Mom's Birthday

On Thursday (her birthday), Linda called Mom and told her that they were bringing supper over. Of course, by that time Mom knew that I was coming, too. Wes, Linda, and the kids showed up. We were trying to stall. We finally set the table. Mom had gotten us a table cloth--it was too big, so we just folded it under. We put the lasagna 0n. Just as we were finishing up, Grandma, Carolyn, Bill, Fannie, and Clara Louise (Dad's family) showed up. Mom said, "I think you need to set more places at the table." The table cloth was the perfect size. Jeff, Karen, & kids came, too. Of course, this party was supposed to throw her off.
She kept asking what I was doing Saturday. I just kept saying that I was spending the day with Wes & Linda. I told her that they were picking me up between 9 & 10. These were not lies. On Friday, we worked on her pictures. On Friday evening, Cody called and invited Mom & Dad to his baseball game on Saturday morning. Dad (in on the surprise) said that they could come. His game started at 9:30. I had to call Dad because I couldn't find the ice cream freezer. I told Dad to tell Mom that Wes and Linda's ice cream freezer was broken (not a lie), and they wanted to borrow theirs. I forgot that I had to get some things at the grocery store, so I actually drove over to Jeff & Karen's instead of having Wes pick me up. We grilled the burgers for lunch and made home made ice cream. We had everyone park at Shiloh (around the corner from Jeff's house). We wanted everyone there by noon. At the game, Karen invited Mom & Dad over for lunch and to see their new concrete patio outside the basement door. We had a two-pronged attack planned. When Karen called to say that they were on their way, we all went to the basement. We all hid on the patio. When she came outside, all of her kids and grandkids (minus two who had been there Thursday) were out there. We sang "Happy Birthday", then headed upstairs. When she got to the top of the stairs, her brothers and sisters were all sitting in the living room. They had been in the bedroom when Mom got there. She was speechless for a few minutes. I hadn't seen my aunts and uncles since our wedding 8 years ago. I think that it had been a few years since all of her brothers and sisters were together. Mom said that when I called about the ice cream freezer, she thought that maybe we were doing something in the evening for her birthday, but she never thought that it would be anything like we planned. Dad bought pizza for supper. We had a great time together. I was trilled that we actually were able to surprise her. We had debated whether we should do something for 70 or 75, but we decided that we might as well celebrate 70. Dad is going to be harder to surprise. We talked about celebrating 71 or 69--you never know!