Gam’s 70th Birthday in Utah!

So…these pictures are a bit out of order compared to how the day actually happened.  However, my philosophy is…at LEAST I’m blogging.  Doesn’t have to be perfect, right?  Or else I may not do it.  Isn’t that a total winner attitude?  :-)

We drove to Utah on Saturday Aug 2nd and just did the trip in one day. So we got to Jeannine and Neal’s by about 10:30 pm.  Everyone was very anxious to arrive, as always!  The trip was smooth and was so much easier than it used to be.  I don’t necessarily miss the days of diapers, crying, throwing up, tantrums, bottles, whining, no sleep, toddlers falling down the stairs, crying at every family member who even looked at them, naps, and on and on!  These trips used to be immense work and, by comparison, they are actually easy now. 

The next day we woke up and we all started decorating the house to make it a bit festive!  I printed over 200 pictures of Gam over the last 15 years and we hung them around the house.  The family all enjoyed looking at them.  Even the ones who decided to count and see how many times they were in the pictures. 

Anyway, finally at about 3:00 everyone gathered at Gam and Pa’s and we had a Turkey dinner and attempted to not have Jeannine help.  But I actually think that is MORE stressful for her since she is used to coordinating and orchestrating the entire event.  We had all the usual sides, plus Maren’s yummy pasta salad.  After dinner, the kids put on a little show for Gam.  Andrew was our emcee and had a very interesting announcers outfit.  The line up of talents is pictured below in Hayley’s beautifully written program of events.   The ending act was splitting up into two teams and having a puzzle contest.  The BYU puzzle team won!  Finally, some delicious strawberry pie, plus cake, thanks to Annie.  Jeff caught us all by surprise and tried to shove Jeannine’s face in the cake!  Wasn’t expecting that!

Although I think she deserves a million bigger and more exciting birthday parties than what we threw, I hope Jeannine knows how much we all love her and appreciate her for ALL she does for our family!