It all began here on earth December 20, 1989 at the Portland Adventist Hospital. My parents, Brent Lyle and Sharon Marie Zumstein, were very proud to have their beautiful baby girl; their first child. A few days later they took me home to Woodland, Washington in a Christmas stocking! What a wonderful Christmas present I was! That year everyone was scrambling at the last minute to buy me Christmas presents. So I've been told. That’s because I wasn’t expected until after Christmas, in early January. But I suppose I just couldn’t wait any longer in my mother’s womb. I was ready to start my journey here on earth!
In these younger years I did many things. I was a very active little girl. When I was nine months old I gave my mother quite the fright by putting a giant garden spider in my mouth. I guess I thought it was a filbert nut. Apparently I liked those. Needless to say, when my mother saw me put the “nut” in my mouth, she came over to get it out so I wouldn’t choke. Much to her surprise, when she opened my mouth she saw eight legs moving about. Immediately she panicked and turned me parallel to the ground and started shaking the spider out of my mouth. I am proud to say nothing serious happened, and mom resorted in putting the spider in a jar to show everyone what I decided to stick in my mouth.
A short time down the road, I'm one and a half years old, and surprise! I now have a little brother, Ryan Lyle Zumstein, born June 2, 1991. Now I have someone to play with! Because Ryan and I are so close most of my memories as a child are of him and I doing countless things and going on numerous adventures together around our property.
I suppose now would be a good time to mention where I lived for the first 18 years of my life. I lived in Woodland, Washington, on the Clark County side (south) of the Lewis River. My family owns 10 acres of land, where our house, barn, shop, swimming pool, and swing set occupy two-thirds of the space, and the rest is field. My grandpa also owns 28 acres that is just below us and I thought it was ours growing up. You see, he just owns that land, but lives a few miles away. So growing up it was just part of the land I was able to roam and adventure. Most of it is field, and some of it is trees. There is a small creek that divides the property, but it is mostly from our old pump house, down.
Now, back to the adventures Ryan and I had. I remember going down to the small creek that was lined with trees and exploring what we could find. Sometimes we’d find old broken glass bottles, once an old iron wheel, medicine bottles, and innumerable other miscellaneous things I can’t even begin to name. We also played games in the trees, and I remember one even where Ryan got stung three different times because he accidently stepped on an underground bee’s nest. Another time after a windstorm a large tree had fallen and we proceeded to climb around on the limbs. When we both were old enough, our dad got us four-wheelers/quads to ride around in the field. I remember spending summers riding around the field on the four-wheeler racing each other, and taking my friends for rides. One particular ride I remember the most is my best friend, Rebecca Louise Stone, and I just riding around and singing at the top of our lungs to our favorite songs. They were country, of course.
Another thing I did while I was a young is tap dance. I don’t remember much about tap dancing, but I have a picture of me in a performance outfit. I was quite the cute little tap dancer, if you know what I mean. Other memories I have as a child are going fishing with my family, and countless vacations. I remember every summer going on vacations to the beach with family and friends. We would stay at the Eagle's Nest Resort in Illwaco, Washington, in our travel trailer. Us kids would spend hours on end just playing, riding our bikes around the campsite, swimming in the pool, and finding random things to occupy our time outside while at the campsite, and then we could entertain ourselves for hours when we were at the beach, while our parents laid out on a blanket enjoying the time to relax. As time went on, my family got busier and these summer trips to the beach became less frequent, until eventually, we stopped going.
The next defining events I remember in my life are when I was around 8 years old. A few months before my birthday, on October 10, 1997, my mother gave birth to my second little brother, Bradley Joseph Zumstein. His birth was a significant thing in my life because I can actually remember it, and he also had complications. You see, Brad was born two months early because his cord was wrapped around his neck five times and in two knots. He was in the hospital for a month before we could take him home. He is what my family calls a miracle because had it not been for my mom’s concern (she hadn’t felt him move for awhile) and the doctors being over cautious and keeping her overnight “just in case,” Brad wouldn’t be here today.
Shortly after Brad’s birth in October, my grandpa Larry on my mother's side passed away suddenly on January 1, 1998. My fondest memory of my dear grandpa Larry is when he would sit in the corner chair at our house, me on one knee, Ryan on the other, and he would read Dr. Seuss books to us. Now you see, it really was meant to be that Brad was born early, because this allowed my grandpa to meet his last grandchild a few months before he passed away.
A few days after his passing, I remember getting baptized. This was January 10, 1998. My cousin Katie Klaus and I were baptized on the same day because she is only a few weeks younger than me, and we've always been really close. Her father baptized the both of us. There isn’t a whole lot I remember about that day except that it was really fast and I wasn’t sure how I felt after, because it seemed like I felt the same. I didn’t have any defining moment. I also remember that they played a slideshow while Katie and I got dressed after we were baptized. And I got my white blanket, and it was my baptism blanket.
As I progressed through elementary school in La Center, Washington I played little league tee-ball/softball. One year during the softball season, it was May 20th to be exact, and I was in fourth grade so I was about 10 years old. My friend Heather Prouty was over and it was a Saturday before our softball game. She came over to play before we headed off to our game we had later that day. So we were on my swing set; she was on the bridge part and I was on a swing. Well, needless to say I ended up breaking my arm because I lost balance and fell forward. I can still remember the event so clearly. I looked down at my left arm because it hurt, and noticed that it was bending in a way that isn’t normal. So I hold it and start running to the house screaming “MOM! DAD!” Mom came rushing outside and I showed her my arm and she yells “BRENT!” We proceeded inside where my parents sat me in a chair and they took a towel to craft a makeshift sling for my arm. While my dad made my sling, my mom continued to comfort me, when all of a sudden she asked, “Honey, were you playing with the hose? Your forehead is drenched.” Dad answered her “No honey, she’s in shock.” To make this long story shorter, my dad ended up taking me to the hospital in Vancouver and my mom took Heather to our softball game and explained to the coach why I wasn’t there. I was at the hospital all day long, and they ended up putting me under to reset my bones because I had completely broke one, and fractured the other. You see, the break was about 3 inches above my wrist on my left arm. I had a purple and blue-stripped cast going from my hand up my whole arm. It stayed there for a majority of that summer. One thing that wasn’t too fun is my left hand is the one I write with, so for the remainder of the school year I had to either type one handed on a computer, or my mom would write my answers I told her on homework, and my teacher sat with me when I needed to take a test and she would ask me the questions and I would tell her what I thought the answer was.
When I got into middle school, I added volleyball to my list of sports. One year I even did track, running the 200 meter and throwing the discus and shot put. Volleyball was something I started to do in 6th grade, and I continued to play every year until I graduated from high school. I loved playing. There are so many memories I have from the different events volleyball provided me with. Tryouts, games, away game bus rides, team bonding activities, etc.
Here are just a few memories that stick out the most to me, most of them occurring while I was in high school. During tryouts we would have daily doubles (two 2-hour practices) and during our one-hour break a bunch of us would walk down to the Chevron in town and grab some lunch at the Gorilla Grill. At an away game in Illwaco my friend Sara Hansen could not get over this one guy that had a mullet, and it was so funny how engrossed she was! One day our varsity team went up on the ropes course the school has, and we did various team-building activities. We also had our own theme song that same year: “Ain’t no Mountain High” off the movie Remember the Titans.
… There are still numerous events in my life to relive and write about, but I am going to have to discuss them at a later time. Thanks for reading my life history thus far! Hope I didn't bore you to death ;)
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