reunion weekend

ok, before i go into any details about the reunion, i just had to show you this pink pearl apple that i ate on my way out of town.  just look at the color of the inside of that thing!

now, on to the reunion.  we drove down with friends.  there’s a bunch of us here in town from the same graduating class, so several of us caravaned together.  the funny part was that the rest of our friends also randomly met up with us at one of the rest stops!  we pulled into town late at night, noticing all of the businesses that had changed in town, and all of those that had stayed the same.  then, we fell onto our air mattress for a night of sleep.

the next morning, we ate amazing, huge cinnamon rolls from the local favorite coffee shop (cream cheese frosting–mmmmm….) and headed over to the official “reunion” portion of the weekend.  how nice to see so many friends that we haven’t seen for such a long time!  everyone looks (and acts) pretty much the same as they did in college, but now they’re mostly married, and most of them have kids.  in a room with only about 30 fellow graduates, there were 6 or 7 who were expecting in the next nine months and at least two more who had had a child within the last 4 months!  here are a few of the cuties:

i don’t have room to put up pictures of all of the kids (a real shame!) — why didn’t we get a group baby shot?  oh well.

after the official reunion, we spent some time on campus, then went to “memories of china” for lunch.  my very favorite chinese restaurant.  i’d heard that it changed owners and that the food wasn’t as good anymore, but i couldn’t tell a significant difference–it was still delicious!  yum, yum for eggrolls, hot and sour soup and sweet and sour chicken!  also enjoyed the company of one of my dearest college friends.  i’ve been so lucky to be able to visit with her four times this year! (we live very far apart and sometimes go for a year or more without being able to see each other.)

after lunch, we visited a few favorite spots around town–the library where i used to work, and the house where i lived for three years.  the library looks mostly the same, but they’ve re-vamped the layout of the children’s area downstairs.  it looks nice!  much more open and better sight lines.  they also finally hired a new head of children’s services!  (they’ve been without one for quite some time now.)  she happened to be there and i got to chat with her for a few minutes.  i also got to chat with a few old co-workers of mine.  nice to reminisce, but i’m glad i am where i am.  at the old house, we’d noticed that there was new vinyl siding on the exterior which looked very nice, and we were curious to know if they’d done any improvements on the inside.  we stopped by and there are still students living in the house who were nice enough to let us poke our noses into the house and check it out.  no real interior updates.  in fact, the paint job and new kitchen contact paper that i’d added when i lived there (7 or 8 years ago) are…. still there.  a bit worse for the wear, but no one’s felt led to change them yet and they (even shabby) are an improvement over the country blue ducks and hearts that they replaced.

back on campus, we looked into a few buildings and noticed changes (some so drastic as to be disorienting (was this our room, or was ours next door?), some, just minor rearranging) and similarities (hmm…. all of these staff people look the same….) then headed over to hang out at the new coffee shop.  there, we met up with friends and chatted until it was time for dinner and afterwards, headed over to one local friend’s house who’d generously offered to host us.  we had lots of fun, catching up and getting to know all of the new kids and spouses.  we shared new stories and old memories.  everyone was loathe to leave, but we eventually wandered away, reluctantly saying goodnight.

this morning, mr. happy stuff wasn’t feeling well, so we just hung out at the house, relaxing and making travel plans for the way home.  we caught a ride with a different set of friends than we’d traveled down with.  they ended up wanting to visit some old friends (that happen to also be good friends and relatives of me) so we all spent some time with them before we left town.  here’s a pictures of j.g. being silly with my young friend (who repeated this same trick later in the car):

on the way home, we stopped at a rest area and when we got out of the car, we heard a giant flock of birds in the trees.  it was twilight, so photography wasn’t easy, but i’ll leave you with this nice, peaceful silhouette shot of two of the birds in a tree.  can you see the birds?