Continuing our jaunt through the distant past, we’ve posted a new set of photos. These pictures, which are almost exactly four years old today, date back to our 2009 trip to Texas to visit friends from Rice at Dave and Rebecca Hyatt’s house in The Woodlands. Joe and Erica Shidle flew in from Chicago with Laura and Kay; Mason and Kathy Hart trekked across town from their place in Houston with their son Dylan; and Paul Williams drove in from Belton, Texas with Zane and Diana—sadly, his wife Joanna couldn’t make it. That, or she wisely chose to stay far away from the potentially explosive gathering.

Four years out, a couple things about the trip stand out in my memory. First, Houston was every bit as hot as I remembered it, and perhaps even more so. Second, Dave and Rebecca have a great pool, complete with a robot that cleans it automatically overnight, and they were fantastic about opening their home to fourteen people—seven adults and seven children—most of whom stayed overnight for several days. Somewhat miraculously, the structure was still largely intact when we departed.

As you can see from the photos, we took the opportunity to visit our old stomping grounds at Rice while we were in town. The campus has grown dramatically since we all graduated, but all the same, there were many aspects that seemed nearly untouched by the intervening years. Sadly, Baker College, where we all (except Rebecca) lived was undergoing remodeling and expansion at the time, so we weren’t able to go inside. I’m told that the facade is nearly unrecognizable since the completion of construction in 2010.

Prior to this trip, the last time everyone got together was in 2004, so if we want to stick to an every-five-years cadence, we’ll have to plan something for next summer. Assuming we pull it off, you can look for the pictures sometime in 2017. Of course, at least three more kids will have been added to the mix by that time, so the choice of venue may be a significant sticking point.

In case you were wondering, the titles of this post and the associated album are a reference to an unfortunate photo and caption that appeared in the Rice Thresher during my senior year. For the record, three of the five guys pictured had girlfriends at the time of publication.