Yellow Tent I remember when I was young, probably around 12 years old; my parents would help my two younger brothers and I set up a small tent in our backyard. I remember the excitement of anticipating going outside as a family, preparing for the evening events and working together so we could have fun. As dad and I would start setting up the tent, he become frustrated trying to figure out which poles should be paired together. Once we finally matched up the poles, we would stand up the tent. It was a wonderful tent, bright yellow with two screened windows on each side. One of the windows had a small tear in the netting so mosquitoes became our unwelcomed guests. I tried using gray duct tape to repair the rip, but somehow the mosquitoes still managed to get in. Following the tent set up, my brothers and I would drag our sleeping bags and pillows outside and assemble our beds in the tent. We always argued about who would sleep in the middle. However, since I was the oldest, I usually won the prime spot. It seemed to take forever for darkness to fall. We would impatiently watch the yellow and orange colors of the sun blend together. As they dropped slowly down into the horizon, It seemed to sit on the tips of the trees for hours, before dropping from sight. When the sun was just skimming the ground and it was beginning to look like dusk outside, my brothers and I were ready to start our night. Our parents would assemble a campfire and let us roast marshmallows and make s’ mores. The family would circle the campfire for story time. My dad would always tell the scary stories and my mom would entertain with the funny ones. My brothers told stories that I considered to be senseless. I thought they either made everything up, or were repeating something they had seen on TV. My stories were always connected to cheerleading. To be an awesome cheerleader was a lifelong dream of mine. I would tell my parents how I imagined that I was in high school, being tossed into the air while and the crowd yelled for me. I wanted to have lots of girlfriends and hang out with them as a team. I dreamed of having fun at all the games, cheering on the football players. As the night progressed, my brothers and I would make our way into the yellow tent and snuggle into our sleeping bags. Our parents would give us a flashlight so we could see in the dark. After my parents would leave us to inside to bed, go inside to go to bed we would take turns reading books to each other. When it would be my brothers’ turn to read a short story, they would always pick the easiest ones like “Red fish, blue fish, one fish, two fish”, and I would still have to help them. I would pick a scary story to read to them, because I found it funny how they would react. While reading the story one of them would whisper, “Did you hear that?” as if they heard a bear in our backyard coming to eat them. This was the only time that my brothers and I would get along and not fight or argue. I can remember it being so quiet and peaceful, just the noise of crickets coming from the outside world and the shining of the porch light into one of the net windows from our little yellow tent. Once we would be done reading to each other and we were getting tired, Of course one of them would say they had to use the bathroom. And me being the oldest sister I would volunteer to walk them into the house, so nothing would jump out and scare them. While in the house waiting for them to finish using the bathroom, I would wait for them in my room, sitting on my bed. Eventually, I would get tired and end up falling asleep. So needless to say we never did make it through a whole night in that yellow tent. Now that I have grown up and have children of my own, I have passed down this same tradition to them. The only difference is, they don’t have a yellow tent. They share their time in a playhouse, but they go through the same things that my brothers and I went through. They argue about who is