My {Gee..there's NO way I'm this old!} Reunion!

Thanks to the many lost connections that I've made thanks to Facebook, I was contacted about my high school reunion. I wasn't sure if I would be "allowed" to come, since my family moved my senior year and I didn't officially graduate with the school that held my loyalties. But they assured me that I wasn't the only one that hadn't graduated that would be attending. So we made plans to make the 10 hour trip. Having never travelled with Carissa outside of the valley, and never any farther than 40 minutes, we were a bit apprehensive about the trip, but decided we can only be prisoners in our house for so long (and 4.5 years was TOO long!) So we purchased every new DVD and coloring book that we didn't previously own, and packed up the van!

It took a few more minutes (more like 45) to get everything loaded up and out the door, and of course Carissa was getting impatient with not leaving. Little did she know how long she would really be expected to sit...but she was still anxious! After we had made it all of around 8 miles...we heard the infamous "are we there yet"??? We all got a HUGE giggle out of that one! She did really well in the van. Thank goodness for the wireless headphones so I didn't have to listen to Kai-Lan all the way there! We took the drive up in two days, thinking it would space it out and not overwhelm her, but on the way back, she did just fabulous!

When we got there, we went to my BFF's house and hung out there for a bit. There was a meet and mingle dinner planned at a restaurant/bar. I wasn't prepared for how BAD the food is when they expect patrons to be drinking and not notice how awful the food was. Certainly not food prepared with taste taken into consideration! It was fun to see everyone that first night, but with the loud music it made it really difficult to really interact too much. So when we felt that we would lose our voices if we stayed much longer (and it was becoming uncomfortable to be sober and watching some of them....I'll leave it at that!) so we took off.

The next day they had a BBQ picnic set up at a park. It was a much more relaxed atmosphere, and I was able to visit with several people and have a little fun too.


This is my BFF Michelle. It's funny cause we didn't really hang out too much in HS, mostly after we had kids and we lived around the corner from each other. And our X's were good friends so we ended up together alot. But she is the one that I have stayed in contact with over the years. She's fantastic.


Here's a group of us all laughing and having a great time when someone (my hubby) comes up with the camera and tells us he's taking our picture! The one in the white shirt is Stephanie (Clark...mostly for my mom). She is the daughter of my seminary teacher, and we had several classed together. She is hilarious and is now a music/movement teacher in an elementary school. I won't bore you (and mom you wouldn't remember anyone else)


Here's Stephanie again demonstrating how she teaches the kids! (and no she wasn't on drill with me...she was a choir girl)


Here I am with one of my middle school BFF's. This is Becky (Beecroft) and she and I had almost every class together. We hung out on the weekends. And she lived close to a little store, and we would go down there and blow our babysitting money on candy. This obviously was before we discovered boys, clothes and makeup. But we still had lots of fun on those outings! The next one over is Lisa. She was in the Student body council and on the planning committee for the reunion. The gal on the end is Eileen (Cantrell). She was on drill with me. We had TONS of fun at practices and trips. LOTS of memories there!


And just to prove that teenage boys love their mothers too (only cause they wanted to leave the BBQ) Becky got a hug from her second of four boys! She told me this would be the ONLY picture she has of him giving her a hug. And after Nikelle saw these cute boys, and I was talking to their mother.....she had an instant crush on them. YuP...both of them. One is 16, the other is 15. She's open to either option. They are tall...and have curly hair....AND blue eyes! And I LOVE their mother...so I'm OK. The bad part is that we live a BIT far away!

When the BBQ was over, it was time to prep ourselves for the main dinner event that evening. We started off with a class picture. Not everyone who came to some of the events are in the picture. We actually had over 100 people come. But this is a picture of the ones that could make it early enough for the picture.



This is a cute girl that was the homecoming queen and was just the sweetest thing ever. And that hasn't even changed. She made "popular" seem so much more desirable, but unfortunately not all of them were like that.


Here's Michelle with her very recent "fiance". In fact I still haven't gotten the whole story on them yet! She wanted a picture of the two of them, but Andrew was making them laugh so hard I'm not sure she can use them...but it shows pretty much what we did for 2 straight days....LAUGH hysterically!


Here's a picture of me with Kristine (Crook). We hung out a bunch in 9-10th grade. I'd like to admit to all the crazy things we did together, but I don't think I should admit half the stuff or incriminate myself too much. But in our defense, her dad was bishop at the time and we never did anything too crazy! The other gal in the picture is Holly (Hatch). She and I were in the same ward together. So we had lots of activities together, but hardly any classes. So we only really saw each other at church things. She now has 2 teenage daughters that are adorable, but are just as sassy as mine is!

It took me months to decide to go to the reunion, but I have not regretted going for one single moment. I wanted to scan some REALLY old pictures to compare to, but I can't seem to get my scanner working, so I'll just have to do that later!

It's so weird to me that it seems like just yesterday I was sitting in the bleachers freezing my keester off in my drill uniform, cheering for my team to win! And yet the last 20 years has just flown by. Not all the years were great, but I was always blessed and had a great life. And looking back, I don't think I would have changed anything!