High School Reunion

I went to my 20th high school reunion this weekend. It was more fun than I ever expected it to be. It felt like a time warp had happened and I was a teenager again. Of course we all looked like grown ups and talked about the grown up things we were doing but I felt carefree again. It was fantastic.

The weekend started with meeting up with Karyn, Rachel and Mimi at the park next to school. Meem and I brought our girls. They are all almost the same ages and have met before. They took off to play which left the 4 big "girls" to talk. Rachel and Mimi also had husbands in tow but they were kind enough to indulge our conversation without asking for explanations. Three of us brought yearbooks, I had a photo album and Rachel brought letters and notes we had written to her over the years. It was hilarious to go through it all. Our hair was ridiculously big and our clothes were unmentionable. But we knew we looked good then right? We stayed at the park until we started hearing from the little girls that it was pushing lunch time. But first we needed to do a walk through of campus. We posed at our lunch spot for pictures. The girls had fun playing with all the lockers as we walked the halls pointing out classes and places we remembered. The school looks pretty much the same just a bit older - kind of like us.

After dropping my girls off at Grandma's and shedding the other parts of our families we had lunch at Lazy Dog Cafe. It was so cool to reminisce and to catch up with current events. It was like no time at all had passed. We could have all been together last week instead of years and years ago. These girls are not casual acquaintances but life long friends in the truest sense of the word. After lunch we drove around town visiting each other's houses. We walked up the drive of Rachel's house pointing out the changes we saw. We tried ringing the bell but no one was home. That gave us time to stare at the backyard without interruption. When we were done we were "caught" by one of the neighbors who turned out to be a friend of Rae's mom. They got a chance to catch up for a few minutes then we were off to Mimi's house. We visited with her parents for a few minutes, took some pictures on their steps just like we did in the old days and I got to try on an extra dress Mimi had. I wasn't planning on going to the Saturday night main event and hadn't bought a ticket. But they convinced me to at least come to the social hour beforehand that was taking place in the bar area. At this point I could have gone home happy and felt like the reunion was a total success. It was so great hanging out with people that shared so many of my memories. It was funny to see who remembered what and be reminded of things I had totally forgotten about.

We all took a quick break to go get ready for the hotel part of the reunion. Karyn and I went back to Mom's house to get ready. I was able to dig out some more pictures and scrapbooks I had kept. When Mom, Rich and the girls got home from swimming we all sat and talked and caught up some more. After spending the afternoon with the girls there wasn't anyone else I had to see but it was really fun to see everyone that had shown up. The conversations were more superficial and interrupted but fun none the less. I was so impressed by how successful everyone was. Not just financially but overall. People seemed happy and satisfied with life. Maybe the ones who aren't didn't come - who knows? Some people were so easy to identify, they hadn't changed a bit since high school. Others I was really glad had name tags on. After awhile everyone I wanted to talk to had wandered over to the dining room and I headed back to Mom's house.

Sunday there was a family picnic at the park behind the library. It was casual with all the kiddos running around. The conversations were better though because it was a smaller crowd and people could stay in one place longer. I brought out my photo album again. It spurred a lot of catching up about people who hadn't made it too. All too soon I had to pack up my kiddos and head home. I really hope we don't have to wait 10 years to do it again. There is already talk of doing something for the 4 of us girls when we turn (dare I say it?) 40 in a couple of years. Possibly there will be something for the 25th. We'll see how it all turns out. For now I will continue to bask in the glow of good times.

Another Month Gone By...

Working nights has been tough. I've had to let some things slide like this blog. Ugh. These last two weeks have been doubly difficult since I've been teaching summer school in the morning then heading off to Disneyland at night. *yawn* John and the girls have been troupers though. I try as hard as I can to give the girls extra attention when I'm with them. It's not too hard since they stick like super glue to my side.

On a brighter note... David Carolyn Magda and Natalie were in town this week. They pulled into town Monday night after driving from Chicago! Yesterday the Leeb clan descended on Seal Beach. I heard it was a good time. All the girls spent a lot of time in the water. Emily also wanted to be buried in the sand. Claire may or may not have gotten stung by a bee. (The jury is still out on this one.) After getting cleaned up they all met back at Grandma and Papa's house for dinner (minus Grandma and Papa of course). The 4 girls had fun playing a game with one of the bouncy balls where Claire played the net in a bouncy tennis sort of game. It's the kind of thing that is made up spontaneously and is immensely fun.
Today I signed them into Disneyland so they could go have some fun there. They took a break to have dinner at our house so all 8 of us could have some time together. Emily said she loved having older cousins because they knew fun games and it was like having cool older sisters.

The girls are also doing Girl Scout day camp this week. Claire is in the royal blue dolphins group. I haven't gotten a name for Emily's group yet. It's weird not being able to drop them off in the morning and pick them up afterwards. Today was the one time I was going to be able to pick them up. I had to identify myself as Claire's mom which felt weird. I'm used to being the overly involved mom that's at everything. This week I'm one of those "pop in" parents. *sigh* This too shall pass. Next week I'm back to working only one job and I will be able to feel more like myself again.

Purging

The girls brought home so many papers and things the last few days of school. Their rooms look like a bomb filled with papers went off. Today was Operation Clean Up. As usual Emily was all in favor of this plan while Claire had other ideas. Since it was going to be a one on one kind of job I started with Emily. She and I got on a roll. We went through the papers on the floor, the boxes in her closet, her night stand and her desk. We took out several trash cans full of junk and filled the recycle box twice. I was very proud of her willingness to part with things. Her room looks habitable again. Claire lucked out and we ran out of time to get to her room today. She was not upset by this in the least. I'm looking forward to tackling her room just as much I'm just not looking forward to the resistance she will put up in doing it. Sometimes the differences between the girls is more obvious than others.

I've switched to working nights at Disneyland for the summer. So far I've been assigned to the Annual Passport Processing centers exclusively. The last few nights I've been on the California Adventure side. I've really been enjoying it. The job itself has been pretty boring. Not too many guests at this time in the year especially at night. But I've liked getting to know the people I work with better. The pass centers are pretty tight spacewise so it's pretty easy for us to sit and chat to pass the time. On breaks we get to hear the music from Glow Fest. It sounds like we are working at a dance club! The whole atmosphere is so fun at night.

Summer has Arrived!

Yesterday was the last day of school! The girls had a great school year so we were sad to see it end but it's going to be so nice to not be on a schedule for awhile. They got out of school at 12:50 yesterday so we knew we needed to do something to celebrate. We wound up at Disneyland. Technically California Adventure. It seems to have all their favorite attractions right now. We started with Grizzly River Run since it's finally warm enough. Then around to the Silly Symphony Swings (Claire is big enough for them now), Maliboomer (Emily can go and I'm the only one who can't say no to her) and California Screamin'. Emily didn't want to do Screamin' so Claire and I jumped in the single rider line and cut the 45 minute wait down to about 10 minutes total. Then they surprised me by wanting to ride the carousel. Since our ultimate goal was to see the fireworks from Main Street we started making our way towards Disneyland. Along the way we got pulled into a Glow Fest dance show. Very Bollywood meets the 80s. We finally got to Main Street with some time to spare. We had some sundaes from Gibson and the girls got to go crazy in the Penny Arcade with a dime each! Woo big spenders! The fireworks were amazing as always especially since we could see the lights on the castle, hear the music and see Tink and Dumbo flying. We were all pretty pooped by the time the fireworks were done so it was time to head home. We parked in the Toy Story parking lot for the first time and it was really convenient getting away from the park. Definitely want to try that again.

Today we activated our Soak City passes. We got to hit all the big slides that we wanted to. Claire is definitely tall enough to go on anything she wants this year so she's pretty excited. They still really like the wave lagoon the best though.

Super Readers!

One of our proudest accomplishments to date with the girls could easily be the fact that they are both good readers. Not only are they good at it they really enjoy it. Awards came home last week for AR points. Emily got invited to dinner at Claim Jumper for the kids who read over 1,000,000 words. She had actually read over 2 million! She also got invited to a pizza party for kids who earned over 100 AR points. Both girls got to have muffins with the principal for earning over 50 points and they got to participate in "Bend the Rules" Day. Fun times! But they weren't done there. Today they each came home with gift cards to Barnes and Noble. Emily was the top reader in her class in both points and books. Claire got a medal for reading the 2nd highest number of books in her class. The gift card came for having the most AR points out of ALL the first graders! She was the only first grader to get invited to the muffin breakfast. They never fail to amaze me. Just when I think I couldn't be any prouder of them they do something even more wonderful.

Bunco Night

I stress sometimes about making sure everything is just right. I knew today was going to be an especially busy day. I'm starting a 9 day work "week" today. I start day 1 (of 5) of a new hire training run. The girls were getting ready and walking themselves to school for the first time. And to top it off tonight was my turn to host bunco. So as I was tossing and turning in bed this morning there was no end to the things that I could worry about. Would the girls be alright? Do I have a sore throat and no days off to recover for awhile? Should I have tried to get a hold of more subs for bunco? On and on and on it went. But figuring that there was little I could do at this point about most of it I got up and started my day. I was doing alright until it was time to get my work stuff together and I realized that my work id was in the van... with John at his work... oh ... no!!! There was nothing to do but go to work and plead my case. I was able to get a new id and get clocked in on time but it was not the start of the day I was hoping for. Training went well. We had 3 trainees; 2 trainers and 2 trainer-trainees. We were quite the entourage walking around the Esplanade today. The girls did just fine getting themselves off to school. Sierra was left inside the house for an extended part of the day which led to its own mess but that was taken care of by the time I got home. Claire had a good play date with Robby after school. I still had bunco and was still worried that we wouldn't have enough people to play. Turns out we didn't have enough but everyone was perfectly content to sit around the table and talk drink and eat. I should know better than to stress and let myself sleep but that's just now how I am. It wound up being a pretty good day all in all.

World of Color

One of the coolest things about working at Disneyland is the little bonuses that they give us. No not money but access to things that the general public can't do. Tonight was a big one. World of Color is the new dancing water / light/ music show in California Adventure. It debuts to the public on Friday but last night and tonight were the "dress rehearsals" that the cast members and families could attend. I always worry when things are so hyped that they could not possibly live up to the hype. This show really did live up to its hoopla. It was absolutely amazing. I couldn't have wiped the smile off my face if I wanted to. Emily even turned to me at one point and said "I'm so glad you work here Mommy!" *sniff* It will be awhile before we can see it again because I'm sure it's going to be packed all summer. But I'm looking forward to it already.