we were staying at laurel's mom's house, which has a great view of the bay (and i took advantage of that many times). we got there friday afternoon and met up with some other friends (liz and her mark and jessica) and we all piled into jessica's car and i got to see the house i grew up in. i have to admit that i was unpleasantly surprised. the house (and neighborhood for that matter) looked shabby and not in great repair. they had also cut down most of the trees around the house. you could also see that they must park a truck in the front yard (ie there were tire tracks). the only good thing i could see was they had extended out the backyard by cutting back the blackberry bushes that were always so unruly. but even that's sad since who doesn't want to have blackberries just out your back door?
here are the pictures of my house. many might not care about these...but i know at least my family will.
you'll see here all of the trees that were cut down. from memory, i'm guessing that they cut down at least 7 trees. i just can't imagine why you'd want to cut them down.
ironically, the two trees they decided not to cut down were these two shore pines that are now enormous. personally, i don't think they look very good.
this shows how windy and cold it is. it's easy to forget that it can honestly be so cool somewhere during the summer. 
so friday night we had a delicious quiche that laurel's mom, kate, cooked for us. she's such a great cook! and then we went to a reunion opening social at a bar in town. walking into the bar was the only time i was nervous during all of the reunion craziness. it was all very sudden and weird to see people. but i got over that pretty quickly. it was a bit weird at times, but overall i had a good time. the funniest thing, to me, was that a number of people said they didn't/hadn't recognized me. but i guess glasses and short red hair may do that.
this is our group prior to the bar outing.saturday we went out to a bbq and then to my favorite beach. it was cloudy, foggy, cool, windy--basically just the way you'd expect it to be and want it to be.
me and my friends courtney and laurel at sunset beach. i got my feet in the water, and (on accident) got my pants wet too when a little sneaker wave got me.
this is the little river that flows into the ocean. when b was here with me before we got married, he was shocked at how freezing the water was. after getting used to the cold mountain rivers here in utah, it didn't feel so cold...although still way to cold to do much than just look at it.
that night we went to the "main event" at the local casino. and it really was a lot of fun. next door to our room was the neighboring town's 1999 hs reunion event going on. they had hired a dj--so when the dividers were removed between the two 99 reunion events, me and my friends went over and danced to their dj's tunes (but only when they were good. there really was no reason to dance to the two john cougar mellancamp songs he played.) and then we their dj was done we played several songs from courtney's ipod. and when that happened, we actually got quite a few of the nb'ers out on the dance floor dancing. it was great. i haven't danced like that in a long time.
after the casino thing ended, we went over to a new dance club in coos bay. it was not very impressive and the music (other than mj's billie jean) wasn't good, but it was fun to dance a bit more. then we went to a local diner that stays open 24 hours (perhaps the only that does now). it was a fun night, but i didn't get to bed until about 5am--sunday am that is. so it was a very short morning since i had decided to attend the first hour of church so i could see my old ward and some people. church started at 9--so i got 3 hours of rest (note i didn't say sleep). it was good to go see the church building and some people. the ward has changed a lot, and i didn't recognize a lot of people, but it was interesting.
on sunday, court, laurel and i drove back up to portland. then on monday laurel and i went to a crazy goodwill where you buy clothes by the pound. we got a huge bag full of stuff for only $14. then we met up with court at an indonesian place in the city. with the last of my oregon time, court and i hung out at powell's. it was too hot to try to do anything outside.
so, all-in-all it was a great time. there were some weird moments, but i expected that (especially given that i was attending a hs reunion). it was good to see nearly everybody. i reconnected with people i knew well and people i didn't know too well back in the day. north bend was still very much the same in many ways, but there were definite changes as well. the biggest change, for me, was my house. i want to go back there when i have more time, and i want to take brian with me so that he can get more familiar with the area and people. hopefully it won't take 7.5 years before that happens!
