Celebration Weekend!

My school's alumni weekend is always called Celebration Weekend and this year we started off the weekend by celebrating our friend Stacie and Forest's adoption paperwork finally being completed! We met for dinner and had balloons (an It's a Boy and It's a Girl balloon because we don't know what they will have..) A parenting magazine, flowers and a card to tell them how excited we are for them! 3-7 months we will have a new little one from Ethiopia!!!!




We had SO much fun this weekend! But seriously when did we get so old? At one point it was 10:30 and we were all exhausted and then at another point we were talking about our gray hair! What the heck?! Then as we walked through our School reliving the memories we became "those alumni" We were talking about how pretty the campus was, and how great the trees looked and how nice the buildings were and how "none of this was there when we were there." REALLY?! Was that us? YEP it was! And you know what it was awesome to be "those alumni."

(Hangin' out at Chipotle on Friday night)


(alumni lunch)






Then the best part of the entire weekend happened....FIREWORKS!!!! I was SOOOO gutted in NZ on the 4th of July because I LOVE the 4th in Redding and LOVE (I MEAN LOVE) the fireworks in Redding. Well, to my joy and everyone's irritation in Redding, the firework show was cancelled because of the fires....hehehe I was secretly so happy to not miss it! This weekend the town of Redding decided to give me the best "welcome back to the States" gift ever! They did the 4th Firework show on the 18th of Oct....who knew?!



The part I love is definitely the fireworks, but just as much I love everyone piling in the car, the anticipation as we drive down to watch, the chaos and energy on the field where we all hang out and have a picnic, the kids going crazy with glo sticks, the talks you have with friends while you wait and the silly pictures you take of the memories you are making! It was such a fun night! We laughed a lot, caught up with old friends, watched a GREAT firework show, then came back and made S'mores (for my NZ friends....it is a yummy graham crackers--sweet crackers like biscuits almost--with a melted marshmallow and a piece of chocolate in between the crackers...it is OUT OF THIS WORLD! It is called a S'more because you always want Some More....hence S'more...so clever aren't we as Americans!)



Me and My college roommate!


Me and Amy


Me and Derrick...haven't we grown up so much! Did we really grad 10 years ago?!


Sea and Danielle making Hot Chocolate...notice how clever Danielle is...she had a head lamp so she could see and use her hands...man my friends are smart!


Me and Sea


Me and my roommate Raya :)


Me and Sea and Danielle


S'mores!