Happy Birthday, Dad/Grandpa/Great Grandpa!!!

My dad's birthday was on June 18th.  Back in February, when his health decline was diagnosed, we as siblings began to make plans for visits to Utah so that everyone would be able to spend time with dad.  Another plan that began being discussed was to gather for the weekend of Father's Day since his birthday was on Thursday and the following Sunday was Father's Day.

THEN THE PANDEMIC STARTED.  Other than Valerie who came the first week of March, my other siblings haven't made it up here.  One grandson, Jarom Ipson, and his family made a quick visit right before things began to shut down.  I didn't make visits except for some brief porch visits until the end of May.  It wasn't what was planned by us (and the rest of the world.)

So I began to try to figure out what was the best way that we could spend time with dad and celebrate his 87th birthday with the current restrictions in place.  Hence the idea of a Zoom meeting was "born" and we began holding practice meetings to make sure that we could get everyone on that wanted to be on.  We had two practices ones in May and I did some private ones to help others get set up.  Things were set for June 18th at 6:00 to "surprise" my dad!

Gary, Jena, and I brought Red Robin hamburgers for dinner along with stuff for ice cream sundaes for dessert.  We arrived at 5:00 and enjoyed a great meal and conversation with Dad and Karla (Karla was in on the surprise.)  About 5:45, Dad opened his birthday card from us-- "I am giving you what all good Mormons like...(Inside of card)  ANOTHER MEETING!  along with the date, time and place for our Zoom meeting.  Dad had never done a zoom meeting so he was going to learn as we went along.

We plugged our laptop into his TV and then sat my dad down in front of the computer screen so that everyone could see his face.  We quickly added so many family members, each one able to wish him happy birthday and happy Father's day.  We got to meet four new (or soon to be) family members-- Anthony who had just married Anna; Tina who was marrying Ryan Rasmussen at the end of the month, and two babies--Ramona Jane  (Jordan and Daniel Hearn) and Jackson Finley (Ali and Sam's one-week old baby.)

This picture was taken by my nephew, Paul Giberson of his screen in Gilbert, AZ.  There is actually one more row of people than is shown on his screen.

We discovered in our practice and research that on Zoom you can't actually all sing Happy Birthday which was one of our plans.  It only will focus on the loudest speaker and jumps all around when you try to sing together.  So instead we had the Westminster Choir sing Happy Birthday for us and we held up signs with the words!  Some people decorated their backgrounds and others used fancy backdrops from the internet.  It was a festive moment and I teared up seeing and listening to these family members that I love and miss seeing so much.

We spent about 15 minutes as a big group and then we had a series of small family Zoom meetings the rest of the evening and then again on Sunday, Father's Day--when you have eight kids and three step-children and their families and grandchildren, it takes a bit of time to talk to all of them.  I felt so lucky because I was able to watch the screen and watch my dad and Karla enjoying their moments with all the different family members.

Poor dad!  He ended up sitting on a stool through the evening because of the length of the cord to the TV.  Karla finally got him a pillow which made it a bit more comfortable.

My brother, Todd and his family--- (Buda, TX)

Todd shared pictures of his other grandchildren who were not on the call. He also showed my dad the Lego train that he had set up.  We found out later that the train had been a gift to dad from Karla, but then he didn't ever set it up so he sent it to Todd.  Dad loved seeing the train all set up on the table and running the loop.

My brother Scott's family (Austin, TX) was next and they had a game for dad--Disney Charades---

Scotty and Ari are dong "Aladdin"-- the magic carpet ride.

Rick's family in Grapevine except for Anna and Anthony who live in Virginia.

Karla's youngest daughter, Dana and family (Amarillo, TX)   That is baby Jack in the blurry bottom right frame.

Half way through Dana's call, Karla's oldest daughter, Kim and their family joined. (El Paso, TX/ Provo, UT)  They were glad to have Dana's family there as well and they all stayed on together for the rest of the call. (Their brother, David and his family all live in Utah and visit Dad and Karla and opted to not do a zoom meeting alone.  The cousins were disappointed to not see them, however, so they are in trouble for opting out.)

Then we had a break for our ice cream and then Valerie and her family joined from Mesa, AZ.

Sunday, dad visited with Robin and Lynette, but I forgot to take pictures.  I did take pictures of Mike's family who was mostly in Mesa, AZ area at this time.

Some of the talent from the Mike Giberson grandchildren---

And last, but not least--our family--even Ben joined in before he headed to work.

I wish that everyone could have been a "fly on the wall" to watch dad watch so many of his family on the screen even for a short moment.  He was amazed and touched by it all.  At one point, he said, "This is SPECTACULAR!"  It was spectacular and thanks to all of my family that made it possible.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY/ HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!!  WE LOVE YOU AND HOPE YOU ALWAYS REMEMBER YOUR 87TH BIRTHDAY.