Homecoming

Saturday night was Homecoming at my alma mater, George Fox University. It was also my 10-year reunion. We try to go to at least one home basketball game each year since Mitch used to be the assistant coach, so we decided to attend homecoming. Let me tell you, it takes courage to go to a reunion. I figured that I wouldn't know or remember anyone. I was a bit distracted from about Sophomore year on (when I met Mitch). Turns out that I knew a few people and recognized a few more. It was still a bit awkward, but Shawn Shelley (who is married to Becky, has 2 adorable kids and teaches at Junction City High School - threw that in for you, Tootsie!) always does a great job of being loud enough to put everyone at ease. Seriously. Mitch thought he was great!

Anyway, about 40 of us showed up with our spouses and a few kids. We talked a while, took pictures and tried to "catch up" with people that we barely recognized. And, of course, what do you talk about when you can't think of anything to talk about? Kids. Hey, that's okay. I can talk all day about my kids!

After the reunion, we had a little time to kill, so we visited with my Grandparents! It was very nice to be able to sit in their living room and chat without our kids with us. Grandpa and Grandma will be moving into their new digs at the retirement community on Saturday. They are very excited, and I can't wait to visit them to see how they can cram that much stuff into a tiny apartment. I imagine that they will be dumping a lot more stuff over the next couple of days.

After visiting with the Grandparents, we headed out to find a place to eat. We used to live in Newberg, and we do have our favorite spots, but we decided to look for something new. We ended up at a sports bar and grill that was actually kind of cool and had great food. Too bad the MANY televisions tuned to ESPN were distracting my date. However, Mitch did a pretty good job of making me feel like he was listening, and at the same time, he got to catch up on what was happening in the world of sports.

So, after dinner, we drove on over to the GFU gym for the basketball game. The place was totally packed out (and for those of you who haven't been back for a while, they have bleachers going all the way up on both sides, now). The girls absolutely killed Linfield. I think they won by about 40 points. The superfans, although sans makeup and crazy hair, were out in full force, as was the cheerleading/dancing squad. Can you believe they are allowed to dance at basketball games now?

The men's teams kept the score close all night until eventually the Bruins pulled it out in the 4th quarter (last 30 seconds!) to beat Linfield by a couple of points (I THINK it was 2). Anyway, it was fun to sit with Mitch's former players and catch up with them, hear about their families and meet the kids.

After the game, we had dessert with the athletic association, then went out for pizza (which is a tradition for Bruin basketball players) and met up with my reunion gang. Again, kind of strange and awkward, but we ended up having another great time until the coaches showed up and we were able to gracefully leave my former classmates. We chatted with the coaches and caught up on life until we were kicked out of the pizza place at midnight. It was really fun!

Where were our kids this entire time? They were spending the night at Mitch's parent's house! So cool! We slept in the next morning (until about 8:00), arrived right on time to church and did NOT have to drop kids off, which would have made us late, enjoyed the service and Sunday school, then met up with the kids at Red Robin for lunch. It was such a great date weekend! We have to do that more often!