You may have noticed that we have a thing for surprises in our family. My sister Heather has "dropped by" from Minnesota unexpectedly on a long weekend. Matt surprised my parents by showing up unexpectedly from DC with a serious girlfriend (now wife) in tow. Even my parents have been known to pull a few fast ones over on us kids (probably where we got it from) like the time when they woke us all up from a sound sleep and we thought it was morning, but it was really the middle of the night and it was high time we learned to do our chores correctly.
So naturally with all these surprising precedents in our family, we didn't think that all 8 of us kids randomly showing up in Utah a month after his 60th birthday was quite enough of a shock to his system. We went for shock and awe of the adjust your blood pressure medication variety.
The next day after we arrived, we contrived to get a couple of the boys to take Dad out to lunch while the rest of us got busy setting up mountains of food for his big SURPRISE PARTY!
Side note: If you ever want to butter me up for some big favor sometime, those pink sprinkled cookies should do the trick just fine.
Then we started filling the house with family and friends.....
When I say "mountains of food", I mean MOUNTAINS....
Then we started filling the house with family and friends.....
and waited for Dad's big entrance....
We got him good...again! (he was a little more reserved in his reactions this time, but he was shocked nonetheless)
We did have a little scare there that things were going to get ugly when my Dad almost refused the hug of his good friend who dared enter into Cougar territory with a U of U shirt...
We also got pretty nervous when Nate insisted on putting the full 60 candles on the cake...
But we were able to escape calling the fire department and Dad was able to overcome his phobia for a second to finish the hug...
Afterwards a bunch of them went off to watch the BYU vs. FSU game...
which was *almost* enough to ruin the fun of the rest of the day with its disappointing outcome, but it's hard to keep a group of Crains down for long....
To be continued with tales of our family pictures, Settlers of Catan raucousness, and a G-rated discussion on circumcision vs. castration for my sister.
To be continued with tales of our family pictures, Settlers of Catan raucousness, and a G-rated discussion on circumcision vs. castration for my sister.
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8 comments:
The last line is my favorite. Thanks for the laughs this weekend everyone! I miss you already!
There probably couldn't have been a better gift for your dad. Looks like all you guys had lots of fun!
(p.s. I love lofthouse cookies too - nothing compares!)
A cougar victory would have been the icing on the cake. Even though the actually cake was a cougar victory. I love how he didn't want to hug the guy in the Ute shirt. He is my kind of BYU fan:)
You can not begin to imagine how very lonely it is around here once again.
Your post pretty well sums up my total shock and surprise.
Thanks again to each of you for taking time out of your busy lives to come visit mom and I.
It was an amazing weekend!
Love, Dad-Mom
How fun!
You like those frosted sugar cookies? Yuck.
OK, one big correction from this BYU alum, and Florida girl. BYU played FSU not Florida as you stated. BIG difference, especially here in Florida Gator country. FSU and Florida like each other as much as Utah and BYU like each other.
I also love those pink Lofthouse cookies. Maybe the next time I buy a box, I'll share them with you so I don't eat the entire thing!
What a wonderful trip! I am so happy you were there. I hear you with those pink frosted cookies. I am sure they are nothing but flour, shortening and sugar, mostly shortening. I love them in every way. I have been known to polish of an entire package by myself in an afternoon.
that was an awesome party for papachka! it turned out well!
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