Grandma Maisey's 80th Suprise Birthday Party

My mom and her brother's decided to through my grandma Maisey a surprise birthday party for her 80th birthday. They had asked the grandkids to help with the decorating and put my sister-in-law Emily in charge. Emily, Ann, Melissa, Ashley and I got together different times to help with planning and preparing the scrapbook that we would have the people that attended the party write comments to grandma about how she has been a blessing in their lives. It took a lot of planning a preparation but it was well worth it!! My grandma's surprise party was actually on April 17, 2010. Emily, Ann and I met up at the Church in Nampa that we were going to be having the party at and decorated the gym. We decided that we would do theme tables to things that stood out to us about my grandma. The tables that we had were a Church Table with a statue of Christ with children, a picture of the temple, picture of Christ, and little nick knacks that had to do with family. Family and the church have always been very important to her. Grandma has spent many hours in the temple volunteering and to this day still does. We had a table that was Bonfire theme, because when we were younger we would go over to grandma's and grandpa's have a bonfire and winy roast. We still get together to this day every now and then and do that. Grandma's loves Boise State University!! She watches very game during football season and is a very big fan, so we had to have a BSU table!! Go Bronco's!! Grandma enjoys gardening. Whether it is fruits and vegetables or flowers she is known for her great gardens, so we had a table with seed packets, gardening tools, gloves and a watering can with flowers in it. We also had a table that had a decorative jar filled with red Christmas berries and ornaments. Every year for Christmas grandma gives every grandchild a different ornament with the present she gave.She does this for every granchild up to graduation. In my grandma's hall way ever since I can remember she has had a collection of different fans hanging on the wall so we had to have a table of fans. Grandma loves to knit, so there was a table of knitting needles and yarn. We had a red, gold and white color theme and tied one balloon of each color to the back of some chairs through out the room. Decorating the room couldn't have gone more better then planned, it came out just the way we had pictured it, if not better! During the middle of the day my grandma's kids got together and took her out to a surprise luncheon. She wasn't expecting to see all of her children there with their spouses. After the lunch, they had talked about going to a movie, grandma was all for the idea. I can just hear her saying, "Sure.. why not!" On the way to the "movies" my Uncle Dennis is going the wrong way and my grandma notices it, "Dennis, the movie theater is that other way." He pulls into a church parking lot and says "Mom why don't we go in and ask for directions?" "No,No, I'm fine you go in. I'll just wait out here." "No, Mom why don't you come in to." This is where the party was, but she just thought that all of the cars in the parking lot was for some meeting that were going on, she didn't realize that they were all their for her!! She finally decides to go in, thinking that it is just silly that everyone needs to go in and ask for directions. Well when they directed her into the gym where everyone was waiting and when she heard her friends and family shout out SURPRISE!! She couldn't of been more SURPRISED!! When I talked to her I asked her if she had any idea and she told me that she thought she was really going to go to the movies. She had a great night visiting with family and old friends. Even though my grandmother had had a day of surprises what she didn't realize was that the day of surprise wasn't over yet. During the day while my grandma was out to lunch with her children Tom and Glen had installed the new entertainment center that my dad had custom built for her as a birthday gift from all of her kids. All of her children went to her house to see her reaction for when she saw the entertainment center. My grandma walked in the door and walked right passed her birthday gift without even recognizing it, as she went to sit down at her kitchen table she heard everyone in the her front living room bust up laughing, she turned around quickly to see what was so funny she was standing right in front of the entertainment center when someone motioned to her to look behind her. As she turn and saw her beautiful new piece of furniture she about fell over from yet another surprise!! She clasped her hand to her mouth and shock her her saying, "Oh my goodness." Then turned, went and sat down at her kitchen table and cried. My mom went up to her and said, "Are you okay Mom?" She shock her head, smile and gently said, "I can't take any more of these surprises." I am sure that she felt the love of her children, grandchildren, sisters, brothers, and friends. It couldn't have been more of a perfect day! So even though I was there decorating all day and was there for the whole party I only got a couple of photo's I know sad, but I got a couple.