The actual reunion....and the rest of the story

So now, more explanation to go along with all of the pictures. Turner and I took a trip to Central Illinois to attend my mom's 45th high school reunion with her in Mattoon, IL. Maybe an odd vacation, but I really wanted to see Mattoon again (the town my mom grew up in and where my Grandma Georgia lived), I wanted to share Mattoon with Turner, and I wanted Turner to meet some of my mom's friends from high school, in particular, Susan and Linda as growing up, I spent some quality time with them. Alas, Linda didn't make it from California, but Susan lives in Mattoon so she couldn't escape me!
We went to Carbondale on Wednesday to visit my Aunt Sheryl, Uncle Bill and Sadie. It made more a much shorter trip on Thursday and was a great excuse to spend a little time with them. After a delicious breakfast courtesy of Uncle Bill, we hit the road. We kind of piddled a bit and stopped in Lebabnon, Illinois where there are a bunch of antique shops en route to Jacksonville.
After picking up my mom, we headed to Mattoon. Once there, we met Susie for dinner at Cody's. My mom was staying at Susan's and Turner and I had a hotel room nearby.
Friday we met Larry (Susan's husband) for lunch at Villa Pizza (there are pix of lots of this below) and then hit the mall. I got a few great deals on a couple of maternity shirts and a dress and mom found some cute outfits for the reunion. And Susie managed to sneak away and buy some super-cute Peanut attire. After a nap, it was time for the mingler at the American Legion.

This is a shot of my mom and I at the mingler on Friday night. There was lots of good food, a great birthday cake (as the Class of 1963 was turning 63 this year) and some oldies (I mean the music, not the people).
The next morning, Turner headed out early to play golf with Larry and I picked my mom up to put together flowers for the graves (My Grandma Georgia, Grandpa Pano, Uncle Johnny, Great Uncle Tony Steve and Great-grandma Ida are all buried in Mattoon). It toook longer than we thought it would and Turner ended up meeting up with us and we toured the train station and then he went with us to the graveyard.

Then we went around and took pictures of my grandma's house and Friendship Park. This is a shot of Turner and I in Friendship Park with the headless woman statue (as a side note, I think she lost her head when I was still a kid, so this isn't the work of a modern day vandal:-)
Then back to the hotel to clean up and off to the reunion. Turner was the official photographer which presented a number of problems as it was pouring rain and lightning and thundering and the class picture had been planned for outside on some stairs. After some improv, he managed to get some good shots and we edited over the rain drop on the lens (which you'll see in the picture below) with Class of 1963.

This is me, semi-hideously posing as the place holder for the Class of 1963. Alas, though we lined them all up on this stairwell, they wouldn't all fit, so we had to move them out into the rain.

The official Class of 1963 picture. However, as I mentioned above, the raindrop was edited out. Turner was perched on the back of the Tribute holding an umbrella in one hand and the camera in the other taking this picture. I ultimately stood below him as it was the only way to keep from getting completely soaked.

A final shot of us with my mom later in the evening. I'd like to say that I hope I didn't look this hideous all night. The rain had played a number with my hair and as for the rest of me, ugh, hopefully I didn't look this bad the whole time. Since we were the official photographers, we have way more pictures of the Class of 63 than we do of us, so I included this one just because.
All in all, save the LONG drive on Sunday, it was a good trip and I had a lot of fun.
Oh, and the Peanut travelled pretty well, all things considered.
Love to all and we'll update with the sex of the Peanut on Thursday!
We can't wait to find out!
Love,
J