I love the 4th of July. Its always been a huge holiday with my family. Everyone packs up and heads to my parents house in Northern NH for a weekend of camping out, drinking (of course) and swimming. My parents live in a very small town.. they've got a nice big yard on a very quiet picturesque road. Its peaceful up there and I miss it.
Anyhow, this year was a smaller affair. My mother was diagnosed with MS this past winter. She's handling it very well but its certainly taken a toll on her ability to move. It takes a lot of work to prepare the house for over 20 guests so she decided this year it would just be us: meaning my parents, my sisters family and of course Rowan Barney and I.
We headed up Thursday evening and stayed over until Sunday morning. Our original plan had been to tent it in the back yard, however after going camping a few weeks earlier we realized how much "stuff" you had to bring for that type of thing, so we decided to sleep in my parents house.
Now, I grew up in this house. We moved there when I was about 6 or 7. However, the house is very very old.. built circa early 1900's. I'd say its about 100 years old or so. We always knew growing up that weird things happened... ie.... spooktacular types of things.. noises, bumps in the night... the occasional hearing of voices etc etc. It never scared me though.. it was my home.. and whatever it was, or whatever "they" were, never felt threatening or scary.
Since we moved out (my sister and I) things have begun to happen more often. My father wakes up often to the floor lamp beside his bed shaking uncontrollably. He has to grab a hold of it to stop it. He hears voices often, as does my mother.
Most recently, my mother had flown to Florida so spend some time with some friends leaving my father home alone. He emptied the dishwasher and then went to watch TV. He came back into the kitchen to find all of the upper cabinets open (even the ones with only food in them). He had had a beer and thought perhaps he just didn't remember leaving them all open, so he closed them and went back to his news channel.
Upon returning a few minutes later, he was greatly disturbed to find that the doors again, were all open.
Upon hearing this story, Barney (the hubby) vowed never to sleep in the house again. He hates ghost stories and anything creepy. He'd already had an uneasy feeling sleeping there and this just added to it.
Anyhow I digress, you can only imagine how hard it was for me to convince him to sleep inside again.
The first night, we had our room all set up. Its a room off the back of my parents house that is most definitly and addition. They keep a couch and a TV back there. We had an air mattress on the floor and Little Miss Rowan was already completely zonked out on the couch.
We got all snuggled into bed, pulled the covers up and had all the lights off.... after a few minutes and at the point where we were just entering sleep.... We heard a noise. A loud one, and a deliberate one, "knock knock knock."
Now I'm not kidding when I say my husband probably jumped out of bed at least 4 feet into the air... he cursed quite loudly... "what the BLEEP was that!!!!". I could hear his heart pounding through his chest.
Now I'm sort of half asleep at this point also, and I could have sworn the noise came from behind us, on the outer walls of the house. I begin concocting explanations as any logical woman would do.."mouse in the wall.. this room is an addition with no slab underneath, maybe its a squirrel or a skunk under the floor boards" etc etc. Of course I know damn well that this noise was not something an animal could do. Its sequential and evenly spaced.. knock knock knock.
He's already up at this point, gathering clothing to pack up and leave... and trying to find the light switch....
After what felt like an eternity, but was really only about 2 or 3 seconds, I hear a giggle.... its my sister. She's behind the door, and she's looking for her necklace that she left laying somewhere...
I almost pissed my pants laughing.... Granted, the knock really did sound like it came from behind us and not in front of us. But my poor husband had a heart attack and thought we were being attacked by some ghostly spirit, when in fact it was my sister merely looking for her jewelry.
We laughed about it the entire weekend, and we would not let him live it down... we still laugh about it actually. Poor poor Barney.
Anyhow, the rest of the weekend was fabulous. We watched the little town parade (two fire trucks and a girl on a horse) and ventured into the towns fair (a bunch of tables selling used crap and one booth selling fried dough).
We also tried to keep Rowan awake for the fire works on Saturday night. We got her all psyched up for them all day long... so she wouldnt' be afraid of the noise. At 9:30 they finally started, and she fell asleep at 9:20. Oh well, maybe next year! hahaha
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