Survived My Class Reunion

I know that this post is slightly over due, but I was so burned out from all the travelling we've been doing all summer that last week I decided to be the world's best procrastinator :). Anyway, I mde it thorugh my 10 year highschool reunion, I think things actually went pretty good too.

The reunion was on the August 19 weekend in Luseland, where we went to school and gradutated - all those years ago! Friday night we had a kind of informal plan to all meet in at the hotel bar for a few drinks if anybody was going to be in town that night. I really wasn't planning on going in, I was pretty tired but at the last minute we decided to go. When we got to the bar I noticed the local regulars were all in there, but was a bit dismayed that I didn't see anybody from our class there.....or so I thought. I walked right by two of the guys and didn't even recognise them!! So we sat down for a couple drinks and later were joined by a few more of our classmates. It really was a fun night, a good way to break the ice. We had some laughs and did some catching up.

The next morning we all met at the highschool to do a little tour for old times sake. Two of our teachers met us there, I thought that was really nice of them to take us through and show us all the new chages since we had last been there. I think the best part was when the one guy told our science teacher how we used to write the anwers to all our tests in his notes on the board, LOL. We all had a pretty good laugh over that one. There were a few small changes at the school but for the most part it was pretty much as we left it. I hope our school will be on of the few small town schools to stay open, it's actually a pretty decent place.

The afternoon found us out at the local campgrounds for a good old fashioned wiener roast and some relaxing in the shade. (It was turning out to be a very hot day). We had a ncie little Texas Scramble golf tourny to finish up the afternoon, that was a lot of fun. I don't mind golfing as long as nobody is trying to take it seriously, lol. Everybody seemed pretty amused/surprised that we actually went as far as buying little prizes, hehe.

We finished up golfing and had just enough time to get cleaned up and head into the hotel for dinner. Dinner was pretty good I have to admit. Some of the teachers joined us too, it was nice to catch up with them. Then nice thing about a small school is that your teachers actually remember you, even after so many years have gone by, it was really like catching up with old friends. So I got up and said little speel thanking everyone for coming, yadda yadda, it was super fun......yeah right, lol. After dinner we went back to the campground for a fire, which was cut short by a huge thunderstorm. Some people took that as thier opportunity to cut out, while the rest of us headed back to the hotel bar for some wings. It didn't turn out to be a really late night, but it was still good.

I think everything turned out just great, pretty much how I expected it to. We all had fun and had a good visit but we all parted ways before we had too much of eachother, lol. There were a couple awkward silences when we all seemed to run out of things to say to eachother, but that will happen when you haven't been in touch for 10 years! Everybody has moved on and has their own lives, and aside from the "remembering the old days" and the "what are you up to now" conversations, there's really not much left to say. Not that it's a bad thing, it's just life. And although everyting went really good I'm pretty sure we won't be having a 20 year, lol. Our class just wasn't that close, the people I was friends with I'm still in touch with anyway. But, it was still nice to see the people that could make it, I still wish that some of the others could come too, but oh well perhaps we'll all run into eachother at some point.

My thought on highschool reunions is that the 10 year is so everybody can see what everybody else has, and if they're doing better than anyone else, and the 20 year is just to see what everybody looks like, lol.

And that's all I have to say about that.

The Big Wedding

Well I did it, I survived being a bridesmaid, lol. Actually I do hae to say that everything went quite well, the weather was great, the bride was beautiful and the food was pleny :).

Friday was kind of a wierd day, we supposedly had "a ton of stuff" to do that would take all day, etc etc. By the time we got to Luseland, everything was done!! I'm not going to complain about that, lol. We ended up with a few hours to spare before rehersal dinner and everything started in the evening. So, seeing as we hadn't had a lot of sleep the night before (see previous "Storm of the Century" post) we headed out to the farm for a bite to eat and a quick nap, it was very much needed. My friend's parents had the rehersal dinner at their place, it was great, mmmmm bbq'd hamburgers, yummy!! Rehersal wasn't until 9 pm that night, which seems pretty late, but whatever. It went pretty good, getting the timing right for the processional seemed to be the hardest part. Afterwards we were all supposed to head to the bride's parents house to hang out and visit, not this guy, I headed to the farm to get some sleep.

I was up at 7 am sharp the morning of the wedding, and looking out the window was a bit disappointing as it was cold and rainy. The bride, the other bridesmaid and myself headed out to get our hair and makeup done. My hair actually took the longest to do, lol. We stopped at the A&W to grab lunch and were back to Luseland by about 12:30, even having time to stop on the way to wash all the mud off the car. It continued to rain and be cold, but we weren't letting that get our spirits down. We had a couple of hours to just sit and take it easy before we had to get dressed, so that was nice. We made it to church on time, the ceremony went good, nice and short. And although it had been raining when we arrived at the church by the time we were done, the sun was out and it was nice and warm outside, perfect timing.

We went to the bride's parents yard for pictures right away. They did the family first, so Don and I took the opportunity to sneak accross the street to go see Kim and Bob. We had a good little visit with them. Kim's due with thier first baby in a few weeks and I hadn't seen her for awhile, it was pretty neat to see her with a belly, hehe :). By the time we got back it was the wedding party's turn for pictures, I think they'll turn out really good, I'm excited to see them.

The rest was pretty standard, the dinner was good, the toasts were nice, short and sweet. There was a bit of confusion as to what was going on for the first couple of dances, but it got sorted out. The dance was good, they had a local area band, and they did all the standard wedding songs, including the butterfly and the bird dance of course, lol. It was nice to see a few people I hadn't seen for auite awhile so I got some good visiting in. It's funny how things change as you get older. The bride and groom and most of their friends are a late 20's/ early 30's crowd, so by midnight we were all beat and went home, hahaha. It's sure not the good old days where we'd stay til the wee hours, until the bar closed down and the band quite playing and then still proceed to go out and party elsewhere afterwards! We got back to the farm and I befan the grueling task of pulling hairpins out of my head...ugh!

The next morning we went into town again for the gift opening and of course more food. They actually got a lot of nice things. Did a bit more visiting and such in there and finished cleaning the hall out. All in all the weekend went really good, I think the bride and groom were pretty happy with how everything turned out and I guess that's what really matters. I do have to admit though, that I'm glad it's over!! I was so burned out by Sunday and it wasn't even my wedding, LOL.

Storm of the Century

Before heading to Luseland for my friend's wedding we went to Kindersley to visit my mom on Thursday night, hadn't seen her for awhile so we were due for a visit. She just recently reno'd her backyard with a brand new deck, patio furniture and the piece de resistance....an 8 person hot tub!! Honestly Mom, we did come to see you not the hot tub ;) . So we sat out in the hot tub for awhile, it was very nice, I can see why people have these things, I can imagine how great it would feel after one of those especially crappy days to come home and slip into relaxation.

After awhile we noticed some lightening in the distance so we headed inside. Wow, good thing we did, about 15 min later the hugest thunderstorm I have ever seen hit. I truly have never ever seen lightening like that in my life!! The entire sky was one giant flickering sheet, with forks coming down through it was well. The wind was crazy too, and the hail and hard rain. There were tornado warnings on the TV so, although it was late we stayed up to watch them, we were in my Mom's trailer home after all. Then all at once, the wind died right down, that was pretty scary, it got so dead calm so fast, people's dogs were going crazy outside. So we're thinking, uh oh, what's coming now? But, thank God, nothing really happened, whew. The storm did pick back up but not with the force it had earlier. We finally convinced my mom it would be safe to go to bed and we all turned in at about 2:30 am. The storm continued to rumble and rain all night long, but by morning it was sunny and nice out again.

I'm pretty sure that's the craziest thunderstorm I have ever seen. Mom tried to get some pics with her old camera, it'll be pretty cool if they turn out. We did hear the next day that a few places in Saskatchewan got tornados, nothing near us though. It was still pretty scary, but fascinating at the same time. It's like your scared to see what's out there or what might be coming but at the same time you are mezmorized. Mom's place looks out over the golf course so we had a pretty good view of the action. We proabably won't see that again this year.

Class Reunion Update

In an earlier post I expained how my friend Trina and I railroaded ourselves into planning our class reunion. Well we managed to get our crap together, track down addresses and send out the invites. And Trina did a super awesome job on the invitations by the way!! However because of the short notice of all of this we were only able to give everybody slightly more than a months notice, so we've been hoping for the best. Lookng back I'm not sure why we didn't just change it to a later weekend, like maybe in the fall when everybody is not so busy with other summer plans. Oh well, not much we can do about it now...isn't hind sight a wonderful thing? As a nice little bonus we decided to invite our teachers to join us as well, after all they put up with our crap for all those years, and truly, where would we have ended up without our teachers.

So far most people have responded, about half of which are actually attending, but it was still nice that those who were not able to make it still had the courtesy to let us know. We're still waitng to hear from a few of course, but some we're honestly not sure if we'll hear from them at all. We didn't expect that everybody would be able to let us know by the RSVP date, but seeing as we're having everything back home, I'm sure last minute changes won't be a problem. I have to admit that I was kind of disappointed when some of the people I had been really looking forward to seeing said they wouldn't be able to make it. However, it's totally understandable, this was pretty short notice and many people likely already had plans for that weekend. I know our summer usually gets booked up pretty fast. I'm not too worried anyway, no matter who shows up or haw many, we'll still have a great time. Trina and I tried to make the plans flexible enough that we could adjust them for lots of people or for a smaller group. So far everything seems to be working out great.

We have about a week and a half until the reunion, during which I still have to make it through my friend's wedding, lol. I'm sure the couple days before will be busy ones, running around getting everything ready, etc etc, but I have a good feeling that all will turn out great and we'll have a lot of fun and make some memories. I may actaully attempt to post some pictures on here one of these days, so hopefully a picture or two of the reunion. Wish me luck!

A Word About Weddings

Summer has always seemed to be the traditional wedding season, in fact a lot of people will plan their entire summer around the multiple weddings they are invited to ( or assume they're invited to) I for one am glad that I'm not one of those people that insist on scoring an ivitation to every single wedding of someone they may or may not know that well. I mean don't get me wrong, weddings can be great, if it's somebody you truly care about that's getting married. But I wonder why some people need to be at weddings when they don't even know the people getting married that well.

I also think that when people are plannig their wedding, couples tend to give in to what their families want, as opposed to what they want. And the excuse they use....."they're paying for it". You know what? It's the 21st century, most people these days are not getting married until they are in their mid to late twenties or even their 30's, meaning they have been out in the real world for quite some time earning their own money......so pay for your own damn wedding and quit whining that you didn't get what you wanted. Sorry....I have just heard too many people complaining about their own wedidng and how they are not getting anything they had originally planned because their family took over. Ahem, aren't the two of you supposed to be starting a life "together"? So shouldn't you be able to stand up together and grow a set and tell your families what you really want? And if your plans are going to be so horrific to them, I guess that's too bad.

The more plans you make for a wedding the more that WILL go wrong, notice I said will and not can, things will inevitably go wrong, it's Murphy's Law. All anyone can hope for is that the things that go wrong are minor and won't have a major effect on their day. It's kind of funny to watch people totally flip out over some minor thing not working out exactly as planned, knowing that after all is said and done they are going to feel like the biggest idiot for the way they acted. I think it helps to see weddings from a differnet prespective, like from the outside looking in, it helps you to see what is really impoortant and what should really matter.

I guess the purpose of this little rant was just to relieve the tension I am feeling. I'm in a wedding party this coming weekend, and I have been there and observed the planning process that the couple has gone through, and they have done their fair share of complaining and freaking out about it all. So I guess I'm just really really hoping that everything will go well this weekend without too much drama I'll likely post again next week to let you all know how things went, looks like good weather is in store, so that is a start at least.

Catch you later!!