Reunion

For the first time in nearly three years, the six of us were together. And it was felt good. Katie and I orchestrated this event, and to our delight, everyone was able to attend - unusual, to say the least. It was decided that Katie would grab some pizzas, and I would meet the girls at Ameristar (a relatively central location) and we'd all meet at my house, then maybe catch a movie. The occasion was actually a sort-of surprise party for Rach's grad. Katie and I spent the morning at Wal-Mart, trying to find the perfect card. It was on this day that we met the woman at the photo kiosk-the one who'd recently lost her husband. As we looked over cards, this weighed heavily on our minds. After about a half hour of looking at cards, we decided to cheat. We found a lot of great phrases, but no great cards. So as I copied our favorites down, she immersed herself in the cards with audio. We no longer go card shopping together...
Anyway, we finally got the cards copied and the gift arranged. We went back to our own houses, got the gift/card-ish ready, and prepared to meet the girls.
Getting back to my house was rather uneventful. In fact you could call the entire evening rather uneventful. We ate pizza, gave Rach her presents (she was so surprised), took lots of pictures, and talked. And talked. And of course, Sunny introduced us to the cookie-ice cream dessert (aka the only time the six of us were completely silent all evening). I could hardly limit such an occasion to just the two pictures in the collage.


The three 2009 returners to WOF (aka a black hole where dreams go to die).


The 2009 Graduates!
(Khira and her groping...)

The City Girls Go On A Trip...

At some point in time, the idea of an Antique camping trip was formulated. I'm not sure who originally came up with the idea for four city girls to try to "rough it," but Katie was a girl scout, Rachael either was a girl scout or had some other notable experience, Khira was a small-town, country-ish girl, and I -- well, we were camping at my Uncle's lake (so I basically just brought the location, transportation, and tent). In other words, I could get us there and give us something with which to construct shelter, but that was all. We arrived and Aunt Tammy brought out a horse for us to take pictures with. We are, after all, the Antique girls. Once we had all been photographed, we headed down to the lake. We got the tent set up and it was, well, passable. Thankfully Katie and Rach knew something, because, although belonging to my family, that tent was a mystery to me. Once we constructed it, we swam in the lake. Having a lake completely to ourselves is something every group of girls should do. Promise, it's awesome. We alternated taking pictures, some sunbathing, but mostly we swam.
After a few glorious hours of swimming, we decided to build a fire. Fire--another thing four girls are just dying to get their hands on. We gathered the firewood and doused it in lighter fluid (we love lighter fluid), and light up. We had some help from my uncle at one point, but I can't remember when. We lit both the grill and the camp fire, so we could have pizza AND smores - real camp food for sure. After dinner, we took the raft out and played cards. Katie and I played the game Spit, and it's safe to say that we played by different rules. I wouldn't say Katie cheated, but I'm definitely not above typing it. When it got too dark for cards, we did the smores and then went swimming again... Swimming at night is the best. We loved it. By the end of the day we were EXHAUSTED. The next morning we woke up and made a walmart/sonic run. We bought a cheap disposable camera to supplement Rach's canon - there was a battery or memory card issue. We played in a park and then headed back to the camp site. As we drove back, rain started hitting the windshield, and it was pouring by the time we hit Thayer. We grabbed the essentials and headed to my other aunt's house to sit in the hot tub (we're city girls). Eventually the rain let up enough for us to pack up and head home, full of good memories, but soaking wet.

Here are some pictures that aren't really up in the collage, but too good not to share.

Antique Pictures

What could be a better job for 6 girls than a place filled with opportunities to play dress-up and take unlimited pictures?? We all started there the summer of 2006 (it seems so long ago!), and we were in store for quite a summer.



Summer 2006: The first picture is of Katie and Sunny in their white trash raincoats. It was pouring that day as they left. Neither had an umbrella, so they improvised. That is, until the security guard or a supervisor or someone they couldn't ignore yelled at them and made them take their sweet raincoats off.






Summer 2007: Khira and Rachael on her last day EVER of working at WOF. Bittersweet. We took SO many pictures that night. Such good memories. Thank God we were never busy, otherwise we'd actually have to pay attention to customers.




Summer 2007: Katie and Rachael. I wasn't there that day, but I'd venture to guess that they were bored and Katie had gotten a haircut recently. :) Note: Katie is wearing the blue dress that I eventually lost. But more on that later.



Summer 2009: The next picture is of me and Hannah on our last day working together. She was going back to UCM and although I didn't leave for another week or two, we wouldn't be back the same times. We told the girl working with us to do a photoshoot and she finally figured it out - like 200 pictures within ten minutes. We're hard workers. We actually dressed up twice that evening - and honestly worked in between - but one group came in both times we dressed up (about an hour and a half apart). They just laughed at us.

Lunch with Sunny

During my spring break, I got a text from Sunny that went something like this:

"Holy poop, you're in town."

With an invitation like that, you can bet we'd be getting together. Rachael and I met Sunny for brunch at Cracker Barrel, after heading to the wrong one initially. (Can I go anywhere without getting lost? Probably not.) We sat down to the table and waited for our dear Sunny to make her appearance. We didn't wait too long before Sunny appeared. She came, full of stories and details about her life. We ate a delicious brunch and got to know each others' lives just a little better. It was a wonderful time and ended all to soon, with Sunny heading back to David's Bridal and Rach and I back to Independence, then me to KC. Quite a conclusion to a great break.

Bringing in 2010

Three of us gathered to celebrate the new year this past year. We donned necklaces and tiaras and gathered at Katie's house for sparkling cider, snacks, and an evening of attractiveness - and I'm not just talking about us (we watched the new Star Trek movie!). Between watching movies and watching the New Year special, we had to take several group pictures, shots that included poses such as "how we look when our mom talks to us" and several "New Years" themed pictures. After our photoshoot, we watched the ball drop and were assaulted by several frightening performers, and yes, I do mean Jennifer Lopez, in her skin-tight, flesh-toned body suit and Justin Bieber serenading (?) Selena Gomez. Maybe when your voice changes and you grow a little, kiddo. Despite these horrifying vision, the night was an incredible way to welcome 2010.

Christmas Reunion!

December 26, 2008.
Our second true reunion. We were celebrating Khira's graduation, as well as the opportunity for the five of us to get together: Rachael, Hannah, Katie, Khira, and myself. Katie invited us back to her house afterward, where we ate dinner and watched (made fun of) the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. It was the second, and one of my favorite, of the Antique reunions.
We decided to go ice skating at Crown Center (and oh, it was beautiful!). Katie and I had bought some frames and flowers to give to Khira. We met up with the girls, skated and watched the fountains a little bit, and got to see a proposal on the ice! It was unseasonably warm, which meant no coats hindering our pictures or getting in the way while we skated. The ice was crowded, but most of us managed to stay off the ground (I was the exception - a pre-teen boy crashed into me and pulled me down...awkward). All the while, we snapped photos left and right. As we started the caravan back to Katie's, I don't remember what Rachael and Khira did. But Katie dropped me at Walgreens (after an unsuccessful attempt at Walmart) to print out pictures for the frames while she ran out to get the pizza. She picked me up and Rachael and Khira followed us back to Katie's, while I frantically put our pictures in the frame. We got back to Katie's, the gift was beautiful, and we started our much anticipated sleepover. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants left much to be desired, as we were not preteen girls looking for a superficial tear-jerking movie. Plus, our friendship is infinitely better, namely because the characters in that movie ain't got nothing on us. :)

Mini-Reunion

One fine day two years ago, we decided to attempt to get the group together again. During that time, Katie and I were both leads at Antique, Rachael was doing an internship, Khira was working in Richmond and Hannah was working at the mall. Katie scheduled us to work the morning shift together and Rachael was the only one available to hang out, so the three of us met up downtown. We walked around Union Station and Crown Center. It was doubly fun because Rachael had just gotten a fancy new camera for us to play with (we've since fallen in love with that camera). This was also the night of our first fountain escapade. But more on that later.
Afterwards, we followed Rachael to make sure she got on the right highway, running two or three red lights on the way (I don't think Katie ever got tickets for that...).