Alumni Weekend

On Friday of last week we were finishing up all the last minute details for Alumni weekend. On Friday morning the board was here for a meeting and I got to have lunch and hang out for most of the afternoon with Dixie. She was delightful. Will, Sarah, and I were lucky that we got to spend so much time talking with her.

In the evening we were all prepared and felt the calm before the rush. Dinner was ready and we had 4 alumni. The evening was a confusion of random arrivals, happy greetings, confusion about schedules and excitement about seeing old friends again. I tried to talk to as many people as I had the energy to and was increasingly excited at belonging to such a cool network of people. The evening dragged on because people arrived late but, spirits were high.

On Saturday morning Amy set out and incredible breakfast. We had quiet conversation with everyone and I enjoyed the last couple conversations before I would spend the rest of the day in the kitchen. After Matins I went to help prepare the dinning room, help get the food ready, wash dishes, etc. I helped serve the amazing lunch that Ali had organized and prepared and after we finally were able to finish clearing lunch I started prepping dinner.

I think I was in the kitchen from about 11am until 10pm. It was incredible! The soup turned out well and we fed at least 70 people. It was fun to see people in excited conversation and to know that everyone was enjoying the weekend. Saturday evening they had a little open mic where a few people sang some songs. It was really cool. I was exhausted at that point and a little music was so refreshing.

We all got back to Windrush and were so exhausted we just sat around for a while and had the silliest interaction as a group that we'd had in a long time. Sunday breakfast, again, was amazing and I enjoyed some conversations before the clean up for the rest of the day began. Cindy and I stripped and reset 5 rooms. The Alumni were all very considerate and had stripped their beds for us, helping us out quite a bit. There were lots of things that we had to clean up, we'd think we were done and we'd remember something else and so on... it was a relief to finally be done.

I think that Alumni weekend was one of my favourite weekends of the whole year. It was exciting to realize that I'm a part of such a fun group of people. Not just fun but interesting and caring. What a special gift!