" We're going on a cruise!"

We've been saying that a lot since Saturday when we went to a meeting to hear all the details. But let me back up a few months.

One thing I intended to blog about (and I don't know why I never did) was about my school of nursing 40 year (OHMIGOD!) class reunion last August. I'd been to a few high school reunions a long time ago and probably won't go to anymore, mainly because I just don't care much about the people I went to high school with. I mean, if I did, wouldn't I have some sort of contact with them on even an irregular basis?

But this reunion was just unimaginably fun - I think the difference is that we all lived together - all girls (no guys) living together in the dorm; eating together in the hospital cafeteria; going through all of our classes and clinical rotations together; and even traveling to Cincinnati for our pediatric experience together - for 3 years. No summer breaks and only a few days over the holidays each year. Now that's togetherness. But we got an awesome education.

Many of us made lifelong friends (see one of my posts from early last year). And many of them kept in contact and saw each other often. I did at first, but I was one of the first ones to get married and have kids and Dick and I have always spent most of our spare time together.

The first photo here was taken that night. The two older women on the far right side (next to me) were instructors and the rest were my dear classmates.

There was only one woman I didn't recognize at all (she'd recently been on medication that added weight to her face) and I'll admit I had to take a sneak peek at a nametag or two.

I hadn't seen most of them in 40 years. Some looked really good, some looked - well, let's not go there. (But I will say that the women aged much better than the husbands I remembered from that long ago.) But the amazing thing is that everyone's personality was exactly like I remembered - the quiet ones were still rather quiet, the life-of-the-party types were still boisterous, etc.

Many of us met for brunch the next day and the fun and conversations continued. I found out many of them have lunch once a month and a few weeks after the reunion, they came to my store afterwards and shopped. (Thanks)

And now we're planning a cruise together for next February (2009). We haven't been on a cruise in years and we love them. We had a planning meeting this weekend and now we are pumped.

I'll blog about this more in the future, but in the meantime, let me ask you . . .

Wanna go? There's room and it's a really good deal . . . let me know.