RETIREMENT/BIRTHDAY SURPRISE

I have the cutest and best DAD in the whole universe!!

Thursday, October 25th was my dad's birthday. He also retired the same day. My parents had been planning on coming to SLC on Friday to run some errands, staying overnight and then continuing on to Idaho Falls Saturday morning to spend a couple of days with my sister and her family.

Long story short......my sisters and I decided we wanted to do something special for my dad. He is such a hard worker and both he and my mom have done so much for us.

Debra & I convinced them that we wanted to do some birthday shopping, take them to dinner, etc. We told them also that we had a surprise but we needed a commitment that they were for sure coming and could be in Salt Lake around 1:00.

I left work early and met my parents at my house. Debra was also able to get off work early and I told my parents we were just waiting to go to lunch because Debra was going to meet us at my house. Little did they know that Debra was at the airport picking up Laura who had just flown in from Oklahoma and dropping her off with Angela (who had just arrived from Idaho Falls) before showing up at my house.

So Debra arrives and the parents are happy and excited to go to lunch to celebrate with the two daughters that live in Utah. We are just talking when there is a knock at the door. I claim to have no clue who that could possibly be. My mom answers the door and it took her a minute to realize that Angela was actually standing there and then she starts freaking out, as does my dad. A couple minutes later Laura just walks through the door. You would have thought they had just won the lottery! They could not believe it! The best part was that we actually pulled off the surprise. They had no idea. All of the grandkids had been grounded from the phone so that they wouldn't spoil the surprise.

We really had nothing planned other than the acutal surprise of us all being together. Among other things, we went to lunch, picked up a chocolate rum cake from the best bakery in the state (Glaus Pastry Shoppe), shopped for and bought a new camera for my dad. To kill the rest of the time before going to dinner, we ended up at FAT CATS for a little bit of bowling. VERY RANDOM! I think that is a first. Never been bowling with my parents before.

After dinner at the Pagoda (my parent's favorite) when came back to my house to play some games that Debra had come up with that all had to do with memories of dad. The day couldn't have been better! We laughed, and laughed and laughed.

Everyone came to my house the next morning for breakfast and then we had to get Laura to the airport. Angela, my parents & I then went to lunch before they are headed north for Idaho.