Roommate Reunion 2018

In January of 2018, I sent out an email to seven of the girls I lived with at Brigham Young University. We had talked many times before about having a reunion, but for one reason or another (schooling, moving, kids, etc) it had never worked out. This year, no one had tiny babies and everyone (except Destiny - we missed her!) was on board! We started planning right away and narrowed our trip down to Los Angeles, California, for September 12-16. We rented a home in Torrance with four bedrooms, a pool, and a hot tub. It wasn't super close to most of the stuff we wanted to do, but it wasn't very far, either. It was a great place to unwind at the end of each day. Julie flew in from Oregon, Betsy from Washington, Ashley from Utah, Katrina from Texas, Brittney from Illinois, Bridget from Pennsylvania, and me from VA. (Destiny had just barely moved from Arkansas to Idaho, so it was too tricky for her to get there. Next time for sure!)

So Wednesday, Sept 12, I woke up early and drove myself to the Richmond airport for an early flight. Then my flight was delayed due to fog. So eventually I missed what would have been my connection. So I had to reschedule a flight through Atlanta. But due to fog, I missed that connection, too. I was supposed to be the first one to arrive in California! EVENTUALLY I got on a flight to New York - completely out of the way. Once in New York, I RACED through the terminal only to find that I had, once again, missed my connection. By just 15 minutes or so. So I went up to a help desk and explained that I had missed my flight and the woman at the counter wasn't having it. She wasn't going to get me to LA. Then she asked why I had missed my flight and I explained, while almost crying, that the reason I had missed my flight was because of all of their delays! Finally she understood and let me on the last flight out that day. I was so exhausted and drained. Then I sat in the middle seat for a six hour flight to LA. Ugh. Once I got there, I met up with two other roommmates who had landed relatively recently - Katrina and Julie. Then we waited for the others to pick us up in the rental van and we had a joyous reunion!!! I think we left the airport at 9:30 or so. People were hungry (I was exhausted. It was 12:30 my time plus being pregnant) so we went to the Cheesecake Factory for some grub before turning in at the house. I announced on the car ride that I was pregnant, so that was fun.

Ashley, Betsy, me, Bridget, Julie, Brittney, Katrina.

Thursday we got up early and headed to Disneyland. Since I'm pregnant, I couldn't ride much, but we still had a great time together enjoying the day!

The weather was gorgeous and it was fun spending the day getting reacquainted!

Friday we slept in a bit and then went out for pedicures. We had lunch at In n Out, and spent the afternoon at Manhattan Beach. Such a beautiful, perfect day! We hung out at the home visiting for a while, then went to dinner at a Mexican place followed by ice cream. Ended the night in the hot tub chatting.

Saturday we drove down to Newport Beach and rented a Duffy boat, which is a very slow electric boat, and drove it around the harbor. We cranked some of the music we listened to back in college and belted it out to the passing fancy yachts and other tourists. Dan made me promise to wear a life jacket, so despite the fact that our boat was crawling along, I appeased him. :)

We had lunch at a yummy sandwich shop (which happened to be showing a BYU football game), and then went to Balboa Penninsula where we tried to get a surry to ride around, but they don't make them large enough for seven. So we walked the pier, watched the crazy body surfers at The Wedge, and rode some carnival rides.

We had dinner at another Mexican restaurant - this one was much better, more of a hole-in-the-wall place. Then we got donuts. (We really porked out on this trip!)

We headed back to the house so Katrina could pack (she left that night) and we did face masks, which was hilarious.

Sunday morning we all staggered out of the house at different times. Ashley and I caught an Uber to the airport together. I loved this trip so, so much. It was so much fun to see these women and how life has turned out for us thus far. They know more about me than pretty much anyone else (with a few exceptions) and they love me anyway! We're hoping to do another reunion, now that we know how awesome they are, in two years. Here's hoping that happens!