Joan on the Road...of Life

I'm on major sensory and emotional overload. The 50th Anniversary party was an enormous success...one surprise event followed by another. And they "got me"! I cried several times...but so did all the girls and some of the guys.

The 2 PM pickup was by Laura and Steve who arrived with a picnic basket filled with gourmet snacks and a bottle of champagne and glasses. Of course we had to sample the goodies like French bread with goat cheese spread and fig jam :) We killed the first bottle of champagne and then headed for PartyCentral...aka Renee and Tom's home.

Here's the happy couple...me with my newly growing hairdo!

A celebration banner welcomed us as we walked in amidst the claps and cheers of the whole gang (total 18 people now). My first OMG came when we walked in the family room where one wall displayed four poster size repros of our wedding. Our wedding pictures are all black and white unretouched shots but the resolution was great and these huge pictures are just wonderful. We were stunned!

The granddaughters put out a spread of appetizers and the first of many champagne corks popped. Total count I think was 16 bottles of champagne. That was after one run to the store for another case :). We chatted for a bit and then Renee proposed a toast which left us teary-eyed. Granddaughter Naomi followed up with a notebook cotaining letters from each child and grandchild. OK...I could not even read those. Left them until this morning when I could read them and get teary eyed in private.

Special T-shirts were presented with pictures of all the grandbabies and then Renee brought out a big board with 15 baby pictures....Name the Baby. Bryan and I tied for the prize, naming 13 of 15 babies. Pretty good since they all look a lot alike.

Grandson Jim got us all arranged for group pictures that turned out great. What a joy to have the whole family together. Son Jim's lovely Elaine took a lot of shots for me ...197 actually!! Naomi got lots of pix and little Evan was snapping shots with his Mom's Canon camera. Budding photographer at 3-1/2.

Evening was coming on and I was wondering what was for dinner? No one was cooking! Then Renee gave the high sign that food had "arrived"...catered in from Famous Dave's BBQ!! Oh was that a great treat for everyone. Ribs, pulled pork, brisket, chicken, beans, slaw, cornbread...we stuffed ourselves. Mind you this is all to the accompaniment of champagne.

Grandson Jim was walking around with his camera in one hand and a bottle of champagne in the other. No sooner did you take a sip than he topped off your glass. Tom lit up the firepit, Grandpa was serving as DJ and toes were tapping. We wore off a little of that dinner with some dancing and singing.

The grand finale was a video montage of 50 years in 15 minutes. OMG!! Pictures flashed by accompanied by favorite music taking us through chapters of Babies, Love, Family, Adventure, Celebrations....starting with our wedding and honeymoon shots through our many trips, parties, graduations and births. The absolute surprise was a video clip of my Mom and Dad wishing us Happy Anniversary. Jim got this clip of them this spring when he took a short trip to Illinois. I was once again blown away.

I know Jim spent untold hours weeding through scanned pictures and capturing video from our home movies. 20,000 plus pix and boxes of video. Laura said she had taken on the first 30 years and picked out pictures of people. Mary went through and selected scenic shots. Zachary recorded an original "Zach's Theme" on the piano that closed out the video. We are still in awe at this creation. What a treasure!

Throughout the evening many toasts were offered, all very sentimental except for one....Evan! He grabbed two plastic champagne flutes, banged them together and said "Attention" . Then he very clearly stated that we shouldn't touch the rocks because they were wet and hot and we shouldn't swim if we were drinking. He was very serious and bowed at the end. Very adult, very articulate but totally out of context. He knew it was an important occasion and that he should say something very important. We could not keep from laughing!!

Our chauffer brought us home by midnight, totally exhausted and emotionally overloaded. That's the way a great party should end!