Surprise!

We did something really really cool last weekend.
My whole family (excluding Cory, who's on his mission in California) flew down to Denver for a surprise party for my grandma for her 80th birthday. It was a little of a sacrifice for most of us--luckily there was no school, but it was a lot of traveling and money to go down for about 48 hours total. But it was MORE than worth it!

My dad planned the whole thing (what a surprise!), and basically what happened was that my grandma knew that my parents were coming for a couple of days, but she thought it was just for my dad to do some business meetings. So, while she thought he was at "business meetings," he was actually driving around picking kids up at the airport, taking us to our hotels and such. The day of the surprise party my mom took Grandma up to Ft. Collins for the day to do some serious shopping (a great tradition in our family--especially with grandma!) When they got back, all 7 of us kids, my dad, and my uncle's whole family (and Grandma's husband Charles) were hiding in the decorated basement! This is the best part--Charles thought the quickest way to get her downstairs would be to say there was a water leak and she needed to come look at it. So we were all dying of laughter as she was grumbling down the stairs saying "why don't you just call the plumber--it's not 5:00 yet so we won't get charged for after-hours..." and "why don't you just turn off the water??" When she got down there, just my dad was sitting in a chair in the middle of all the streamers and balloons. We all jumped out on cue and shouted "SURPRISE!" and then sang Happy Birthday.

Grandma's not really an emotion person, and this was the first time I can remember ever seeing her cry. She put her sunglasses back on to hide it! It was so cute. It was really really awesome. By the time she composed herself, all she could say was "HOW did you all get here???"

She opened some presents--Uncle Todd had made a great photo book of her kids and grandkids, and I had made up a little scrapbook from our family with all the grandkids telling of their favorite memories with her.

Then we headed out to dinner at a cute little Italian place (no small feat to get a reservation for 16 people!) Grandma seemed pretty shell-shocked for quite a while so it was pretty funny. I don't blame her--we came from Idaho and Utah so that is a pretty big surprise.

The girls waiting for our food

Everyone! It was the first time Collin had met my Aunt Kristin and Uncle Todd, Kendray and Karysa.
I don't even see them very much, so it was really fun to be together again.

Chatting with Gma (and that's Charles on the right--the mastermind of the "plumbing problem!!" ;)

After dinner we went back to Grandma's to take some family pictures, watch the Rockies game, and do more chatting. Dad found a pal that looks JUST like him! It's my mom's good friend's new husband--they were dressed the same, sat the same, and talked the same. I tried to get a picture and this is the best I got. It was pretty funny though.

Collin's favorite part of the whole trip was popping all 80 balloons! (Yes, exactly 80!) If you look close his shoes are covered with colored latex. He was pretty proud of this. :B

Us girls ended the night with a game of Yahtzee--my tradition with Grandma! It was great. The only thing I wish was different about the whole weekend was that we could have spent more time with Grandma, since we were all the way over there. She's a really neat lady and has been a fabulous Gma to all of us! I have a feeling we'll be doing the same thing for her 90th and 100th and maybe even 110th birthdays as well! She's not going any where any time soon! :)

We love you Grandma! Happy Birthday!