10 Years Later

Sigh.

That's me, sad to be home after a wonderful Thanksgiving at home with family and friends. Even though we were there from Wednesday until Sunday—twice as long as our normal weekend visits—it went too fast, as always.

Aside from spending time with both of my insanely cute nieces, my crazy family and in-laws—God love 'em all—I was able to get in some good time QT with friends.

Like at my 10-year high school reunion. I'm officially old.

Truth be told, I wasn't totally pumped about going. My husband was definitely not pumped about going and I did not give him a choice in the matter. Keep in mind that he went to high school with most of these people, too, and has tried to distance himself from that life as much as possible. I make that strangely difficult for him. But not on purpose.

You see, my group of friends has been friends since high school. Most of us since even before.

And...we're still friends.

In the past 10 years, we've graduated high school, gone to colleges around the country, and lived around the world, from Iowa to Kansas to Michigan to California to South Dakota to New York to Tennessee to Australia to Spain. We've gotten jobs in every vocation; bought houses and pets; become mothers.

The day I left for college. Lots of tears!

We've been in and attended each other's weddings and bachelorette parties. We've upgraded from keg stands to wine, from wild nights downtown to quiet nights where we can sit and talk. We've gone through ups and downs. Some of the friendships have weakened while others have thrived. But at the end of the day, we're all still friends.

 Left: Summer 2002. Right: A few familiar faces on May 28, 2011.

Fun tidbit: One of my girlfriends remembered a time capsule that we all buried on May 17, 2002 in a city park, that we were to open on our 10-year reunion. I think all of us forgot about it, but thankfully she didn't.

Can you spot me?

We opened it at the reunion and it was so fun! Inside was an old Bud Light can (the red and blue one, and our illegal beer of choice back then), an empty bottle of Mountain Dew Code Red (to mix with Vodka), and an empty bottle of Absolut Mandarin (to wash down with Code Red?). Also inside were pictures of our "group," all of our graduation party invitations, notes to each other, and cutest of all, this:

Left: The night we buried the capsule. I must have been taking the pic. Right: The note we left inside.

I just love this because it's so honest, but innocent at the same time. We knew that we may not be best friends anymore, but we'd promise to at least still be friends, somehow. And for the most part, I'd say we are.

All in all, the reunion was a hit. It was like not reunions are in the movies — maybe because those in my class are cool!! I caught up with not only this group of ladies, but other friends from high school that I have really only kept up with from good ol' Facebook. Not a ton of people showed up — probably less than 100 out of a class of close to 400. But it was a good group regardless and fun to see so many. After the official "reunion," we all convened at a bar downtown to keep the party going and a good time was had by all.

Anyway, that's my weekend update in a nutshell!

 

Link up, tell me about yours and any funny high school reunion stories!

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