This came out in the Abilene Reporter-News while Daniel and I were in Washington D.C.

March 2, 2009

My friends and I played with our Barbies all the time.

Most days, our mothers did not have to look very far to find us. My neighbor had a double-car garage. Their parents would pull their vehicles out and we would move all our stuff in. We would set up our houses -- all kinds of shapes and sizes -- on the garage floor.

Then there were the motor homes with all the camping equipment needed. Swimming pools, cars, and clothes galore. I was blessed to have a grandmother who made us doll clothes. I had a great big Barbie suitcase full of clothes. We had wedding dresses, high heel shoes, and gloves. Every once in a while the boys would join us with their GI Joes.

I am not sure my husband and I would have been friends when we were younger because he has told me stories of how he would take his sisters' Barbies and throw them up in the great big mulberry tree in his front yard. They would go so high that they would not be able to find them until the fall, when all the leaves would begin to fall.

-- Belinda Nease, Abilene