A Trip to the Attic

I am so proud of my parents; they have finally decided to tackle the attic.  Let me first provide some background on my parents so you can understand how the attic got so out of hand.  My dad grew up in a military family so they moved every year or two.   When you move that often it is not efficient or practical to hold on to a lot of items.  They also grew up in a time when parents were a lot more hands off so he has a few sentimental items from his childhood but they could easily fit in one box.  My mom was an only child and her parents were more concerned with holding onto items from her childhood.  They kept a lot of her clothes, shoes, dolls, etc but almost everything was lost when their house caught on fire when they were living in West Virginia.  As a result my parents made a very conscious effort to hold onto items from my childhood.  They kept almost all of my toys, books, a lot of clothes, stuffed animals, etc.  That adds up to a lot of stuff very quickly.  If properly maintained and organized then it would have been possible given the large size of our attic to handle the volume of stuff.  The issue is that almost everything was added to garbage bags or plastic boxes and placed in any available space without labeling.  After living in their house for 24 years this become quite the mess.  They have been taking it one bag or box at a time but it has been really fun to discover some of the things they kept.  They have also been able to ask me as an adult about which items that they kept actually have sentimental value.  Some things they expected me to fawn over were items I barely remembered and some things they were about to toss were favorites of mine. 

My absolute favorite discovery was the 2 big boxes of dance costumes.  First let me say that most of my favorite childhood memories center on vacations, school, and dance.  Taking those costumes out and looking at them reminded me of so many wonderful memories, friends, stages of life, and all the performances.  It was such a wonderful reminder of how much my parents invested in me and how strongly they supported me along the way.  Here are a few pictures of some of the ones we laughed the most about, not surprisingly two of them are unitards.  Why did anyone ever think those were a good idea?