In the early years, before Sibling 11 showed up, our family lived in a place that had a really large yard.  And in this yard were two perfect rows of fully grown pine trees.  These rows were set just far enough apart for a couple people to walk through at the same time.

So we naturally decided the trees were set up perfectly for our use.

On one end of these rows we created a little seating area out of logs.  Along the “walkway”, we laid down an extra thick layer of carpet (okay, pine needles).  And then we spent most of the summer having weddings and playing lawyer.

I have no idea how many times I married my brother, or acted as part of the jury deciding whether my younger sister was guilty.

It was awesome.

And these trees served an additional purpose; they were a natural hiding place.  Whenever our mom called us into the house, we would ignore her (she usually didn’t have a good reason for wanting us to come in, anyway).  Usually, ignoring her worked and she would leave us to keep playing until we decided to come in ourselves.  Some days, when she had special energy for some reason, she would get annoyed enough to come looking for us and try to force us inside.

And we’d take to the trees.

All of us.  A couple of my siblings would hoist me (I was only 5ish) and my little sister into our trees before taking to theirs.  And then we would climb.

High.

And hide on the opposite side of the tree our mother was on.

When she left we would climb down and continue our rudely interrupted wedding.

This is what I saw when I came home from work at the end of the day…

No really…you can’t make this stuff up. 
They were hanging out of the trees saying hello. 
All 10(?) of them.