Oh, I was surprised......

....and as I take up blogging once again, let me start by recapturing this wonderful surprise (and believe me, I was surprised....and I was surprised that I was surprised because I'm not easily surprised)....on the occasion of birthday number 65.

So this is how it went down. Randy and I have birthdays only 3 days apart so we are always together the end of October and first of November. Since I sold my home to Lauri and I am now living in Pine Valley, I  no longer felt it necessary to throw my own birthday party which I've done for so many years and I don't think I'd have too many takers here at my new place so "no party for me this year" just a quiet evening at the Brandin' Iron with my best bud.....but for some reason he wanted to go to The Cliff Side Restaurant to celebraate. "But I like the Brandin' Iron" I would say to him. "But I've had these reservations for a while now". "But you can cancel reservations really easy. I'm sure they won't mind". Randy always does what I want to do so this one time I decided I could oblige him and do what he wants to do because  he seemed so determined and wanted to go there so badly. Off we went to our 6:15 reservation only to be escorted into a private room off to the side of the restaurant to be greeted by.....

....my adult family (minus Mandy who was running the New York Marathon). Top two pictures they are hiding and waiting for my arrival.  The food was great and the bottom two are of me blowing out my candle (still so very shocked that they pulled this off). Traci was supposed to be representing at Aunt Maureen's funeral in Salt Lake. "Oh, thanks so much Traci for doing that for me. I just don't feel like I can go and leave Randy"......."No problem, Mom". They were all here. I couldn't believe Mason came either. I was sure his kids would want to stay there with their new found friends for Halloween but it was just so very fun. A highlight of my life for sure. I didn't think they could top the funeral book they gave me for my 60th birthday but they did. Thanks kids.....mostly Lauri and Traci but everyone participated and for that I was grateful.

I do love these five kids of mine and every one of their spouses. This just makes me smile all over again. I guess I was for sure "Queen for the Day" (notice pic on wall. Thanks Lauri. We decided to leave it there and tag this the Queen Jillyn Room. Actually, really my kids are fighting over it.....no actually, and really, Randy has it hanging in our bedroom as a reminder of my youth.)

The kids were all at the house waiting for us to come home. A lot of sillyness including the re-creating of a one of my favorite pictures of the boys (lower left) when they were little. They had cakes for both Randy and Me as his birthday is Nov. 3.  This was Friday night and Halloween was the next day. I did go down and enjoy the evening with the kids in their costumes as they took in the neighborhood treats.

I'm so grateful that Scott and I were able to establish some memorable family traditions and equally pleased when the kids liked them enough to carry them to the next generation. One in particular is the pumpkin carving we would do on the Monday before Halloween.

Kyle and JoEllen hosted a great "Carve Fest" this year enjoyed by young and old alike with the addition of power tools this year.

So I've got a really good start at catching up and I was planning to make a really long blog post but decided I need to avoid burnout so watch for "Here Today, Gone to Maui" later.......

Celebrating 65 in style.....