Happy Monday!

 

Meet Princess Campbell. 

She is sporting her feather boa, fairy wings, tiara and beads.  Completing her fashion ensemble is her “toot toot” for twirling.

What’s your Monday night look like?

Where a Kid can be a Kid!

To bid farewell to our summer, I took off work early and Matt & I took Campbell to Montgomery to Chuck E. Cheese.  She had never been before and I think we were all the mindset of playing hooky & doing something really silly together before it was back to serious work and school mode.

When I was little, the same place was called Showbiz Pizza and they had a stage with automated characters that would put on a concert in the dining hall.  I loved it!  And then of course they had the arcade portion where you would win tix for some cheapo but nevertheless prized toys.

So when we arrived I quickly assessed that the name had changed, a mouse instead of a grizzly bear was the star of the show  but not much else had.  And that is not really a good thing.  Same characters bobbing up and down but in different costumes with their old tired hinged mouths creaking a second behind the sound system blaring subliminal messages about making your parents buy some yucky pizza and spend too much money on tokens for skee ball.  Not to even mention it looked (and smelled) like the same booths and carpet.

But hey, we were there for an experience so I pulled out the hand sanitizer, Matt ordered up some overpriced frozen pizza and we loaded Campbell down with some tokens.

What is a ZAP??

Okay, now that I have mentioned zaps in 2 previous posts I have learned that most people reading this really have no idea what I’m talking about.  When I was in college, the photographers that we would hire to come to our parties and take all our crazy posed pictures was the “Zap Guy”.  The company was called Zap Foto and I think it mainly catered to colleges in Birmingham. Maybe Univ of AL too??  So at our events we would yell “Hey, Zap Guy, Zap Guy” and it was almost like a competition to see who could do the craziest thing.

A few weeks after the party we would get these huge proof sheets to look over and buy the pictures we wanted. There is no telling the hundreds of dollars I spent on these silly pics!  But they are memories worth every penny. 

Anyway, working with the local KD chapter here has taught me that I am OLD (although I am pretty sure Zap is still around) and each school has different vocabulary.  Like “mixer” is “swap” here.  And instead of fighting over those big proof sheet posters, all the pics are online (of course!) and much easier to order & download. Not that anyone really cares but since I was in reunion mode I guess I thought I would scan & share some old school (literally) Zaps!! You can reference my Girls Weekend Reunion post for some Before/After pics…

 

Okay, this is the Anna/ Steph pose I referenced in the Girls Weekend Reunion post that we had to recreate.  I think it started out our Freshman year and we just started to see a pattern so eventually it was a tradition that we had to do. And for those of you out there who are not aware, Yes, 1996 was a long time ago but no, this was not the fashion.  We were dressed up for mixers which were theme parties with a fraternity in order to “mix” and introduce the new Freshman pledge classes. Because dressing up really unattractively in order to meet some guys makes a whole lot of sense!  

 This wasn’t really a ZAP, just taken on someone’s camera (way before everyone had digital!).  This was the first day of Rush my Senior Year (Sept 1999) and this was my pledge class, or what was left us after 4 years.  The theme was “Pick KD” so we all had to wear a dress or something with flowers.  Can you believe these dresses??  And what about those clunky black platform sandals…we thought those went with everything!  And Meredith was so in style with her neckerchief on. Honestly, that was definitely en vogue that season and I had tons of them.

I am the red head (yes, crazy story from the beach earlier that summer!) in the back in the black dress. Don’t worry, I’ve got my flowers on…they were embroidered from the hem coming up the dress.  Even then I couldn’t get away from the LBD!

Girls Reunion Weekend

I graduated from college in 2000 and I’ve kept in touch with some of my best friends but because we aren’t all near each other and of course have jobs and families and crazy schedules we only get together for weddings.   We always have said we have to have a scheduled reunion weekend and we finally did it!! 

I hosted this year at the lake and it was the perfect retreat for us to relax and catch up.  Its funny how so much can change and yet some things never do (thank goodness!) 

We were all KDs at Birmingham-Southern together so it was fun to reminisce about roommates and dates and professors and trips and all the things that made college… well, college!  Of course we also had to bring everyone up to speed on our lives.  Meredith spilled her exciting news and we can’t wait for her to join the mom club!! CONGRATULATIONS MER!!

Most everyone got in Friday late afternoon/ evening with Meredith driving in from Huntsville Sat morning.  Saturday we got on the boat and enjoyed the sun all day. Sunday morning we went to Church in the Pines for some good peaceful inspiration and then spent Sunday afternoon on the beach and in the water.

Since the lake doesn’t have too many restaurants or reasons to get dressed up, it was so nice to just stay around the house.  We took turns cooking and even published a little cookbook of all the recipes we contributed and some we just talked about!

Thank you girls for a weekend of laughing and talking and just getting away and enjoying life!!  Here are the highlights:

Anna & Leanne grilling!  This was after I almost burned my eyebrows off trying to figure out how to light the gas grill while on the phone with my dad. It was definitely scary for a moment!  But it was the perfect beginning for the weekend… I was back to her old calamity Steph, mishap days!

The girls:  Meredith, Leanne, Melissa, Anna & Julie
(I was taking the picture)

 Melissa  & Leanne in the kitchen getting ready for some sun.

Julie & Melissa on the beach. 
Jules is expecting baby #2—what will it be?? 

Anna & Stephanie in our old Zap pose!!  We have so many pictures of us from college just like this, but usually dressed in some crazy mixer costume or formal dress.  I think we even got a pic like made at Anna’s wedding.  So Silly!! 

Soaking up the last moments together on a beautiful Sunday. 

   I don’t remember what we were laughing about but obviously something funny!  When I think about my favorite times with these girls, most of them are our time laughing so hard in spite of whatever was going on.  It feels good to laugh like that!

Labor Day Weekend at the Lake