We drove 30 min north to Princeton today to see my old home and high school (we moved there just before my 11th grade). Our old house seems massive compared to my recollection, and the town of Princeton was gorgeous. The weather was equally nice – warm, dry, and leaves falling. We tried to find my science teacher but couldn’t track her down (despite the light in her office being on!), and jogged down to the boathouse on Carnegie Lake where I used to row. Back in the day, I was a coxswain and port-side rower – in fact I think I was the crew captain for our new High School rowing club. When we got back into town from the jog, we tried to find a bagel place but couldn’t remember exactly where it was. I decided to ask a couple ladies who looked “local” – they were in the park with their kids for lunch. After chatting for a minute, my high school friend Femke (above) recognized me! She was like “Aren’t you Allison?” precisely as I was looking at her, thinking that she looked really familiar! It was great to see her and hear about her awesome life raising the kids, traveling around competing at horse shows, and thinking about what to do next professionally. We hadn’t seen each other in 18 years!

Yesterday was spent pretty much relaxing and exploring around here, enjoying the beautiful weather after a couple days of rain. There are more pictures in the album – of Marilou’s grandson, Liam, playing with Sam.