Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from our entire family to yours. May the joy of this special holiday season always have a special place in your heart!
Now on to the topic of memorable family birthdays.
Life is precious as we all know, as together we travel down the familiar path of our daily activities., Certain events are really special, and that is always true for family birthdays. Especially individual 70th birthdays! Especially for my special lady, my bride, my soul mate, my love, Debbie! To be honest, I began thinking 2 years ago what I could do for this unique person on her memorable day. I'm sure I literally spent hours upon hours sifting through various ideas of what I could pull off to recognize and honor her. Well, I came up with several zingers, and was able to perfectly pull them all off, by going to my old standby method I have utilized for years. TOTAL SURPRISES!! Yes, with much help from our children, friends, my office staff, and several other people, Ms. Debbie was totally blind sided on several fronts during her magic day. The whole thing came off without a hitch. I breathed a series of successful sighs after all the dust settled, and now we have more wonderful memories, all stored in our minds' eyes. So, what all happened, folks? Being the print journalist I am and have been since forever, I thought I would start her special day off with newspaper recognition in our beloved Stillwater News-Press. Our favorite daughter, Ms. Michelle, helped me greatly regarding this surprise aspect, by contacting the newspaper's advertising department, then supplying all the artwork and composition for the full-page "shout-out", color display. On her birthday morning, I got up before my bride, went outdoors to collect the daily newspaper, and placed it on our main side table where we sit in the mornings to wake up. Ms. Debbie followed our usual routine script, and sat down in her chair, and then carefully opened our local paper. Since her surprise display recognition was the back page, I had adequate time to slowly put my cell phone in video recording mode. I was able to record her entire reaction when she turned to the newspaper's back page, and saw her total surprise reaction to her printed birthday greeting. This early morning episode was made even better when Ms. Debbie read the remarks our our youngest, Robbie, wrote on his mother's special page. Robbie explained in detail how she would react to seeing the newspaper, and, of course, she did just exactly what he predicted she would do.. Wow, like son, like mother! The rest of the afternoon was filled with family bonding, a surprise weekend visit by Robbie and his finance, CeCe, from Dallas. Also, our daughter, Michelle, drove up from Dallas, too, but Debbie knew Michelle was coming, as her visit was pre-planned,. Mother and daughter spent the afternoon shopping together in Our Town. Our middle child, Allan, talked to his mother on the telephone during the day, relaying his family's birthday greetings to Debbie. Allan's bunch lives in far, far away Juneau, Alaska. and, thus, were unable to physically attend the festivities. Once darkness arrived and the OSU victorious home football game was over, our family set out to go eat supper. Debbie decided we would leave Our Town, traveling in Robbie's SUV, to a restaurant that would not be overrun with the post-game dinner crowd. Before our dinner orders arrived at our restaurant table, I carefully slipped a jewelry bling gift inside my bride's folded cloth napkin. Again, with Michelle's able assistance, I had secretly purchased the bling gift from our jeweler friends in Florida, and they had mailed the small package to our daughter. Then, Michelle carefully brought the gift to the restaurant. As my bride unfolded her napkin, the cell phone videos once again recorded the actual moment of her total surprise! Score another combined family victory! Now for the evening's finale! Robbie drove back into Our Town, but employed a slight detour, as suggested by his sister from his back seat. She asked him if he might drive by our vacant former home, so she could "quickly run inside and get something". He honored her request, and pulled into the old driveway. Michelle got out of his SUV, and disappeared into the cold, dark night. She quickly went inside the home, turned on the garage lights, and opened the garage door. Cell camera videos were turned on once again, as Ms. Debbie caught sight of a new vehicle parked in the garage, positioned forward, with a big red bow covering most of the front hood. After she realized what she was seeing, my bride was so shocked, she asked if I could "take it back"; to which I told her, probably not (since it had arrived in secret via a car transporter from the Chicago area). To say all the day's activities came off without a hitch, is an understatement. They were all accomplished letter perfect! Do I have any future surprises up my sleeve? Gosh, I really don't know......, or do I???
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