Sunday, February 10

Just when I thought my birthday fun was over, we came home from church to this.

Another party had not even entered my radar.

When I first saw the cars in our driveway, I thought there were a bunch of mancave guys at our place to watch a game on TV.

Then as we came over the last hill before our house I saw all these cars. At first I thought there was a neighborhood emergency or maybe a neighbor was having a party and using our yard. 🙂

Then the “lights came on.” I kept saying to Cerwin, “What did you do? What did you do?” 🙂 He just smiled.

Our garage was filled with children, grandchildren, and our siblings. That’s my youngest brother Steve closest to the camera.

Our children were quite pleased that I was surprised. Even though I told them I don’t like surprises. 🙂 I did like this one.

Our children did an amazing job of decorating and planning the food. There were pictures of me everywhere.

Old ones and recent ones. I learned that Kristen “stole” my external hard drive to get the pictures.

Our son-in-law Roy thought my chair and place setting should be a bit different than everyone else’s. 🙂

Look at that delightful dessert table. Someone asked how I liked my cake. My cake? I didn’t see a cake. Then I spotted it.

Isn’t that amazing?

I am so gullible. One morning, a week or so earlier, Jere asked if I could send him a cell phone picture of my camera. He said a friend was interested in one like mine. So I sent him a picture. He asked me to turn it a bit and take another picture. I did, and never thought a thing about it. 🙂

I haven’t gotten up the courage to cut it. I put it back in the box and into the freezer.

Lunch was delicious! Jere smoked three briskets, and there were gourmet potatoes, green beans, salad and several relishes. A few people said if they want to have a party, they are going to hire our kids. I didn’t think to take pictures of the serving table in the kitchen.

My mind was too busy and amazed as they told me how they pulled it off – arriving at our house as soon as we left for Sunday school. Deb lives an hour away and was parked behind a barn at the farm, waiting for us to go by. Diane kept everyone informed of where we were.

One of my highlights was meeting five new people that I had heard about, but had not yet met. Jana was pleased to bring her friend Austin.

Josh was happy to introduce his friend Emily and her daughter, Tucker to us.

I knew Josiah was bringing Becky and her daughter Biankah to the house that day, but didn’t know they were coming for lunch. 🙂

This table was prepared for afternoon ice cream.

A closeup of some cupcakes – made by our niece Amy.

Marlin, Nancy (my sister), Dale (my brother) and Dot visiting over lunch.

At this table: Jere and Kristen’s children, Elvin (Cerwin’s brother in black shirt) and his wife Pat in red.) Lydia, Josiah, Becky, and Biankah are at the other end. Cerwin’s sister Velda and her husband Mel were in Florida and his sister Doris and her husband Bob were in Haiti (they were evacuated a week later due to the unrest in that country).

The garage was filled with balloons. Our daughter Deb on the left.

Anthony (our oldest great-grandchild) wanted me to open his gift to me as soon as they arrived.

He was quite excited for me to open it.

He was telling me that he made it.

He did a great job!

Telling me about the words he wrote.

This is Steve (my brother) and Brenda’s grandson Lincoln.

Nathaniel and Abby (our granddaughter) with her mom.

It looks like Nathaniel and Diane moved – they are now at this table visiting with Elvin and Pat. I can see Nathan, Lauree, Jordan and Gloria behind Josh and Nathaniel. I didn’t get a closeup of that table. .

This is a good time to close tonight’s post. I still have a lot of pictures for tomorrow night.