Earlier this month we helped my dad celebrate his 50th Birthday. All year long he said "no surprises" and "I don't want a party." so of course we did exactly opposite of what he said. Being my dad's "favorite daughter named Kortnee," (the joke being that I am his only daughter) I've always been a daddy's girl so I really wanted to make this birthday special for him. I convinced my mom to purchase a 27" quad core (top of the line) iMac for him. My dad has always been a pretty stubborn person so I knew he would never buy it for himself. But I knew he really deserved it, and he's on his computer at least 8 hours a day everyday, so it would be a good investment.
Besides the big gift, we wanted to do something as a family. We found a really good deal at the Tundra Lodge in Green Bay - a nice hotel with a pretty large indoor water park. My brother Kolin lives in De Pere so it was only a couple minutes away, and my brother Kii came home from Ripon college that weekend to spend with us. It was a really great time. We visited Lambeau field (Chris had never been) and Sydnee had a blast posing for pictures if you couldn't tell. We also spent a lot of time at the pool, which Sydnee just loved. We must have gone down the slide at least 20 times. But it was worth it just to see how excited she got. Then we went out to eat and played some games the rest of the night. Overall it was a great getaway for the family, no work, no computers, no stress. I think it was also a great way to throw my dad off from what we had in-store for Saturday.
Now because of Christmas, and being so busy with the holidays we didn't really have a whole lot of time to plan the surprise party. But I was able to make and send out invites far enough in advance and my mom did all the arranging of food and drinks. There was much debate that afternoon as to how long my brothers should keep my dad away from the house, and when they should bring him back as the guests would be arriving late afternoon. But it all worked out perfect. My mom and I along with the help of some family friends cleaned and decorated the house and got all the food ready while my brothers took my dad to a movie. Lots of people were there right at 4 and my dad arrived shortly after. He won't admit it but I think he was very surprised and figured since we spent the weekend in Green Bay that was sort of it for his birthday celebration. But all of our friends and family came, even some old friends from my dad's class showed up. He really had a good time and we really had fun celebrating 50 years of a wonderful man, my dad.
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| the family |
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| Sydnee's drawing of my dad |
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We whipped this puzzle up on the way up to green bay so it's pretty simple, but he
still had to get all the way to the end before he figured it out! |
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| ready to party |
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| Sydnee helped with the cake of course. |
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| the kids had a blast in these chairs |
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