Not so little Stanwood anymore...

I grew up in small town USA, or better known as Stanwood. Many of you probably have never even heard of the place, but it is between Marysville and Mt. Vernon. I lived on Camano Island (just outside of Stanwood) from birth until I left for College. Back in the day (BID) Stanwood used to be super small- only 1 stoplight in the entire city, only 2 grocery stores (and if you asked my parents- only 1 grocery store since they only shopped at Thrifty foods), and just one fast food restaurant, the staple of every small town- Dairy Queen.

A lot of people complained growing up in Stanwood, calling it "Deadwood", "boring" and saying there was nothing to do but party and smoke pot. I however, was not one of those people. I really liked my childhood and where I grew up.

I haven't really been back to visit Stanwood, especially now that my parents moved to Everett about three years ago. Well that, and the fact that I live a small world away in Puyallup. But I do think about it often and can picture how everything was BID.

This past "weekend" (which was actually a Monday, but I call it "weekend" since it was my day off- those of you who work crazy graveyard/swingshift hours know what I mean..) I had a chance to go up and drive around the old hometown. I was amazed at how much had changed! Too many stoplights to count, many new stores, fast food joints, and closures of old favorite stores too.

Luckily enough it was a nice, sunny day and Mark and I drove around Stanwood and the entire island in his jeep with the top down. Poor guy, probably got tired of me pointing at things and saying "oh, that's new", "oh wow, that looks so different". He was a good sport though, and said if he could he would move to Camano in a heartbeat.

We went to the State park on Camano and played on the beach, it was even warm enough to venture into the water. And I introduced Mark to the best pizza ever- Jimmy's pizza of course. He loved it, so maybe I will get him to go back up there one of these days!

My saddest notice of change was that the Little Store by The Bay was no longer there. We used to ride our bikes down to the Little Store and buy candy (which to kids who had a diabetic mother, buying nickel candies was pretty much heaven!), and when we moved to a rental house on Arrowhead road where I could keep my horse at home, I would ride him down to the store and buy him Tootsie Pops. Ahh those were the days! However now, the Little Store has been replaced with....condos! So sad.

Oh, and we also found a house for sale just down the street from where I grew up for a cool 2.5 million. Maybe with all this overtime I have been working I can buy it as a vacation place....just maybe!