My Mom's Surprise 70th Birthday

A few months before, my sisters, Amy and Ruth, started communicating the idea of surprising my mom on her 70th birthday, this year on May 3rd. It would fall on a weekend and she wouldn't expect anything since so many of her kids live far away. Everyone committed early and said they'd make it happen. There are a lot of details in there but I'm going to make this short by saying that I told my mom I was coming up for her birthday and lied about what we could do while there. Joe had to make travel plans early and let my mom know he'd be there a few days, for business and what-not. Damon is close-by and didn't need to say anything. Ethan told her he'd come up for a day or two. So, she knew that a few of us would be there and we'd go out for dinner, etc.

 

What she didn't know was that Amy flew in a few days before and hung out with Julianna in Provo; Ruth flew in and was picked up at the airport by Amy and that they slept over at Damon's on Friday night. Bryan flew in on Thursday and stayed with Ethan and was dropped off at Damon's on Friday night. Aleen made arrangements to get up there from Moab with the boys too and that made it so all EIGHT of us would be there!!

 

It was priceless. I saw the look on my mom's face when her kids entered the door on Saturday morning.

This isn't a good photo of us since we had just gotten up in the morning and thrown clothes on, etc. But it was so good to get a photo of us together right after Mom was surprised with her kids arriving at her door.

We planned and followed through with doing a huge service morning at her place. We divided up. Some of went to the garage to sort through things and make it more functional; some went to the backyard and weeded out her garden and areas; and I'm probably missing something else. I was in a little different situation, where I had all of my little kids with me. I went from feeding the kids, to cleaning up my mom's kitchen, to putting kids down for naps, and to weeding the front flower patches and planting some new perennial flowers in front. They were what I brought her as a present for her birthday.

We wrapped that up and all split to get ready to take pictures together and to go to dinner. First we went to a nearby spot with a beautiful backdrop. Here are some of the photos that were taken by Ansel of us.

Mom and Joe sitting together at dinner.



Dallin and I rode with Missy and Kurt to Sizzler for dinner.

Such a happy boy.

Michelle and Melissa are both pregnant and due close together. Cute to get both of them in a pic.

Little Lexi and telling us what she wants, I think.

Mom with her great-granddaughter on her lap. What a great posterity already.

This was a fun game we played to see who knew the most about mom or "grandma", to most. Michelle won for the grandkids and I won for the kids. It was fun to hear some of the details of her life. It was nice for Ruth and Amy to put that together.

I just snapped a few pictures of my family hanging outside right before a few of us left for home.

Had to stick my little monster in here.