Friday {June 17th}

Friday was a great day from start to finish.  Got up, dressed in my sweet workout gigs {not to be worked out in, though}, and headed to Otown with the two littles.  Ran a couple errands, met up to chat with Amber for a few minutes, and ended up at the Train Depot to help set up for the reuinion.  Had the cute little party favor CD's with me & I was happy with how they turned out.  Got inside and the boys roamed around and played with Sara, Cori, and Megan's kiddos while we started setting up.  After a while, my boys were definitely outwearing their welcome, so we headed home around 12:30.  It was comical trying to keep Beckham awake in the car on the way home.  Me and Grayson were making all sorts of funny faces/sounds/tossing food at him to keep him up-only to put him down for a nap when we got home and situated.  That naptime is sacred, you know!

When we did get lunch fed, boys cleaned, Beckham put down for his nap, Grayson and I laid on the couch and watched a movie.  I-of course-fell asleep and had a wonderful hour nap while Gray watched his show.

I got up and got some stuff done before Bex woke up.  Around 5:30, I ran the boys to Taylor and Talon's, and they were excited to be there.  They were taking them to the rodeo, feeding them dinner, taking them back to our house for bed, and staying the night with them.  Have I mentioned how much I love having them close?  And how much my kids love them?

Got back home, finished getting ready, got payroll done, and Z man got home to hurriedly get ready.  I felt pretty confident & appreciated Doll letting me borrow her super hot jeans! (:   We met up with the Hot Fischer's in town and followed them to the Train Depot.  The guys teased Amber and me for wanting to show up together, but everyone would have been worried if we hadn't.  It was expected.

The night was super fun.  Better than I could have imagined or expected.  The guys had fun visiting with each other and other peeps from our class and left early around 9:30.  Amber and I stayed another hour and a half and had a blast.  There was a great photobooth set up & we had a great time posing for lots of shots.

 

Me & Sara {she totally cracks me up}

 

The beautiful brain behind our reunion is Athena {and her hottie husband Pete}. It was so fun to spend so much phone/skype time with this girl & it all turned out so well thanks completely to her.

 

Of course we had lots of photos with our boyfriends {who are also besties}

 

15 of the 32 who made it to the Friday night shindig

We loved visiting with friends and getting reaquainted with people.  Here is what I wrote on my HC site:

"Confession: I didn’t want anyone to recognize me at my high school reunion.
Of course Facebook made this nearly impossible since I’m friends with half my class on Facebook and it’s as if we’ve seen each other daily for the past couple years, but I knew there would be a few people I hadn’t seen and I wanted them to be taken aback.
A little back story: I was always heavy in school.  At least as far back as I remember-and especially in high school.  And always completely nonathletic. My class was small and we were pretty close.  I wasn’t ostracized or unpopular because of weight-I was outgoing and fairly self confident-but deep down my weight always bothered me.  I specifically remember an experience in 9th grade PE class when the teacher had all the 14 year old girls line up in the locker room at the beginning of the year to weigh us before getting our fitness testing done.  I was nervous because I knew I was bigger than all my friends.  While they were weighing in between 100-129 pounds, I walked hesitantly up to that scale and tentatively stepped on it {hoping this would make me lighter}, to see 163.  I was mortified!  It just went up from there and my heaviest high school weight was about 200 pounds.
Here’s the crazy thing:  I felt loved in high school.  I felt accepted.  I had great friends, felt comfortable, loved the experience, etc.  I knew no one judged me-at least consciously-because of my weight.  I also knew I was never the object of attraction-aside from my personality-and sometimes wished I was!  Even with all of that, since graduating, I’ve had a goal of going to my reunion better than I was.  I feel like I met that goal in the non-physical aspect by having a great husband and 2 kiddos I adore, stable occupations, happiness, etc., but I wanted to also be better physically.
And even though I’m still working on it and am not right at my goal, I feel like I accomplished that goal.  I have worked dang hard in the past 8 years to change my body & my health.
So Friday was the opening night of my High School 10 year reunion.  I felt pretty dang good.  My jeans-borrowed from my little sister-fit just right and I just liked what I saw.  Beforehand my husband kept laughing at me because I had been so nervous for a few months prior to this and now it was here and I was totally confident & flaunting that confidence.  I just owned it.
And guess what?  Several people I hadn’t seen in 10 years didn’t recognize me.  It was awesome.  Once I told them who I was they were taken aback.  Some that had seen pictures but not me in real life couldn’t believe the 65+ pound transformation.  {I also had this weird bleached blonde hair stage in high school and I’ve long since embraced my natural dark brown hair, thankfully}.  I even received the award for most unrecognizable.  I wore a small track tank top over my shirt in the photo booth pictures-and laughed at the irony because you couldn’t have PAID me to run a lap in high school and now I generally do 2-4 miles a day.  {I still totally couldn’t squeeze into the little cheerleader skirt, but 120 pounds has never been my goal} (:

It was so fun.  It was better than I imagined.  It surpassed my expectations.  And the most important thing I realized?  That the transformation was FOR ME.  The people who loved me this weekend have always loved me.  It’s not conditioned on how much I weigh.  Of course they are happy for me because I am happy.  But they like me either way.  It was such an empowering experience because I realized the only person putting expectations on me, was me.  And that’s really how it should be.  And I feel good about myself not because of anyone’s affirmations {although those are incredibly nice}, but because I genuinely like myself.
This weekend I had a taste of that “self-confidence that truly tastes more delicious than food…”
And it was so very rewarding."

 

Our sweet friend Chris.  So glad he made it & that we got to catch up.

 

Jesse & Cori.  Jesse is headed out to Afghanistan next month-so happy he could come.

 

Cute Sydnie.  She's getting married next month-so happy for her!

And enjoying it with my still best friend A, was even better.  We cut out around 11 & headed to the Fischer pad.  The guys were talking and playing xbox and A and I got in our jammies, ate some good food, and talked on her bed for another couple hours.  We spent the night there & had an awesome first reunion night!

One week of Father's day: Day # six: $50 GameStop Gift Card