{"id":2428,"date":"2009-10-19T12:03:54","date_gmt":"2009-10-19T17:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/?p=2428"},"modified":"2009-10-19T12:03:54","modified_gmt":"2009-10-19T17:03:54","slug":"surprise-surprisesurprisesurprisesurprisesurprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/uncategorized\/surprise-surprisesurprisesurprisesurprisesurprise\/","title":{"rendered":"SURPRISE! surprisesurprisesurprisesurprisesurprise…"},"content":{"rendered":"

the major reason i haven’t posted much of anything in such a long time is because we’ve been planning a BIG SURPRISE PARTY for mom and dad’s 50th wedding anniversary.<\/p>\n

i was so busy planning that i forgot to post HAPPY 50TH ANNIVERSARY, MOM AND DAD!\u00a0 here.\u00a0 their anniversary was October 9th, but they were busy all that weekend with mom’s high school reunion, so we had the party saturday night.<\/p>\n

it wasn’t just a party, it was an Event, complete with two locations, dinner, out of town guests and media presentations.\u00a0 plus more.<\/p>\n

yesterday i was so tired that i was surly.\u00a0 i need to apologize to everybody for that.\u00a0 i’m only surly about once every few years.<\/p>\n

i’ve spent major portions of the last couple weeks editing a video.\u00a0 i’m going to hopefully post it here either today or tomorrow.\u00a0 my aunt sandy wanted to make a video for the occasion, and she wrote a script and sent it to us early and we were all supposed to read it and i assume also memorize it but of course we didn’t.\u00a0 but she came here two weekends ago and we shot it and then i edited it and edited it and edited it some more.<\/p>\n

anyway, more about that later.\u00a0 i’m all about party pre-planning, but there were way too many things to do on the day of the party.\u00a0 plus, aunt sandy was in town and mom wanted to do many activities so i had to go to the cat show with them for a couple of hours in the middle of the day which made things even more hectic.<\/p>\n

here’s how i started the day. tipper needed a bath.\u00a0 he wasn’t thrilled with it, but he did look mighty fine for the party.<\/p>\n

\"prep-1\"<\/p>\n

i finally got dressed and rushed around and then went to the cat show with mom.\u00a0 our lie was to tell her that amy was making her a special dinner, and i was going to help.\u00a0 mom said “i could come over and help when we get back,” but i told her that amy wanted it to be a surprise.\u00a0 sandy took mom to Petersburg for lunch and shopping and i rushed back home.<\/p>\n

randy was going to come over and do the majority of the decorating, but he hadn’t showed up and he finally called.\u00a0 he’d been waiting for me to call him, but of course i didn’t remembver that this was the plan.<\/p>\n

i had also already put up many halloween decorations already because i was afraid that mom would wonder why none of them had been put up yet.\u00a0 so she had helped me do that earlier in the week.<\/p>\n

randy finally came over about two and there was lots to do.\u00a0 we were having dessert and entertainment at my house, and randy started the decorations there.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 up there on the left-hand corner is shadow’s bag with intravenous fluids.\u00a0 we took it down for the party.<\/p>\n

\"prep-2\"<\/p>\n

after things were good at my house, we went to amy and jim’s, where dinner was to be served.\u00a0 randy had bought a couple dozen balloons and he and kevin had picked them up in the morning.<\/p>\n

\"prep-3\"<\/p>\n

i think kevin it having a well-deserved snack here.\u00a0 i put him in charge of vacuuming and mopping our floors and he decided that he would wait till saturday which was way too last-minute for me, but they did look nice.<\/p>\n

\"prep-4\"<\/p>\n

working working working…<\/p>\n

\"prep-11\"<\/p>\n

guests were supposed to arrive between six and six thirty, and we told mom and dad to come over for dinner at seven.\u00a0 but the last thing she said to sandra at about five o’clock was that they would be over at a quarter to seven.\u00a0 this put me in a slight panic, but i figured that people would hopefully already be there by then.\u00a0 they started arriving promptly at six.\u00a0 a few people live on our lane, but others had to park down the street, so kevin and david were outside telling them where to go.\u00a0 they were also smoking cigars, allegedly because that was their excuse if mom should happen to show up early, which was always a possibility.<\/p>\n

\"party-1\"<\/p>\n

\"party-2\"<\/p>\n

there were about forty people there for the event, and this is the few minutes right before they got there.\u00a0 one of mom and dad’s friends from college, david bower (who my brother david was named after) were the last people to arrive.\u00a0 they came down from Naperville.\u00a0 amy had decided to stand on a chair in order to get a good photo.<\/p>\n

\"surprise-21\"<\/p>\n

kevin and david were still outside and somebody peeked out and saw mom and dad coming.\u00a0 flashes were already going off before they opened the door and i started saying NO FLASHES!\u00a0 NO FLASHES! because i was sure mom and dad would notice.\u00a0 now i realize the culprit was uncle jimmy’s wife sherry; here is the photo she took, i guess to check the exposure or something?\u00a0 she took a few pictures of the door.\u00a0 meanwhile, there were balloons which were visible from outside, so somehow poor Bev got roped into holding the balloons down on the floor so they’d be out of sight.<\/p>\n

bev is a very good sport.<\/p>\n

\"surprise-11\"<\/p>\n

and finally, SURPRISE!<\/p>\n

\"surprise-1\"<\/p>\n

\"surprise-3\"<\/p>\n

\"surprise-2\"<\/p>\n

this is my favorite picture of mom.<\/p>\n

\"surprise-4\"<\/p>\n

i like this one because jim looks so happy here.\u00a0 on the right next to dad is his brother jimmy, who was taking lots of videos.<\/p>\n

\"party-3\"<\/p>\n

\"party-4\"<\/p>\n

mom is hugging our friend Mick.\u00a0 he’s a farmer, a great guy, and i’ve known mick forever.\u00a0 he gave a lovely little speech later in the evening.\u00a0 that’s his wife, martha, next to him.<\/p>\n

\"party-5\"<\/p>\n

bev, randy’s mom, and randy.<\/p>\n

\"party-6\"<\/p>\n

at this point i’m SO HAPPY because the surprise is over.\u00a0 of course, there’s still lots more to do this evening…<\/p>\n

\"party-7\"<\/p>\n

this is niece mercedes, her boyfriend larry, and david.<\/p>\n

\"party-8\"<\/p>\n

i also love this photo because they both look a little crazy here.<\/p>\n

\"party-9\"<\/p>\n

…and then this one, dad seems to be thinking, “what the hell do you think you’re doing?”\u00a0 or something like that.<\/p>\n

\"party-10\"<\/p>\n

dad with Toun.<\/p>\n

\"party-111\"<\/p>\n

dad, aunt sandy and jimmy…there are at least three photos like this, and what, exactly, is dad looking at up there on the ceiling?<\/p>\n

\"party-12\"<\/p>\n

mom with her two sons-in-law.<\/p>\n

\"party-13\"<\/p>\n

mom’s old neighbor sandy.<\/p>\n

\"party-14\"<\/p>\n

finally, we eat.\u00a0 well, mostly amy, kevin, jim and i continued to run around.\u00a0 we served lasagne and seafood lasagne and lots and lots of homemade french bread.\u00a0 on the left is john paul, another old neighbor, and paul and wanda riseman who we’ve also known forever.\u00a0 now i wish i’d made everybody stand up and say their names and how they know mom and dad, but i just couldn’t think of everything.\u00a0 almost everything, but not that.\u00a0 it still annoys me.<\/p>\n

\"party-11\"<\/p>\n

amy jim and kevin, hard at work..<\/p>\n

\"party-22\"<\/p>\n

and that’s all the pictures for right now.\u00a0 there’s lots more of them, which will be posted soon.<\/p>\n

the thing is, we’re having the halloween party in LESS THAN TWO WEEKS.\u00a0 at least most of the decorations are up.\u00a0 and the food for the party is going to be MUCH simpler than all the food for this party.<\/p>\n

ok already,<\/p>\n

monday morning grace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

the major reason i haven’t posted much of anything in such a long time is because we’ve been planning a BIG SURPRISE PARTY for mom and dad’s 50th wedding anniversary. i was so busy planning that i forgot to post HAPPY 50TH ANNIVERSARY, MOM AND DAD!\u00a0 here.\u00a0 their anniversary was October 9th, but they were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6JLYy-Da","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2428\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}