but I do remember it being a real fun game. Definitely gonna replay it when I get my Steam Deck back from being fixed since I never beat it as a child or teen into young adult.