Summer Reunion, V-5 Style

Finally, I have been trying to blog this post (picture) forever!

This June marked the first official, long awaited, reunion between my 4 close college girlfriends and I. We have all seen each other at different times, but we have not ALL been together in the same place since graduation. Actually, that's not quite true--it was Denise's wedding. Well, now that I think of it that's not true EITHER, it was Kacy's wedding. Whoops! So it's been...3 years. . . That's still a long time! We have been planning to get together for a while, and then we realized that next summer, as originally planned, may be too difficult since several of us (not me) are now into the family forming stage of our lives. What fun we had catching up, hanging out, and just relaxing...

The beeeautiful Lake Tahoe, NV/CA was the perfect destination for our first-of many- rendevous(es? vi?). Emily's family owns a cabin there that they were SO kind to let us borrow for the weekend. And what a cute little log cabin it is, complete with breakfast porch, firewood, spiders and pine needles. (by the way, we're coming back, Rogers!) Tahoe was also a central lo-cal for all but me, of course, but I enjoyed my little flight and drive down with Em and Neicer and Colby. Yes, it was V-5 plus 1, and a boy at that. Little 8 month old Colby was definitely the main event of the weekend, as you can see in this photo and probably most of my roll. (am I alone in this?!) What an adorable little man you are blessed with, Em. This was my first meeting, although I think everyone else had gotten to see Em and Colby at least once before Tahoe. I have to say, I've never really been a believer in love at first sight until now. My heart is now divided, Matthew. Sorry, but he is so stinkin' cute! His little laugh is hysterical. We would have been a bunch of old hags sitting around the t.v., if it wasn't for the entertainment Colby brought.

So as for what we did while we were there...what would you expect?...a little shopping, a little sight seeing, a lot of eating, laughing, and goofing around pretty much sums it up. We all ended up buying cheesy touristy sweatshirts that first evening because somebody from Idaho forgot to send me the reminder memo that it still SNOWS in Nevada in June. I'm embarrassed to say that this former Colorado girl--wears shorts in all weather--was fureezing. After dropping poor little Colby off at the baby-sitters' (relatives') we attempted to enjoy a true girl's night out: 5 orders of chicken quesadillas at an Irish Pub--("don't order the crab cakes?")--25 min. of nickle slots, throw in a wierd-looking rock fountain, yummy but overpriced Cold Stone icecream, and a few triple axles in there and you'd have our first day. It was silly, and simple, but fun.

Tahoe, Take Two

And the weekend continues...
Day two of our adventure began slowly with a yummy nutritious breakfast of fresh fruit, granola, and yogurt--thanks to Beth and...Kacy?--and terribly fattening Otis Spunkmeir muffins, thanks to me and ...Em? (I'll take the sole credit.) Leave it to me to talk about the food. Then Em and Colby then took us on a brisk (cool, not fast) morning hike a.k.a. walk down the road to the "beaver ponds"...the self timer photography officially began. Gorgeous scenery. After lunch we headed back into "town" for this fun afternoon at an old-fashion photo studio. I secretly have always wanted to do this with friends or family, but NO one has ever wanted to do it with me. Matt was soo glad when he heard I got this "out of my system" without him. The girls easily obliged me and I think we can all agree it was actually quite fun! Colby even saddled up for a photo with a cowboy hat, chaps and a gun. I won't incriminate the parents by posting the photo of the 8 mo. old with the gun in his hands, but it was a cute one. Sorry about the fuzziness of the photo--notice I'm not giving copyrights here--(digital cameras are amazing inventions...)

BTW--If you think these pictures are risk-ay, then you'd be shocked to see what they expected us to wear out of the dressing rooms, in front of any and all passerbyers, before the dresses and boas got put on. (The whole scenerio reminded me of freshman year at college...) It's not every day that you'll find 2 pastor's wives wearing fishnet stockings with shotguns and whiskey bottles in their hands--especially when one of them (not me) is 7 mo. knocked up!

Speaking of the pregnant saloon girl, when we got back to the cabin we had a nice little surprise shower for Kacy and her little baby girl to be. Nice homecooked (yeah right) dinner, and an evening of reminescing about college days, college classmates, soccer, Coach "Jim"--Big J and Little J-etc. We also FINALLY cleared the record on who all we kissed and DIDN'T kiss during college, and the official kissing whore was renamed. I'm glad that is finally out in the open!

Day 3, not much to be said. I hate goodbyes. It was hard to part our ways, but we'd had a good, well-needed weekend of reconnecting and sharing our new lives with each other. Let's just say I can't wait till Hawaii '07! I think the best part of the goodbye day was that I didn't have to say goodbye to Colby yet, and I didn't have to share him with all the rest of ya'll the next day, either.
Tahoe '05 goes down in the books with our first trip to Flyin' M and the parking meter night.