Mom's 70th birthday at the Lake

I watched my uncle turn 70. I watched my aunt turn 70 and I always wondered how I could do anything as creative as my cousins who prepared their birthdays. Trying to get input from 4 siblings was crazy hard. But my mom's birthday celebration all came together in the most amazing way. It made me want to sing songs out loud for how perfect it all turned out.

Prep before the party:

Send out invitations (I forgot to take a picture) Siblings, anyone have one?

Send my mom clues about where we were taking her. On a sheet of paper I put spaces for the number of letters that spelled out Deep Creek Lake where were taking my mom for the weekend. Every couple of days, I sent my mom some letters that were part of the words and as she got them she had to figure out the location.
She's a pretty smart lady and started sending me clues back by email. Her clues were: you live closer than me, We've been there before and the number 2 figures prominently in our folklore of the place. I was tickled that she was emailing me these clues b/c I knew she was excited about it!!

Our celebration:

Friday night:

All arrive at the lake as soon as they could.

I would make lasagna, salad and bread for dinner for those arriving in time!

Movie night: We were going to watch "Because I Said So"! This was the perfect movie as it is about the relationships she has with her daughters while she is about to celebrate a momentous birthday!! There is no more perfect movie.

Hang out and talk to the wee hours of the morning.







Saturday:

10:30-1:00 Lunch hike at Swallow Falls

1:00 5:00 Free time (our house had a pool and we thought the kids would like to play in it during the day)

5:00 Adult dinner at Unos. We could have done something a little fancier, but we figured the point was to be together as a family and this was our budget friendly choice.

8:00 Candle celebration for Mom and the Boys' (Andy, Buff, Todd, and Steve) tribute to Mom

What really ended up happening was this: We all woke up to a rainy Saturday which made everyone want to stay in pjs with warm cups of cocoa. We cozied up in the living room, near the fireplace, and hunkered down for story telling. :). The girls went around 3:00ish to Schoolhouse Earth to shop (except Tierc stayed behind to make the cake). At 5:00 we went out to dinner and continued our plans.

Hanging Out









Dinner






The Celebration:

After dinner we returned home to the house and found all was well. We prepared to get ready for the grand celebration of Mom. It went like this:

We had 7 candles. First, all of the grandchildren came up and said what they loved about Mom-Mom. After Torin, the oldest grandchild, said something to/about her, he lit a candle. Then each one of us (Mom's 5 children) came up in birth order and said what we wanted to to/about Mom. After we were done, we each lit a candle for her. And finally, we had Al come up and say what he wanted to Mom. So, in all, we had 7 candles lit to celebrate the "light" Mom is in our lives.

Then we gave Mom the gift of a Canon Rebel digital (SLR) camera. She was so excited about it. Al is taking her to Australia for her birthday so this was a great gift in anticipation of her visit.

Then the Boys went on. They did a skit for Mom and then did a "Dancing through the Decades" skit. Andy, Steve, Todd and Buff all took turns dancing through the ages. IT was great. We had Elvis, Michael Jackson, and Justin Timberlake songs to dance to. What I loved most about the skit was that it inspired mom's grandchildren to get up and dance. Al asked Mom to dance and before you knew it, most of the grandchildren (not the post teenage ones) were dancing with Mom-Mom and Al.





It was a great celebration!! We love you so much Mom! Happy Birthday.


Sunday

We had a lovely breakfast of Steve's scones, eggs, bread and orange juice. It was delicious. And then we all headed home.

Oh, and one picture of Mom with her 13 grandchildren.


It was a great weekend.

Most memorable quote: Buff to my mom, "You know, Ann, when I used to think about this day way back when, I used to think of you being an old maid....and know....you're not a maid anymore, but you certainly are old!"