Dad's 70th birthday fell on a weekend this year. The siblings got talking about it, and really wanted to surprise dad. Those of us in Utah decided to take a quick road trip, and as word spread to the other siblings, Jamie and David decided to fly to Washington to surprise him too. Tera is living in Germany, and Thad is deployed in Afghanistan, so they couldn't come, but the rest of the kids were there.
So the Utah siblings are Lee, Erin, Jared, and me. We all got together after work, and after Lee's stake presidency meetings, and started to drive. It was about 9:00pm before we left. Well, we had planned to meet at the Golden Corral on Friday night. Mom was taking dad there for his birthday dinner, and we would all surprise him there. We decided to drive straight through the night, so we arrived in Washington at about 10:00am. None of the Utah kids wanted to wait until dinner to see dad, so we came up with a plan.
By the way, Lee spent a lot of time in the car working. I had to snap a picture! :)
Our plan was to meet mom and dad at Costco. Mom needed to go buy a few things, and made dad come with her. While they were wandering around the store, we came up to them one by one. First it was Jared. He started asking dad about a book he was holding, dad and Jared carried on quite a long conversation, and dad was about to walk away before he realized it was Jared. Then Lee, who had been video taping the whole thing, just started walking behind dad, with mom. Each time he would see another of his kids, his reaction was so funny!! After he saw Lee, it was my turn. Once he saw me, and we hugged, he just started calling for Erin. He didn't expect her to come out, but she did. It was so funny!
We went back to the house, and all slept, because we had been up all night. That evening we did go to the Golden Corral. Uncle Lynn was picking up Dave at the airport, and a family friend, Melede was picking up Jamie a little bit later. We ate at the Golden Corral until we were all STUFFED! We were pretty much done eating and Dave hadn't arrived yet. They were stuck in traffic. We kept dragging out this buffet meal for EVER! They finally made it, and again, dad was shocked! Dave came up behind him and mom and dad thought we were taking their picture, Dave said CHEESE really loud right between them. It was really funny. After dinner we went back to the house and were all sitting in the living room talking. Dad was just so happy to have 5 of his 8 kids there for his birthday, when Jamie walked in. I think it brought him to tears. 6 of 8! We assured him that neither of his other kids caught an international flight, however, while we were all surprising him at Costco in the morning, Thad called him on the phone as well. So he did end up talking to or seeing most of his kids. It was quite a surprise!!
The next day Lynn and Sharon made us all an amazing breakfast at their home. Then we all just wanted to be together for the day. We ended up using my cousin Dorrell's 15 passenger van so we could all be together the whole day.
We went to Deception Pass, it was a really rainy, cold day, but we had so much fun just being together. We walked across the bridge in the rain, then stopped at a beach. We had raw oysters at a fancy restaurant. And just relaxed, laughed, and played the whole day. We came back to the house and played games.
And then that evening we went to a James Bond movie. We had to leave the next day, it really was a quick, weekend trip, but was one that none of us will forget. I think dad was truly surprised, and truly knows how much we love him!!
We talked Lee into buying this hat on the way home. He is completely bald on top of his head. This had has gross, matted fur sewn into the top of it. It's quite funny, but the color was so perfect, it really looks like his hair!! Haha.
Happy Birthday Dad!! We LOVE you!!!
