Party Like It's 1999...

I'm not even going to attempt to describe how we feel about 10 years having passed since we graduated from high school. I'm going to skip all the psychological stuff and just get to the nitty gritty fun we had celebrating with all our friends!

Friday night was the "preunion" mixer at the Peppermill. We were out on the deck there (which no one told old so most of us were pretty chilly!) and had a pretty decent turn-out. But, most importantly, it was our first opportunity to hang out with our close friends, those we've kept in touch with and see every year or so when they come home for a visit. Hooray for catching up! Our friend Christina (and her two kids) are here from Texas and Rayna and Alaina are up from Portland. Matt and Janelle (though we didn't see them until Saturday) are up from Kenai with their kiddos (much to Sycely's delight). Friday night was pretty informal and just a fun time to catch up with those guys and a ton of other folks who were up for the occassion. We had some tasty appetizers and lots of fun conversation.

Rayna, me and Alaina

Saturday afternoon was the family event bbq at the school. The kids got the chance to hang and out and play together in a bouncy house, do some sidewalk chalk and bubbles, push cars, bikes, balls, etc while all us Alumni chowed down on bbq food and visited some more. The weather, amazingly, turned out to be awesome (followed two hours later by an unheard of thunderstorm!) and a good time was had by all. It was many of the same folks from Friday night but this event included family so we got to see everyone's kiddos too. Sycely made fast friends with a dog that was just her perfect size (though she did tell the owner she's allergic to dogs which is NOT true-neither did she "used to be allergic to worms when she was just a little girl" like she told Rayna!) Sycely had lots of fun playing with Ben and Emily. As I walked across the parking lot after leaving her playing ball with them, with Ben promising to walk her across safely is she wanted to come back over to us, I had one of those, WHOA! I guess it HAS been 10 years moments...it was the first time Matt's kids were "babysitting" our kids!

Saturday evening was the formal event at the Snow Goose theater which turned out to be a great locale for the event and where we had our best sampling of their food. This event drew a larger crowd and was pretty fun. It was still casual and informal in the way that it gave us lots of time to chat with people, eat and do a little dancing, win some prizes (like free tickets for the performing arts center) but with the added bonus that we got to dress up a little fancier, which Lem and I have both become a fan of these days.

Me and Christina

Janelle and me

Matt and Lem-some things NEVER change!

Sunday morning we had our crew-the Wilson's, and Rayna and Alaina-over for a tasty brunch after church. We madea huge batch of pancakes and waffles-with a variety of toppings, bacon, sausage and muffins, juices, etc. It was such a fun breakfast. The kids played, we stuffed ourselves to the gills and reflected on some of the craziness we observed in our classmates behavior the night before. All I can say is, I feel so blessed and accomplished by all the our lives have become over the last 10 years. We've finished our education, gotten established in careers, built a strong foundation for our marriage, are involved in the community, have found the perfect church home and have made a beautiful family (and I'm skinny again!) We're so fulfilled and our lives are complete-a far cry from what we heard from so many others this weekend when asked what they're up to, "oh, not much, you know, working, hanging out..." We are so richly blessed!