Virginia- Home Sweet Home

After finding a smashing deal on Yahoo! Travel, I had the opportunity to fly out to Virginia last week for a weekend visit. My high school has been celebrating it's 40th anniversary all year long, and this past weekend was their big events for the celebration. Although I had originally planned on going to their evening gala event, the cost of tickets persuaded me to skip it and just go to the daytime school showcase. One of my best friends, Joanne, and I spent Saturday morning/afternoon roaming the halls of our high school and checking out performances by the theatre and music departments. We chatted with a couple of our old teachers and saw a few familiar faces. We also got to eat lunch in the cafeteria (although not the questionable school lunch food from our high school days). All it cost was $6 for the lunch (which, considering the amount of food they gave us, was a great deal). It was fun roaming the halls again, and seeing how little has changed (umm, they painted the lockers a different color, but that's about it). My sister managed to make it to the school showcase right before Joanne and I left.

Here's some shots of the school:
(Main Lobby, Cafeteria, Path up to the athletic fields, Football field)


And my graduating class' contribution:


I also got to go out to dinner twice with some old friends- Rob, Matt, Paige, Duff, and Joanne. It's always fun when we all get together. It's just a shame that two of the gang (Becky and Melanie) ended up not making it out to DC.

Since my sister was so late to the showcase, and lacking her family, we made plans to meet at my favorite ice cream restaurant for lunch the following day. Here are some pics of her kids, Gabe and Isabeau:


And here are Joanne's kids (Tyler and Jaiden):

(All a little dirty from their ice cream)

It was a great weekend. Definitely strange to be away from the kids for so long and to get on a plane all by myself and have a peaceful flight. But, that said, I was still happy to get home and see Nate and the kids. I even ended up keeping Jefferson home from school yesterday just to spend some extra time with him (he may have been a hair sick).

A BIG THANKS to Joanne for letting me crash at her place while I was in town and driving me around (even though I know she won't actually read this- she just looks at the pictures).