The Big Surprise Party

The morning after the wedding, we had just one more thing to celebrate. Something almost as momentous as the wedding….Richard Eyre’s 70th Birthday!. His actual birthday wasn’t for another two and a half weeks but we knew that we had to “seize the day” to celebrate together before everyone started to scatter back to the far corners of the earth, stating that eveing

I was so worried about asking everybody to come back for yet another celebration. What I didn’t realize is that some of our kids and spouses had decided to put Dad and I to bed, put their own kids to bed wherever they could find a quiet corner and then put our house back together after the chaos of the reception in the previous post.

They carried in couches and chairs, replaced rugs and hauled our big canoe/coffee table back into place. They set up lamps and furniture that had been crammed into Rick’s library so we could have a dance floor. They brought in tables for the decks clustered all the flowers that had been strewn across many tables on our kitchen bar and organized the house so that it looked pretty much like it’s old self, with the nice addition of bistro lights and bottles full of flowers hanging from the rafters.

That was an astonishing surprise for us in the morning, not only to have everything back in it’s place,but also to realize that 21 people had slept at our house that night.  Every blanket and pillow in the house was well-used! 

At 10:30 a.m. the two families who did have other places to stay arrived and all 20 grandchildren who came for the wedding crowded into Grandfather’s den for his surprise “Cowboy Birthday Party.” The kids practiced yelling surprise and singing (with gusto) that old cowboy’s favorite song, We love  you Grandfather. Oh yes we do. We don’t love anyone, as much as you. When you’re not with us, we’re blue. Oh Grandfather we love you. CHA CHA CHA! 

I learned how to take a screen shot of a video (below) on my phone but I don’t know how to remove the arrow. At least it doesn’t block out anybody’s face . They were pretty excited!

When Grandfather walked into the door from taking the rental vans back to the airport from the festivities the night before, he walked into his den only to find all those the kids who yelled SURPRISE and started singing! H claims that it was a total surprise!

It was a happy day! We made good use of the sparkly signs that Charity’s friend made for people to hold as she and Ian danced down the tunnel of sparklers at the end of the evening. They seem to apply pretty well to the current situation!

Lyla and Emmeline created beautiful paper shawls on which they had written cute poems about their Grandfather. He was delighted!

A closer look:

 

The older girls learned how to play Happy Birthday by ear on the piano for him.

 

All the kids, including the ones who couldn’t come to the wedding, brought or sent a special message to their beloved Grandfather for a keepsake book. Such extraordinary messages! I can’t tell who was the most excited about it….Grandfather, the kids or the parents. 

 

Then each of our children and their spouses gave a six-word description of their dad/father-in-law which Eli recorded. Their words were so pretty fun, often funny and very descriptive words in the mix! They also each brought or sent a tribute to that old 70-year old which we saved for him to open and read on his actual birthday!

Here’s the book that the grandkids added to and their parents assembled. With a little tutoring from Hazel, Saydi created a word picture in the shape of a leaf, Dad’s official symbol. Very cool!

Since this was a cowboy party, we ate barbecued pork sandwiches, the leftovers from the wedding and we all enjoyed cake and ice cream. There was one candle for every decade!

You only turn 70 once (unless you’re Richard Eyre and you get to have two parties…one on this day and one 17 days later on the real day)! Hilarious report on that coming later. Such a treat to have so many of those we love here to celebrate with us! Plus, Grandfather LOVES surprises.