Dad' Gathering

Our dad has said many times he wished that he could have all his children together in the same place at the same time. Well with 8 children that is really hard. Well I thought I would see what I could do.

So in November I texted, e-mailed or called everyone to see if they would be able to make it around January 7th. I had to asked dad his schedule up to 2 weeks before the gathering if he would be off on January 7th. I then started contacting everyone to let them know it was a go for the get together. I asked everyone to let the grandchildren know so if they could come it was the icing on the cake.

Bill & I talked about flying Toney home to surprise both mom & dad. I knew he would not fly because, well Toney does not fly! We called & made him the offer but NO, he was not getting into a tube & flying 25000 feet above the earth. Yep that's Toney.

Dad knew I was coming & bringing lunch. Bill used the excuse to come look at dad's computer. Dad started suspecting something when mom got up & started chili beans & home made rolls. She would ask him to vacuum & do a few other things around the house. He even told me he was thinking about calling in to work to ask to be put on the schedule. He even threw out that he needed to rake the leaves. I told him I would help him with the leaves after lunch. That never got done. :) Mary & Weid showed up & said they were in the neighborhood & thought they would drop in. Then Debbie & Kenneth dropped in to return the air mattress. Dad would throw out comments to see if anyone would let on what was going on. I mean really all of us showing up at the house at the same time? Dad even said he texted one of our sisters that we were all there & that she had texted back, why was she not invited to the fun? Richard & his family came in & this really got dad. Once we made sure everyone was there I told dad that we had tried to make a wish come true & have all of his children one place at the same time. We told him how we talked to Toney about flying in to surprise him & mom. The look on his face was PRICELESS.We told him that due to family illness 2 of our sisters could not make it. Well he loved it!

The bonus points were that one of the smoke alarms was chirping. So all the sons made sure to change out all smoke alarms batteries through out the house. Weid asked if any light bulbs needed to be changed out. (We did not need either dad or mom falling through a window again.) There is a joke in the picture if you can find it.

I understand that dad talked about it for days. I wonder how many times he told his co-workers? I guess that means we made his day.

Thanks everyone for bringing food or drinks. The cake was delicious! I'm still waiting on the recipe. I believe we all enjoyed the visit & watching dad try to figure out what was going on. We really need to do this again soon.

Love you Dad!!