Class of 2000 and the Senior "Cooks"

Last night was absolutely fabulous. Even though I've seen most of these people within the last 10 years (several times), it was so fun to have the majority of us all together again.

Maybe I should start with our trip down there. It was held at Christenbury Hall's club house in Concord. My friend Christy is an agent there, so she was able to take advantage of it. She gave great directions on the invitation, however I have a tendency (ok, a really bad habit) of losing things. I know it's around here somewhere, but I couldn't find it. So I looked up the address online, then put it in our GPS. The thing about GPS's is that they don't always know exactly where they're taking you. It led us to a gated community. As we approached the gate, I thought to myself, "Oops, there must've been a code to get in on the invitation. I'll just call Stephanie to get it from her." And of course, my phone was left in the diaper bag... at my mom's house. I called my mom's and got Madison on the phone. She couldn't find it in there (she didn't look hard enough). Ok, so that idea was out. We were just going to either have to turn around or find a way in. We turned around, then saw a gorgeous black Mercedes pull up and enter in a code. As she entered in, we booked it and flew into the community before the gigantic iron gates shut on us. We rode around and realized, there was no club house.

So we turned around (and thankfully, the other gate opened to let us out). We drove around a little longer and found a different entrance. And yes, we made it! :)

We had a blast. Brad was particularly excited about getting to drive our buddy Justin's car:

For those of you not really familiar with cars, it's an M5... which I guess is a big deal. Either way, Brad was excited about it.

Anyway, it was so fun catching up with everyone. One of our friends, Alysia, came all the way from Arizona and brought her newest baby Analise. She's so tiny and adorable!

One of our classmates, Adam, was diagnosed with cancer during high school. He passed away not long after we graduated, so in his memory, my friend Anna (who btw, couldn't make it because of the stupid stomach bug... we missed you Anna!) put together a scrapbook for his mom. We wrote something on each page (a memory, scripture, etc) to let her know we haven't forgotten him. It was a great idea.

And this, my friends, is why I loved my school.

We were small enough that 10 years later, we still remember our friend and can honor his memory this way. Maybe I'm wrong, but if we'd had hundreds of kids in our class, it's very likely this wouldn't have happened.

Anyway, it was a good night. We talked and laughed and took a million pictures. We actually got to watch a video of one of our chapels we put together in 11th grade. Apparently, this chapel went down in the RCS books as one of the best. We did a Gilligan's Island episode, complete with commercials. The best part was our GAP commercial. Yall remember those? The ones where everyone danced around in white shirts and khakis? Yeah, well, we did one of those. We realized how much our class got away with, as we watched it. Hien, our Vietnamese classmate, was one of the natives on the island... poor kid got stereotyped. What was funnier, though, was we were all talking about how much we didn't remember. We asked Hien if he was in the play (before he showed up on tv). He said, "I think I was sick that day..." And that was when he walked out completely shirtless. In a Christian school. The girls couldn't show their shoulders, but Hien could go around topless in a chapel program. Typical.

It was pretty hilarious watching it again.

Anyways, here are a few shots from the night:

~ the girls ~

L to R: Kristin, Joyce, Stephanie, Kim, me, Meghan, Elisabeth, Christy, Alysia

(we were missing Anna H. and Anna S... so sorry yall couldn't make it! We missed you!)

~ the boys ~

L to R: Philip M, Justin D, Philip L, Justin R, Hien

(we were missing Kevin, Ethan, Duane, and Adam)

~ The RCS Class of 2000 ~

Did I mention the cake? I don't think I did. Well, there's a fun story behind that too.

During our senior year, we decided to start a new tradition at our school, known as Spirit Week. Each day of the week would be something fun and different... tacky day, character day, etc. Each class came up with a "team name" and we would all compete at the end of the day in games. We would have pie eating contests, tug of war, and things like that. All of the classes chose to do animal themes, ie. the 6th Grade Cobras. Our class was known for pushing the envelope. So what did we come up with? The Senior Gamecocks.

Yep. We went there.

Our class shirts were green and gold and read, "SENIOR COCKS '00".

Before each event, our class would get together and chant, "Go Cocks!"

I know, we were so mature.

It took a few days, but the teachers finally got it. Our principal called up a couple of us (not me, of course) and said that we better not show up with a shirt on where "cock" outshined the word "game" on it. lol.

We had two options: we could come up with a new name, confuse everyone who didn't get it, and spend forever making new shirts; OR we could try to remedy the situation.

So a couple of the girls collected all of our shirts, got together, and spent the night connecting all of the C's with gold paint. For the rest of the week, we were known as the Senior Cooks.

And this was our cake for the reunion:

Today was our Family Day at the park. We decided it would be fun to have a picnic, meet the kids, and just have a more relaxed time together. There was a playground for the older ones and also a splash park with little fountains that shoot out of the ground.

Noah loves his friend Stephanie

He also liked her sunglasses :)

Philip and Justin

Noah playing with Analise

Joyce and Rachel

Kristin and Noah

(I love this picture)

While we were there, we tried out the little splash park they had there. Noah wasn't quite sure what to think of it. He would act interested, but I think there were too many big kids running around. It definitely cooled him off though, so I think he liked that!

Anyways, we all had a blast, and I decided we don't need to wait another 5 or 10 years before getting together again. Most of us live fairly close to eachother, so it's silly we're not together more.

Phew! This post took me forever!