Who really needs a holiday weekend?

For years, I've promised Jeffrey (and boys) that we will have a Labor Day weekend like the rest of America. That we'd load up the car and hit the road. Unfortunately...ASU has sorority recruitment on Labor Day weekend and I'm a giant nerd for recruitment. Have I mentioned my roles with the sorority? I'm an Advisor to the Collegiate Chapter at Arizona State University. I'm also the President of the Alumnae Chapter here in Phoenix. I have another role called SRIC but honestly no one cares about that role that isn't deeply involved in the organization so I'll spare you the deets on that one.

In college, I loved the outfits, the awkward, forced conversations and the all night hang outs with my Sisters. Nails, hair and tans were perfect.  As an alum it's very different. We help out with behind the scenes stuff, typically in jeans and tees. It's just as late and just as exhausting...except you're ten years older and your family is at home annoyed that you are on a college campus until 4am. On a holiday weekend. Your husband insists you didn't tell him you'd be coming home just hours before your children wake. He's wrong. Also, we have this conversation every single year.

I think that for the most part Jeffrey doesn't mind that I'm gone most of the weekend. I imagine they enjoy the reprieve from the go-go-go that I insist upon during weekends. I picture them all sitting around the house in their underwear, eating cereal from the box and playing video games. I'm 99% sure that's what's going on when i'm gone all weekend. There's surely lots of wandering around Best Buy going on too, which I hate. See how this works out for everyone.

This year, I decided to help out on campus most of Saturday and all of Sunday. Saturday was 11-5 and totally do-able but Sunday was a beast. I was on campus at 11am on Sunday and was in my car driving back home at 4am Monday morning. I purposefully set an alarm for 8am so that I'd have all day with the boys. I was a wreck but 3 hours of sleep doesn't provide another option to being a disaster.

Here are a few pics of the active members gearing up for recruitment and during the actual recruitment weekend.

Executive Board

Yesterday was Bid Day which is the total culmination of Recruitment. All the women participating, find out which sorority they've received an invitation to join and it's a huge celebration. The chapter has shirts, hats, totes, giant letters, signs and all kinds of love for the new members. Chi Omega welcomed 61 new members to their chapter yesterday and it's thrilling to see how excited the girls are. It's a ton of work for the members, advisors and alums alike so it's wonderful when the end result is so fantastic. (pics stolen from some of the ASU Sisters!)

 

this is what bid day looks like to a new member who just received her
bid card and found out she's been asked to be a member of Chi Omega.

loving the chevron letters

graduating seniors

The ASU chapter's 61 brand new members!!

So...this all got me thinking about my own Bid Day. One of my Sisters was great enough to point out that we went through Recruitment 13 years ago. Did you just gasp? Me too. I found some pictures from 1999 and thought I'd post them. Here's the thing? By the time I found them bear was asleep and I didn't want to wake him to scan them (please dont even ask why our scanner is in his room. there's no legitimate answer) so I ghetto-style took a photo of a photo. Ugh. I hate when people do that but i'm just too damn lazy to scan these in. Also, you can't see it on our shirts but our Bid Day shirts say "they say it's lonely at the top, but how would they know!". Snarky and funny at the time but I'd never let our girls do that now. Funny how you change in a decade :)

My Big Sis, Rachael and I  -  Recruitment and Bid Day stuff. That's my actual PNM nametag and bid card :)

Top: My Pledge Class - Fall 1999 (i'm bottom row, 3rd from left)
Botton: Entire chapter photo (2nd row, smack in the middle)

So I'm feeling super nostalgic now so I think I'll take a break and find some ramen noodles, smirnoff ice and cram for a test in the chapter room. Happy Wednesday friends :)