Make new friends, but keep the old.

My high school experience was amazing because of these people right here. 

I don't know if it was the fact that we went to an all girl school so we didn't have boys to distract us, or maybe it was because we were just plain AWESOME, but we had some fun times-in this case, we appear to be in a tent. In general, we usually wore 80's clothes in public, we alternated where we spent our time among (amongst?) each other's houses (our house was a frequent stop-thanks, Mom!), and we were ALWAYS eating. In many ways they shaped who I am as an adult and I am forever grateful for them!

Now, we are old and have these kids that expect to be raised. So, we decided to bring them all together and it was so much fun!

4 old best friends from 20 years ago+ 9 new best friends from this year = one helluva weekend!

Look at us! Grown ups!

Skye & Stine drove in town & stayed in a hotel* and we crammed as much fun as we could into the 4 days of the their visit. 

*When I say "they" stayed in a hotel, I, of course, mean that we also were frequent visitors to their room, their pool and their free breakfast.

Because they didn't get in until late, the first day was just a brief visit for ice cream. 

Max. Y'all. This kid is so indifferent to most things, but you put him near a hotel with some big kids (flashback to OEYEO) and he is in his element. Look at his face. God, I love him. 

In case you didn't know, I am an activity hoarder, so I had a slew of things for us to do. First up-Secret City Festival in Oak Ridge! There were so many things to do; I will just include a few pics.

We have only been one other time 2 years ago but it was just as much fun as I remember!

Hands down, his favorite part. 

Max is in the Rescue Vehicles stage, so anything that allows him to be a fire fighter is a win. 

How amazing are all of these people who volunteer their time for other people's kids?

We even did a little crafting. 

Anderson decided that this would be a perfect time to develop an interest in crafting and spent an hour coloring a frame, in detail. This would have been really sweet except it was at least 200 degrees outside and Max kept attacking the water cooler thing. 

Again, he thinks he is 7. 

The big boys in one of the moon bounces!

The entire event cost us $3 for a snow cone.

We made the evening kid friendly with pizza at "the hotel."

How great is it that these kids just immediately bonded? I mean, we kept taking them fun places and giving them food, so it was an amazing set up, but still. 

Day 3 was another fun/chaotic day that began with a Lowe's Avengers' craft thing. 

Anderson quickly became obsessed with "Germany" to the point where he had to ride in our car with us. I don't blame him-Jeremy is pretty awesome. 

Also, I got to hang out with Violet who is as cute in person as she is in her pics. I might be a borderline stalker of her family through Jeannie's blog, so when she first walked up and I immediately asked questions about her recent birthday party and talked about her favorite princess, Cinderella, she should have probably thought "Stranger Danger!"

Anderson kept "rescuing" her from the side of the pool. It was adorable. 

These two appeared to have some kind of conflict in a past life and kept arguing with each other....except for the 15 minutes that they bonded in the Kroger car cart. I am sure the cookies and fruit snacks that were distributed during the ride had nothing to do with that. 

Also, Jeannie and I got picnic food and, upon checking out, realized that we had 3 different kinds of cookies and only 1 package of lunch meat. Clearly, not much has changed since our high school days. 

Picnic at the park!

Jeannie was a master watermelon cutter upper. 

There was a splash pad, but there was also this giant puddle, which was clearly more fun. 

Again, I use this pic solely for Max's face. He was yelling, "Watermelon Time!"

So many attempts at group pics meant that our kids were basically done every time we tried to corral them. 

By the last day, they were truly besties. 

It was sad to end our weekend of fun, but we have already started planning next summer!