Dad's Party

For anyone that has not quit reading the blog since my last post was almost 6 months ago.

Here is what happened in October. My sister Mary and I spent the better part of 2009 planning a surprise party for my Dad's 60th birthday. Here is the invite.

We rented a barn by my parents home in Colorado; my Uncle Tom and his band provided the entertainment; and we (meaning my Mom) had the event catered with cattle fare - beans and meat. The barn is a modern barn, so it almost looks more like a very large garage inside than a traditional barn, but we thought it would be fun. We totally lucked out when someone booked the barn for a wedding the next day. They decorated the barn and all I had to worry about was not destroying all the hard work. My dad thought I was coming to Colorado the next day, so I spent the day shopping for food with our sponsor - Mom, and making sure the barn was ready. Mary was with my mom and dad and convinced my dad to come to the barn for a "hayride" she had heard about. The plan was simple, when he started walking toward the barn, Courtney, Jack and the band were going to start singing "Birthday" by the Beatles.

He showed up on time, and despite being frustrated with everyone because my mom had on church shoes and Mary and Ben weren't bundling up their kids (it was a cold night for a hayride). they started into the barn. When James saw them coming in, he ran out the door to say hi to Poppy. I was so mad because I had just spent a year planning this, and in 10 seconds, my son had ruined the surprise. Lucky for me, my mom acted fast, grabbed James and ran him towards the door. Not expecting to see his grandson, my dad didn't even think twice about his wife running some stranger's child into the barn. When he finally started toward the barn, it took him a minute to figure out what was going on.

It was a great night. Here a bunch of pictures. Some were of the weekend we spent together - blessing Gavin and celebrating Olivia's 3rd birthday; other pictures are of my dad's past.