Memory lane

We slept in this morning. (There's a showing at our house late this afternoon, so there's no point in getting home before that.) When we were slowly waking up, I felt the sharp edge of Lilly's first tooth that's poked its way through - I'm sure that didn't help her mood the last few days!
Shawn wanted to see my old neighborhood, so I took him on a tour of O'Fallon. We saw:

• 305 Nancy Dr. - had a new front door & mailbox, a baby swing in the backyard magnolia tree, a small in-ground swimming pool where our vegetable garden was, a small pergola with a fan(??), and a basketball hoop over my old parking space. The porch that Dad helped build still looked great. The grape vine still creeps along the fence. I didn't recognize a Willow-type tree in the area where the honeysuckle grew. It was already a pretty mature yard when we lived there, so it was hard to tell if there were any other landscape changes. Shawn said, "That looks like a very lovely home, Mom!" I thought so too. 
• There's a new park on Nancy Dr. on the way towards Amy Dr. It had a playground, picnic area, and walking paths. It looked really nice. (I think it was farm land before.) 334 Amy Dr. - I drove right passed the street! The trees are enormous, so I didn't recognize which street was ours! The twig in our front yard is a full grown tree and the yews, which were individual bushes around the front of the house, have practically grown into a hedge. There's also a fence around the backyard. The most startling was the maturity of the trees and plants throughout the neighborhood. I guess that's what happens after 20+ years! 
•  Laverna Evans Elementary School looked pretty unchanged from the outside, other than new playground equipment. 
• Marie Schaefer is no longer a junior high, but the building looked pretty much the same. It also had a playground built, which wasn't needed when it was for 7-8th graders. 
• O'Fallon Township High School - Oh. My. It's a monstrosity! The Panther Dome has taken over a large portion of the parking that was in front of the building. It housed a bronze statue of a panther in its front windows. GEESH! There's a new entrance, which is close to the original front, but... Bigger. The side of the building that used to house a courtyard, the library, and foreign language classes is completely filled in and almost reaches the street. The circle driveway by the band and chorus rooms and the girls' gym is now a very tiny parking lot, and the circle driveway is now swallowed by the building. I remember the area around the library and foreign language rooms and some construction by the circle drive, but I'm pretty sure they've done even more in those areas since I graduated. 
• O'Fallon Community Park - We drove around the park where my cross country team used to practice. I had forgotten how big it was! Shawn was impressed when I told him I used to go running all around the park and we used to have races there. He liked it even more when I told him there were two carnivals a year there, too. 
•  Ice Cream Haven - I was relieved to see that it looked EXACTLY the same as it did 20+ years ago - down to the picnic tables out front and the ice cream posters in the windows! Shawn's heard stories about Pierce walking with us to the outdoor ice cream shop. He thought it was funny that our dog would be treated with broken cones and even got a few licks of vanilla ice cream. He was most impressed that we could just walk down the street from our house (or even on the way home from school) to get there. Unfortunately, he was disappointed that the shop was closed for the season.