Kristin Bushong

About: Kristin Bushong

Website:

http://www.growingtreetoys.com

Profile:

I liked my seasonal job at the Growing Tree Toys' warehouse so much, I decided to take on a permanent position in January of this year. Much of the store's selection matches my preferred activities, from arts and crafts to games and puzzles. I also enjoy cooking, gardening, playing the tuba and hanging out with our cat and rabbit! I'm from California and still hooked on my Bay Area sports teams, but you can often find my husband and I at Penn State sports events (especially volleyball, gymnastics and hockey) and State College Spikes games. In 2005, we had a fun-filled wedding at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, complete with visits by zoo animals!

When I was a kid the coolest birthday party I had was… at Tilt, a very fun (but as I now see, sadly defunct) arcade and family fun center in Cupertino, CA. It was my ninth birthday and my one and only sister had just been born premature a few weeks earlier. My party went on as scheduled, and I also had the luxury of having some extended family from Pennsylvania attend! At a stressful time it was a fun day of pizza, soda and cake, and of course, tokens, tickets and mediocre prizes.

When I was a kid the coolest thing that ever happened to me in elementary school was… the fact that I was on national TV several times! Our school was chosen to be pen pals with another in Minnesota. We chatted (literally) over these awesome Minitel's, little computers that plugged into our phone lines. "Homework" was literally going home and emailing our pen pals. I know I was interviewed about how "cool" it was, or something, and it replayed EVERY HOUR on CNN Headline News for an entire day. I look back and thank the school for leading me to my computer addiction today.

When I was a kid my very best friend and I used to… make up crazy ways to make money. (I was matron of honor at her wedding, and told this story.) One time we insisted on starting a "fruit stand" outside her house. (Mind you, in the middle of the day exactly NO traffic would be going by.) So her mom drove us to the store, bought all the fruit, and helped us set up. At the end of the day, when no one but her mom had bought anything, she bought it all back from us. I believe we went back to recycling aluminum cans after that...