The eve of the 80th Birthday Celebration

On the evening of June 14th, my sisters Robin and Lynette got in from Amarillo Texas and my brother Rick flew in from Dallas as we started to gather for my Dad's 80th birthday. Valerie and Lance arrived in Salt Lake on Friday night as well.  They and their children including some of their married children stayed at Ipson side of their family.  Todd, Lea and their three youngest children arrived on Saturday morning after a very long drive from Austin Texas complete with a flat tire and a long wait for a repair.  Mike flew from Lubbock to Phoenix so that he could drive up with his oldest daughter Lisa and her three kids.  Lisa is the oldest grandchild and she really want to visit Dad in Salt Lake but her husband was unable to get off work.  This solution worked great and the kids loved their road trip with Grandpa.  By 2:00 on Saturday we were all gathered, waiting for Dad and Karla to arrive so the party could begin.

Our original plan was for it to be a big secret from my dad.  At first the reason was that I really didn't know how many of my siblings were going to be able to make the trip up to Utah.  We had just had our regular reunion in Mesa last year so it was another even longer trip to Utah for his birthday.  However many of my siblings were making plans to come and also I realized that some of the excitement of things like this is the anticipation of the event as well as some of the planning.  I wanted to make sure that we did some things that Dad would like to do if he was planning it.

So a week before I tried to mail him the following announcement...it didn't make it there for some reason so I ended up buying a balloon and delivering a copy of it to Dad in person.

I haven't learned how to do things like rotate etc with my new computer.
Will fix later.

He was excited and also was able to help me make some final plans.

It turned out great, but too much to put it all on one post so it will be put over the following few posts.  All of my siblings were there except for my youngest brother Scott and his family.  My brother Mike was there but his wife and youngest son stayed home in Lubbock (Andi was recovering from surgery).  We missed all who couldn't make it but I am so grateful for those who were here and helped Dad welcome in his 80th year.