Our rerereunion

Class of 1964 Gathering in Phoenix, AZ

February 19-21, 2016

Jim and Jane Gisselquist graciously hosted our first gathering of the weekend at their beautiful home on Friday evening. The weather was quite warm which made eating outdoors and enjoying their outdoor fire ring especially enjoyable. Of course, a full moon in the clear desert sky topped the gorgeous evening.

Everyone chipped in to add to the dinner and beverage menu, but Jim and Jane provided the main dinner which we all enjoyed. There were several groups that formed over dinner, but eventually the women of our class sat around the fire ring to enjoy the beautiful setting and conversation.

On Saturday, a number of people gathered for lunch and then explored the Musical Instrument Museum in Scottsdale. Again, it was a very warm day and we enjoyed our lunch on the patio at the museum as we snapped pictures and told stories!

Saturday evening, Ellie Watland hosted our group at her home. With the assistance of Karen Wallem and Shirley Beitelspacher, they decorated Ellie’s patio with several small tables and sitting areas for the evening. Of course, the table decorations took us back to our Midwestern roots since they had each table covered with patterned table clothes, colorful cloth napkins, and a variety of books like Lutheran Church Basement Women and memorabilia like THORVALD’S Cream of Lutefisk soup and UFFDA.

We should have been forewarned of what the menu was going to be when we saw Ellie and Karen decked out in aprons like our mothers would wear. Sure enough, they had made three casseroles including tater tot hot dish with ground beef, tuna fish hot dish and chicken hot dish with crushed potato chips on top! Of course, Cream of Mushroom soup was a key ingredient for the delicious hot dishes. They also served our favorite salads. They included a cole slaw, a tossed green salad with French Dressing and two colorful jello salads, lime jello with pears and orange jello with mandarin orange slices. An indication of how much we all enjoyed these savory tastes was that the three hot dishes pans were totally clean by the end of the evening! Truly, their efforts were worth it!

It should be mentioned also that there were several desserts that were enjoyed after our tasty meals. Louise Asper Johnson’s Fritos with melted peanut butter and chocolate sauce was especially memorable!

Louise’s mother, Sally, and her two sisters are in Mesa for part of the winter, so on Sunday, several of our class members drove to Mesa to see them. That was such fun and Sally looks great at 90+ years! We also dropped by to see Ole Braaten and his wife who live in the same area as Jerry and Louise.

If you can make it to the next rererereunion, we know you will have a great time! Check the class website to see details, which aren’t quite worked out yet! Please come join our class of sun-seekers in the wintertime!

Enjoy the photos! Doubleclick on the first one and you'll get a sliide show wih captions!