My 60th Birthday...THE BEST EVER

I am so very happy and emotional about a surprise birthday party for me today hosted by my family. I can hardly put into words how special it was to me...I will save that for a few days perhaps and also later share some pictures. Right now I thought I might share my daughter's blog post about the happenings of this special day:

Today was my Mom's 60th Birthday.

It was a wonderful day, that turned out better than I could have ever hoped for.
You see today was the end result of a lot of planning and sneaking around on my part.

Do you know how hard it is to plan a surprise birthday party for your Mom, when you are an only child and it is really hard to get to talk to your Dad without your Mom knowing?

• There were secret meetings while Mom was busy with the grand kids. Meetings at the hardware store early in the morning on the weekend when I knew he was going to be there. Many phone calls to try to talk to him about plans when I thought Mom wasn't there, but she was or he didn't hear the phone...
• There was me getting into her online address book to get addresses for people to invite. And me resisting the urge to correct bad addresses in her book as I discovered them from snail mail and emails being returned.
• There were the details on the invitations that I just wasn't quite sure what to say on them & I came really close to picking up the phone to call Mom to run it by her, because she helps me with lots of stuff like that. But "oh wait, I can't call her about THIS..." LOL
• There's the neighbor that comes down to say HI and mentions the party right in front of Mom, not knowing it was supposed to be a surprise party. But we quickly covered it up...He had said "I hear we are going to have a party!" I say (under my breath) "it's supposed to be a surprise" and then louder "Yes the kids had their birthday last weekend at our house." As Matthew and Jenna ran past us...
  He left that day feeling like a heel, worried that he had spoiled it all, but she hadn't even heard or noticed the conversation...
• There's the neighbor down the street that almost said something to her at the mailbox about the party.
• There was Mom commenting on some round wood pieces that Dad had cut to use for something in his garage. She asked him "how did your party tables come out?" And she didn't even know about the party!
• There's Dad that had a hard time not saying "oh you will see so-and-so this weekend" when they were talking about talking with someone soon.
• There's me worried that everyone would show up for the party & Dad wouldn't have her back on time. So we came up with a plan for him to take her somewhere & he said he would have her back at 12:30 - they got there at 12:31!!! Amazing huh?

It all just fell into place.

• They got to the house at 12:31.
• She had NO CLUE about any sort of party.
• Matthew was very excited when she got there & told her "it's all set up in their Grandma!"
• My Mom says "Set up?"
• I told her "There might be a few more people showing up..."
• She hurried into the house and worried about picking up stuff here and there. So I helped with that.

Then people started arriving. People she hadn't seen a short amount of time & people she hadn't seen in a LONG TIME...
Neighbors, friends, relatives, each one so special & so surprising.
The biggest surprise being her younger brother that I didn't even know was planning on coming. She hadn't seen him in about ten years.

It all just worked so well... She had a dream 10 years ago for us to all come together as a family for a birthday celebration, she just had to be patient and wait a bit longer for it to happen.
I feel so blessed for it to have all worked out so well and her dream to have come true.

I love you Mom - Happy Birthday!

I love you Cindy...thanks to you, your family, Gary and all those who came by or sent birthday greetings. Tonight I just feel eternally "blessed"...and still very emotional !