Monday, August 17, 2009

Mother's 81st birthday

Mother was 81 on Saturday - a spry, chipper 81! We, her children, didn't do a very special celebration for her 80th last year, so thought it would be fun to surprise her this year. And she WAS surprised!
I'm sorry the picture is so blurry, but I was so excited, I must have been shaking too much. I got an even better picture of her surprised expression, but unfortunately, it was even blurrier. Grrr.

We treated her to a meal at Moselem Springs Inn in Fleetwood, PA. All of my brothers and sisters were there, all our spouses, and three grandchildren (and 2 of them were with their spouses) and even one great grandchild for a little while.

After the meal was over, my brothers, sisters and I got out our instruments and sang 3 songs about Mother to her. I hope she was blessed by it. Our voices are "old" and not what they used to be. Wendell had made a practice CD so we could practice the songs, but had never played together before yesterday. It went surprisingly well.

Andy and I are not the best at photographing and videographing, but we did capture some moments.

Mother and daughters
Mother and all 5 children
Mother, all 5 children with their wives and husbands
Ok...so Andy videotaped our performance of the 3 songs, I edited them so they would be somewhat fit for publication...our first attempt at anything this technical. I admit I had a little help from Beth Anne. So here is one of them (don't laugh too hard!):


It was really a pleasure to honor our Mother in this way. I hope she was blessed.

5 comments:

Nancy Yoder said...

Phyl, you know I was so blessed. I was taking pictures but forgot to take a picture of the "performance". You "kids" did great and it made me so happy to hear you. It was a great time and so nice we could all be in that one room. Our waiter was tops, too. Thank you all so much for giving me such a great day. Love, Mother.

Anonymous said...

Wow - I'm impressed - the video was great. It was truly a good time together.

Christy said...

Oh I am so glad you got it on video. I was really wishing I could have heard it! I think it sounded great even on video!
By the way, was your flash not on? That may be why the picture was blurry.

Beth Anne said...

Nice video editing!

judy said...

good job Andy! I was so pleased to honor Mother in this way. Lots of practise on that guitar - it was worth it - I know she was very happy and Wendell's remarks were very true - we should tell our parents how much they mean to us while they are still with us.