Lenexa

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I was 35 when I bought my fourth house on two and a half acres in a suburb of Kansas City. My son was four and my daughter six months old. I lived there for eighteen years. I watched my kids grow up there. My first wife died during that time. I later married Ann and she joined our beautiful hamlet in Lenexa, Kansas. So many family memories.

Early on we felt like we had moved to the sticks. We lived in an unincorporated party of the county - Lenexa would annex us a few years later. The city did not have a grocery store - we traveled to nearby Shawnee to shop. Our house had a septic system. There were no sidewalks in our area. It was a bit different for this city dweller.

I bought a used riding mower and wished that I had bought a new one - spent a lot of my free time working on that beast. But it was great to have a lot of space for the kids to run around. For years my son loved hiking in the many acres of woods behind us. He fished in the creek and would be gone for hours. Snow clearing was a challenge on our one hundred foot driveway. And we would rake leaves for days on end in the fall. A bit of work for us.

I guess my predominant thoughts about my time in Lenexa involve things that are not about raking, mowing or shoveling. What I remember most are family times eating and living together. Reading my daughter bedtime stories. Watching my five year old son throw the cat in the pool. Seeing the kids at the top of the stairs waiting to come downstairs on Christmas mornings. These were such sweet years. Lenexa will always be the place that our family grew up together.

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... a place that I have been to ... part of the A to Z series.