surprise!

Over the weekend, I hosted a surprise 40th birthday party for George. Everyone managed to keep it a secret, and he was quite surprised! :) (Well, except for the fact that when he arrived home, some friends of ours were walking up the driveway! Doh!) We had almost 40 people here, including several who'd driven from Iowa... Christine, Nathan, and our friends Gene & Kelley (plus Cameron and Jenae!) and Jason & Tracy. We all had such a fun time!

Here's George, walking in the door:
The Grim Reaper is saying, "Relax, I'm just here for the cake!":
Whoa, that's a lot of candles!: Look at all that smoke! We had to open the doors and windows... and the smoke detector still went off later, LOL!:
The kids made some funny posters, for decoration. Here's one by Nick:
And one by Emmalie: We had lots of food that quickly got devoured, some loud Van Halen music, lots of visiting:
And even some swimming:

George received many hilarious cards, some very generous gifts, and a few gag gifts as well ;) :
Our neighbor Marissa gave George this lollipop (but Ben claimed it a few minutes later!):
And here we both are at the end of the night:
Thank you to Gene & Kelley for getting George out of the house for me on Saturday! Thank you to Christine, for keeping track of Ben for me in the crowd (and for playing with him, helping him with his supper, etc., etc.!) Thank you, also, to ALL the guests ~ George was so blown away that you came to help him celebrate his special day!

lordy lordy

Waaaay back in 1987, my parents turned 40. Mom, Christine, and I helped our friends Nan and Christa decorate the ISU Forestry Department hallway and offices with "Over the Hill" stuff on the evening of March 23rd... because Dad and our friend Steve both had their 40th birthdays the following day. To get Mom back, Steve made this sign and put it in our yard the night before Mom's May 15th birthday:
Here is a picture of Nan (who'd just graduated from ISU) and Mom at the little party we had for them. Mom's cake says, "Life Begins at 40":Anyway, I had just started dating George that May, and when he saw the sign, he laughed and laughed and laughed. He laughed a little too much because my mom never forgot about it, and has been threatening him for 21 years now that she would get him back! (George told her last week, "If I'd known you would be my mother-in-law someday, I probably wouldn't have laughed about it so much!")

Well, the time for revenge has come! George will turn 40 on June 11th, and for several days now, he's been receiving 2 or 3 cards a day in the mail, from some "anonymous" source. (Funny, though... I recognize the handwriting on the envelopes... and the postmarks all say Iowa... heheheh....): We are guessing there may be 40 cards in all by the time this is over! Several of the cards have been filled with this confetti:
and many others have included typewritten jokes about old people. Even though I'll be turning 40 just two days after George, I've been laughing right along with the kids as he opens his latest cards each day! George keeps asking, "What do you suppose I have to do to make it stop?" I told him I don't think we have enough money... LOL!

Lordy, lordy, we're almost 40!!