Today is my grandfather's 95th birthday. Yes, you read that right, he's NINETY-FIVE. Last weekend a large portion of the family gathered to celebrate this momentous occasion.
The retirement community where he and Jan live regularly puts on a
little celebration in the breezeway between the dining room and the
elevators for resident birthdays. So all we had to do was show up and
eat cake!* We also brought some sheet music and had the organist from
Umpah's church came so that we could sing some of Umpah's favorite
songs. I gathered photographs from everyone in the family and displayed
them in chronological order on the cake table so family and residents
could reminisce about days gone by.
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| *we had nothing to do with the color of the table cloth |
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| 7 of Umpah's 8 great-grandchildren. (2 of my cousins, Doug and Karen, were unable to attend so young Drew is the missing great.) |
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| Our little family. I don't think we took a single picture of me with my brothers all weekend, though. Bummer. | | | |
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I hadn't seen my brothers in almost two years. Most everyone else, except my father, I hadn't seen in a much longer amount of time (I last met my cousin Christy's husband, Rich, at their wedding - 20 years ago!!) SOOO - Ellie finally got to meet her Aunts and Uncles, and most importantly, COUSINS!!!
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| Aunt Jenni didn't like Ellie at all. |
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| Ellie and Uncle Pete |
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| Ellie and Ryan |
But the one that stole her heart, from the very beginning, Cloudy Bear!!
As soon as Ellie spotted Cloudy in a room, she would run toward him, arms stretched over her head in excitement.
After the party we cooled off and relaxed in the giant pool!
Umpah had reserved the private dining room for us for dinner. All 21 of us were wearing our Umpah shirts - pretty funny to see us walking around! More group photos ensued after that, but again, not on my camera.
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| Christy finishes the toasting. |
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| Aunt Phyllis starts the roasting!! She'll be 90 in two years and we're already talking about that celebration. |
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| Ellie entertained herself with her quiet book. |
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| Later, Ben read Pete the Cat and his White Shoes for the littles. |
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| Ellie playing with Aunt Tammy's bracelets - the girl loves jewelry! |
Up Next: the rest of the weekend!
2 comments:
Your family is so precious! Cloudy is HUGE compared to the last photo I saw of him - which was probably before Sylvia was born :) Love the matching shirts and WOW - the photos on the cake table! Adorable. You can come design my next party.
great blog and pics!! we had such a great time...when I got back, I had 3 days of laundry (or so it seemed)...have fun catching up on everything and REST!
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