Gramps turns 90!!

The weekend was a success! It was such a great time I must start from the beginning…

We took off around 6:30 PM Friday night; I hadn’t seen Tyson much last week so it was fun being able to have 4 hours to chat. My favorite thing to do when going to Iowa is stop at Coldstone in Albert Lea, I never go when I’m in the cities but for some reason when I’m heading to Iowa it’s a must. So around 8 I took down a Cookie don’t-you-wantsome in about 5 minutes and had a stomach ache the rest of the way. We both got so tired that we were eating candy to keep ourselves awake, that combined with looking at my phone for updates on the Gophers basketball I could barely walk into the hotel when we got there I was so sick! I downed a bottle of water and was good to go…

My parents, and my sisters Lindsay, Erica and Stef and their families were all there and in bed when we got there, so we just turned in for the night.

The only stinky thing about staying in separate rooms is you don’t know what everyone is doing at all times, so I couldn’t sleep in because I was afraid I would miss something. I rolled down to the breakfast area and everyone was up eating breakfast and chatting. It was so fun to see all my aunt and uncles, they live all over so we aren’t able to be in the same spot very often. We then proceeded to get the room set up, food put out, punch made, pictures put up and presents were wrapped. As we were setting up someone yelled “grandpa’s in the parking lot.” We later found out my grandpa was driving around the parking lot looking for Bobbi but when he didn’t see her car he decided to not come in, thank goodness!

Around 12:15 everyone started to come, we were expecting around 40 people and were totally surprised when people just kept coming! Over 80 people were in the this room and I started to panic because there wasn’t enough chairs for everyone and there were a lot of people that probably could have used one!

Finally we heard “Bill’s here” and we all quieted down and waited, when the door opened the lights were turned on and I can’t describe the look on my grandpas face. He looked so cute; he thought he was going to a birthday party for someone else. So he was standing there smiling holding onto a present. His sister who is 93 was able to make it and they hadn’t seen each other for a while, she ran up and gave him a hug and at this point I was about to start sobbing in my sisters shoulder. However I put makeup on for the special occasion and couldn’t risk the outcome. Once my grandpa was in there we were able to open the doors to the overflow room that had a ton of tables and chairs, so I was able to stop panicking about who was going to drop.

It was so much fun putting faces to names, his golfing buddies, church friends, and there were even a few that were friends with my grandpa and grandma back when my grandma was alive. Like I said before I don’t have many memories of my grandma so it was extra special to meet people who knew her and could tell me some stories.

The party started at 1 and it didn’t start thinning out until around 5, so we were all exhausted and happy to sit down and just have it be immediate family with my grandpa and Bobbi. We ordered pizza’s and just sat around and talked some more. It was starting to get late and my grandpa asked me when everything was ending and I go “oh grandpa you can go on home, it’s been a long day” and he goes “I don’t have a car”. We had forgotten his friend picked him up and took him to the party. He goes “my teeth are starting to fall out so I better get going” I about died of laughter and told him I had some bubble gum we could stick them back in with but he didn’t think it would work☺

The kids had gotten him a nice big flat screen TV to replace his little 32” box TV. It was so fun watching him unwrap it and I think he was anxious to get home and have it set up. So my dad I brought him home and got the TV in the house. My uncles came over and got it all set up and my grandpa looked pretty content sitting there with his new TV screen, it was so fun to see!
The next morning we all met for breakfast and said our good bye’s.

Ty and I got home and went for walk and I was telling him how weird it is when your with your entire family when I come “home” I’m “homesick” for everyone. I called my mom and we did a run down of the entire weekend again, and I started feeling better. I must say two days of no working out was marvelous and it felt good to want to get up the next morning and work out. After the weekend I was exhausted from all the talking and greeting but very happy and rested in a weird way. Ready to take on another week of training, work and the everyday busyness.

I just hope that when I’m 90 I can look and feel as good as good ol’ gramps and doing the YMCA!

I’ll post pictures when I get them!