50th High School Reunion

My husband and I spent last Friday and Saturday nights in our old upstate NY hometown celebrating our 50th reunion with our high school classmates.  We went to a small co-ed Catholic high school that had about 300 students.  (It closed years ago and merged with the once-thriving all-boys Catholic high school across town, and enrollment at this new establishment is so much tinier than either of those schools from our day, sadly.)  We were a class of 80; we heard that there were 46 in attendance at Friday's event and 50 at Saturday's. That includes a number of spouses who didn't go to school with us, but not that many, actually (maybe 10?).  So it was a great turn-out. We have only lost two classmates in all these years, and we did raise a glass to toast them on Saturday night. They were missed!

On Friday night, we met at the lake house of a wonderful girl who was always one of the smartest and nicest in the class.  She and her husband live in NC, but they own a Vrbo rental up in NY like we do. In fact, it's just a bit down the road from our Oyster Haven house.  It was so much fun to just hang out with everyone in her lovely home and back yard--with glorious Lake Champlain as a backdrop--reminiscing and catching up. You would think we'd all seen each other just the other day--it was like picking up right where we left off after graduation (with a lot more wrinkles and less and/or graying hair!).  There were margaritas on tap, and appetizers, and pizzas from the downtown Italian restaurant owned by the family of one of our classmates, where we used to go after Friday night football games. The party was officially from 4:00-7:00, but my husband and I weren’t on our way home until about 9:00. A great time was had by all.

We had such a nice class; I think it was rather extraordinary, honestly.  You know how some classes just get along? (I mean, there were different groups of good friends, but no one excluded anyone else from any group and there was none of that "mean girl" stuff or extreme cliquey-ness.)  Teachers liked us, because we weren't troublemakers.  One of our teachers came to the party on Friday.  She was a sophomore homeroom teacher and taught biology, and we were the very first class she had after she got her degree.  She was only about eight years older than we were, and although she was no-nonsense and expected good behavior in her class, she was fun and we could always make her laugh.

Case in point: when we went to take a group picture Friday night, our crazy friend picked her up.  She's such a good sport--look at the way she's laughing! (But I did put that star there because I'm not sure she'd want her hiked-up dress on the Internet!)

Saturday night there were cocktails and a buffet dinner at my sister-in-law's brewery/restaurant.  The people who'd been in charge of organizing this reunion really went above and beyond with the set-up and decorations. Everything looked amazing.  And there were so many nostalgia-inducing items on display, all kinds of memorabilia from our high school days.  I was tickled to see that they'd used the artwork I did for the cover of our senior yearbook to decorate wine bottles donated by a guy in our class, boxes of chocolate truffles donated by a gal in our class, and the top of the sheet cake. (I was accused of depicting my boyfriend and myself when I drew that yearbook cover; and while I don't think I MEANT to do that, consciously...I believe that might be what I did!) 

I wore a dress I've had for a while that I just love, because it's so loose and flowy and comfy, and the print is so pretty...and it must be a popular style, because three of us at the party were dressed almost identically.  LOL!

Another teacher of ours (our English teacher, who was also quite young when she taught our class) was there to celebrate with us that night. The grandson and son-in-law of our late classmate DJ'd the party, and they played some of the oldies-but-goodies from our era. There was even some dancing.  It really was just so much fun, and I'll never forget it.   I'm so grateful to have been able to grow up with this amazing group of people and so happy that my husband and I were able to be there to celebrate the 50th anniversary of our graduation from a high school that will always hold a special place in our hearts.  We were the lucky ones, I tell you.  The seventies were actually a pretty sweet time to be a teenager. Things seemed so much simpler then.  We spent our days together at school, but we mostly left it all behind when we went home to our families.  No Facebook.  No social media posting.  No constant texts and phone calls.  (Well, full disclosure: there were frequent too-long phone calls with my high school sweetheart, whispering in corners with the landline phone cord stretched as far as it could go...ha ha, those were the days...)

I only have a few regrets about the reunion.  I wish I'd asked more questions about what different folks were up to. Afterward, I thought of all the missed opportunities for finding out about what's been going on in people's lives.  It's not that I didn't have some nice conversations, I did; but I wish I'd talked more. I've never been the best at the spoken word (give me a pen and paper--or a keyboard) and I do much better. I usually think of things I should have said hours after a conversation ends.  

I also wish everyone could have been there.  We were missing some of our classmates dearly.  One of them, our prom king who is always in the mix when anything is being planned for our class, lost his father shortly beforehand and obviously couldn't be there.  That left a bit of a hole. 

But God willing, there will be more reunions!  In general, the people I went to high school with are looking pretty fit and healthy.  (68 is the new 48! That's my story, and I'm sticking to it!)  We've all changed physically in the 50 years since our graduation, because how could we not?  But it's amazing how in some ways everyone seems just the same...as if we were back in those good old days, young, with our whole lives ahead of us.  I love how much these people whose lives are forever intertwined with mine still seem to look and speak and act just like those kids I knew long ago, when I was about the age of my oldest granddaughters. (Incredibly, those granddaughters are the very age their Papa and I were when we started dating!)

I’m not surprised that our reunion was such a success. That’s our class for you.

I think I'll end this with a ChatGPT version of our group picture that someone made and posted on Facebook.  (I'm not on there anymore, and I took almost no pictures, which is so unlike me.  So I've been relying on my sister to scope out our class FB page for photos and send them on to me.)

If only my real hair could ever look as good as it does in this picture!

Lookin' good, gang.  God bless the Class of 1976!

Summer 2026! (Part 2)

I got some lovely comments on my last post (my birthday post!), and I finally got around to replying to them today. I love my readers.  I've always been the kind of person who would rather have a few good, true friends than a legion of acquaintances with whom I socialize.  This has carried over to my blogging life: I don't have a legion of readers, but the ones who do stop by are so kind and sweet and loyal.

If you come here often, you might have seen that back in late July I did a Part 1 post about our summer goings-on.  I've been meaning to add to it, and especially to post some more pictures of our week with our kids and grandkids at our Oyster Haven Vrbo lake house, but time has gotten away from me.  My husband and I have been staying at his childhood home, just down the road from Oyster Haven, sharing the house with a number of his siblings.  Two of his sisters and their husbands are also living at the old homestead for the summer, and we have all been getting along swimmingly.  (Sometimes, other siblings also come to stay for short stretches, and nieces and nephews as well.)   It helps that there are 4 refrigerators: one in the kitchen, one in the garage, and two in the basement.  Each couple has claimed one as their own, and this keeps things from getting too complicated when it comes to meals.  Now and then, one of us will cook dinner for the group; but often, each couple is doing their own thing food-wise. And it's all working out beautifully.

On my birthday, one of my husband's younger sisters and her husband made a delicious steak dinner, which we enjoyed with 16 other members of the extended Pearl family who were in town at that time.  So it was a real party.

My husband and I have been spending a lot of time together on the boat.  Most days when the lake is calm enough, that's where we say our Rosaries, Divine Mercy Chaplets, and novena prayers.

 

A couple of days ago, we went out for about 3 and 1/2 hours.  We did our prayers, read our books, talked and lazed in the sun, and then we headed over to a bar/restaurant called "Flip Flops on the Dock," where you can park your boat for free and walk up to the lakefront restaurant to eat.  It was so much fun, such a perfect day!  We each got a cocktail before dinner, because it felt like a celebration.  (Getting old is not a joke, says this newly-minted 68-year-old; but there are some aspects of life in these "golden years," when you have grown kids and a retired husband, that are absolutely wonderful!  Especially when he's someone with whom you love to hang out.  And I do.)

Okay, now for the photo dump from our Oyster Haven week in early July.  (I have lots more pictures, but don't want to share too many with my grandkids' faces in them--especially the children of one of our sons who is not on social media and doesn't want them on it either, which I totally understand and respect.)

Magnet tiles were the craze with the younger set this summer.

The kids played in the lake and on the beach during most of the daytime hours.  But after dark, there were nightly raucous games of Texas Hold 'Em at the kitchen table.  Our grandkids are all getting pretty good at playing cards and keeping their poker faces.

People are always asking how we do meals for 35 during our vacation week together.  It works out surprisingly well (but it sometimes looks a bit like we're feeding an army--a starving one).  I used to cook all of the dinners, but I'm accepting more help these days.  Breakfast and lunch are pretty much handled by the parents of the different families, and they feed their own kids what they like and are used to.  In the old days, I tried to get up and make breakfast casseroles and bacon for the whole gang, or pancakes; but it's just hard, with different wake-up times, dietary needs, food allergies, etc. And the same goes for lunch.  So we let our kids take care of those meals.  I mean, we provide all kinds of staples, like butter, eggs, milk, cheese, bread, condiments, coffee, sodas, waters, adult beverages, etc.  But the kids end up doing a lot of shopping of their own, too.  Both of the fridges were packed to the gills by the end of our week!  

For the dinners this year, the couples each took a night to host.  We had a steak night, a pizza night, a chicken Alfredo night, a taco night, a roasted pork loin night.  And then for the 4th of July, we had a traditional hot dogs and hamburgers cookout.  Somehow, it all works, it really does.  But it's a bit cray-cray!

And we use paper plates and bowls and plastic forks and spoons.  I can't allow myself to feel guilty about how many garbage bags we fill with all that disposable stuff, because I can't imagine how we could keep up otherwise.

I can think of few things that make me happier than seeing my boys together.  There were lots of laughs, as always.

You might recall that last year, while wading out in the water our son #4 got poked in the thigh by a sharp branch on a log that had somehow washed into our cove, and he ended up with a serious infection.  He spent two nights in the hospital on IV antibiotics. Ultimately, he was fine.  But the accident happened early on in our vacation week, and once he was discharged, he was not allowed to go in the lake for the rest of his time there.  This 2026 week at Oyster Haven was going to be his "do-over."  Well, wouldn't you know, he ended up at Urgent Care again, with a swollen elbow. A small scratch somehow developed another infernal infection.  But this time, things were not as dire: it happened later in the week, after he'd been able to enjoy lots of water activity; it required an antibiotic, but just an oral one, not an IV; and most importantly, he did not need to be admitted to the hospital!!  He did have a much better week...but 2027, we're counting on you to be infection-free.

In spite of the elbow, he was a pretty happy camper.

I think now I'm just going to do the proverbial photo dump.  There are so many good pictures from our fantastic week together, but here are just a few.

My heart is full, looking at these images and remembering how magical our week was.  The kids love being together up here, and they stay busy from sun-up to sun-down.  What a blessing it is to have this house by the lake.  On turnover days, when my husband and I have to spend exhausting hours getting it cleaned up and ready for the next renters, I sometimes forget why it's so great to have it.  I need to keep coming back to these photos to remind myself that it's all worth it!

Really.  SO worth it.

This is 68

It's my birthday today.  I'm 68.  (Gulp!  How did THAT happen?!) My husband and I are the same age--he turned 68 almost exactly a month ago.  Yes, that means that we both spent this past year being 67; that's right, we were six-seven.  (If you have young children or grandchildren, you know just what I'm talking about.)  For that reason alone, I should be thrilled to be turning a different number, LOL.  But 68, guys!  Yikes!  Next month, we will be going to our 50th high school reunion!  We are officially old, I guess.

I'm posting this picture of my husband and me with our boys, from our photo shoot earlier in the month, because they are MY WORLD.  These guys of mine are truly the best gifts I have ever or will ever receive.  No other birthday gifts are needed here, I can assure you. I can't even imagine what my life would have been like without them.  And now, because of these five sons of ours, my husband and I have five daughters and 23 grandchildren to love and cherish as well.  It just doesn't get any better than that.

So Happy Birthday to me, the luckiest woman/wife/mother/grandmother in the world. Thank you, God, for the gift of my life.  I know that to whom much is given, much is expected--and I have been inordinately blessed; so I have some work to do before all is said and done, that's for sure.  Please, God, help me to fulfill whatever purpose you have in mind, before time runs out on me.  And thank you, thank you, a million times, thank you!  

Summer 2026! (Part 1)

I can't believe how long it's been since I've been here! The last time I posted anything, we hadn't even left VA for the summer, to head up to NY to manage our Oyster Haven Vrbo rental house and reconnect with extended family on both sides in the hometown where we grew up.

Before we left, son #2 and his wife hosted a party for my husband and the two grandsons whose June birthdays are within days of his.  Our daughter-in-law Ginger (wife of son #2) had "tattoos" made up of my hubby's face, and we all sported them to honor our Pearl family patriarch.  That was a hoot.

But I'm kind of hoping that those wash-off Papa faces are the closest any of my grandchildren ever get to having tattoos! LOL!

There's actually so much to write about--too much!--but the most important thing that's happened in all the time I've been away from this blog was our family vacation week at our lake house with our entire clan (12 adults and 23 kids ages one to 15, in a house that we advertise "sleeps 13"!) in early July.  It was simply magical, as always, and times like that make hanging onto our Oyster Haven house for as long as possible a top priority for my husband and me.  The kids and grandkids all look forward to that week that we block off for our own use (why should renters have all the fun?!)--it's like Christmas in July, truly.  Just so special.

We had a photographer come to take family photos by the lake in July of 2024, but our youngest grandchild (a sweet little one-year-old gal) had not been born yet, so we wanted to get some new ones taken with her included.  Last time around, we had everyone dress in various shades of blue and white.  This year, we went for patriotic red, white, and blue (it is our country's 250th birthday, after all).  We hired the same photographer, and she was wonderful at cheerfully wrangling our large and rather challenging group of mostly youngsters.  Especially because it was an extremely hot and muggy day, in the 90's with about 90% humidity.  Ugh!  We were all dripping with sweat, but she got us efficiently assembled into groups and got those pictures snapped in record time.  And somehow, she managed to make us look as cool as cucumbers.  I'm so proud of the grandkids, because it could have been a miserable experience, but none of them were crabby or whiny.  They really rose to the occasion and patiently posed like champs, and I'm just thrilled to have these precious family photos.

I'm not going to share any of the pictures with the grandkids in them here, for privacy's sake; but here's one of my husband and me with our five beloved sons and their better halves.

Back in 2022, four of my boys came to spend a belated Mother's Day with me, and son #4 had us pose for a funny picture--as if we were a 90's boy band or hip-hop/rap band.   He doctored it up and the next day, he posted this on the family text stream.

"Mama Knows Best" was the debut album of the Mama's Boiz.  He said that our next title was going to be "Don't Step on a Crack."

Son #1 was missing when we made that first album cover, but our family photo shoot presented the perfect opportunity to get a picture of the whole band of brothers.  So before the serious photo session got underway, son #4 had the photographer snap a quick picture for our long-awaited second album.  And then he made some edits to it and this is the finished product:

I think my silly boys are already discussing what the next album is going to be called.  I can hardly wait for that one to drop.  (And Mama really does love those boiz of hers.)

I'm realizing that I'm probably going to have to make this post a two-parter, because I have too many memories and pictures to share.  But here are a few snapshots to give you an idea of how AWESOME our week was.  It looked like we were running a summer camp on our little private beach in our little private cove.  Too good to be true, honestly.

Part 2 coming soon!

Hope you're having a glorious summer, dear readers!