Joan on the Road...of Life

Happy Birthday to Jim, aka Dad, Grandpa and Great Grandpa. Is this what 71 looks like? That's right, not 17 :) We had a great celebration at Renee and Tom's (thanks again) for the Big Daddy. Everyone but Jimbo was there and we managed to catch him before work. Laura called and Mom and Harry sent Birthday wishes. A good time was had by all. We supplied dinner for 12 courtesy of Sam's Club and Von's including 4 roasted chickens, 2 pies and lots of chips and dips. Son Jim brought his famous cabbage salad with Thai dressing. We managed to devour most of it :)

Jim was very happy to get DVDs of his favorite shows...Sherlock Holmes and Inspector Morse. It's great to be able to replace the space consuming VHS tapes with DVDs. Naomi and Brad gave Grandpa a gift certificate to Best Buy that's burning a hole in his pocket. I gave him my first effort at a DVD slide show. I had great plans to unveil it for the family and get everybody teary eyed...but when we got to Renee's I couldn't find the DVD in the car :(

I couldn't believe it. Thought I left it at home by mistake. Then when we got home it wasn't there....so I searched the car again and found it slipped down behind the seat. Damn! I had such a production planned.

Anyway, he really likes it. I included his baby picture, our wedding picture and lots of shots of us and the family. All this to the song "This Is Us" recorded by Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler on All the Road Running. I mentioned buying this DVD (which I've come to really enjoy) and as soon as I heard this song I knew what I wanted to do for Jim's birthday. But did I have a time pulling it off. I don't have a really good program to create the DVDs like the kids do. Finally I got Photoshop Elements 3 to work and put it all together right under Jim's nose. Everytime he'd leave or take a shower I would play it and edit some more.

All in all...another relaxing, comfortable, fun family day added to our memory bank.

Note:
Those who were there will notice that the picture above has been altered. I made a classic photo booboo and had a lampshade growing out of Jim's head....so I took it out. The pixels aren't perfect but I'm still a novice at this. :)