May Family Weekend: Part 1 ...

Poppy's 80th Birthday!

Once upon a time .... well, about a month ago ... my SIL and I cooked up a plan of such historic proportion, I just have to share it with you now. 

Seems my dear FIL would be celebrating his 80th birthday on May 20th.  We decided to plan a party .... but not just any party .... a duct-tape-themed surprise party was rapidly organized.

My first action was to check the library for books about making things with duct tape -- and did you know there are actually quite a few?  Ductigami: the art of the tape is the best I found, but there was also The Jumbo Duct Tape Book, Got Tape? Roll Out the Fun with Duct Tape, The Ultimate Duct Tape Book, to name just a few.  These books gave me great ideas for duct-tape wearables to create for Poppy.

While I was taping, folding, taping, ripping .... my dear SIL was creating a list of all the many things Poppy has fixed (either with or without duct tape) over the years.  She called/emailed all the guests and asked them to create their own list ... at least 10 things ... Poppy has fixed over the years.  She and her daughter created a "Mr. Fix It" scrapbook (with a duct tape name plate, of course) that we'll fill with all the pictures and comments about Poppy and his "fixes".

Friday evening, with the van loaded with kids and must-have "on board" entertainment ... we headed down to SIL's house, doing our best to "sneak" in at about 8:30 a.m. Saturday so that Nanna (N&P live up the street from SIL and her family) wouldn't see us and get suspicious. 

So far so good .... altho keeping our three away from N&P's with the thought of toaster-strudel, gold fish and gogurts was a major challenge.  Thank goodness for Lucy and Max -- one an 80-pound husky and the other a 10-pound dachshund/terrier mix!

SIL and I decorated and putzed around all day ... making pasta salad, broccoli salad and prepping the mounds of chicken for the evening's barbeque.  Dh and SIL's dh were sent off for supplies (and came back with an interesting "party hat" for Poppy) and we continued to decorate: duct-tape streamers, duct-tape placemat, duct-tape cup and duct-tape utensils.  Name cards were .... duct-tape!  We also decided that Poppy really would need a tie for such a serious dinner -- we made one out of .... duct-tape!

Here is a photo-essay of the evening (with only some editorial comments ....):

SURPRISE!

Dapper Dan and his party hat and tie (with monogrammed "tie clip")

BamBam helps Poppy unwrap our "gift"

tool belt and suspenders!

String Bean, whose new love is embroidering, made a "poppy" for Poppy while Kotch, who had to work this weekend, sent a painting she'd done of ....

POPPIES!

The guests included:

Poppy's lovely wife of just about 60 years (another big celebration this summer!)

SIL's kids (who are all ADULTS, now!  How did that happen????)  The one in the middle, just had a baby girl 3 months ago ...

Elegant Eliza (with a VERY proud daddy) was the youngest at the party,

but didn't seem to mind being passed

from 2nd cousin

to aunt

to 2nd cousin

and back to the proud aunt!

Other guests (who refuse to be photograped!) included dh's brother/sil/nephew from Charlotte, Poppy's younger brother, a family friend and of course SIL/dh and me and dh ...

a total of 21 folks celebrating the birth of the Patriarch 80 years ago ....

God bless you Poppy!  We love you, Mr. Fix-It!