Saturday, August 21, 2010

Grandma Thomas 90th birthday

My Grandma Thomas turned 90 on May 29 and I was able to fly down to Idaho by myself and spend Memorial Day weekend with my parents and go to Grandma's birthday party.  I left on Thursday night and came home on Monday morning.  Growing up, we spent quite a bit of time at my grandmas house before we moved to Washington, so I have many fond memories of visiting and spending time with her.  At the age of 90, I am amazed at how healthy and active she is.  She is an amazing example to me and I'm so grateful for all that she taught my mother that has been passed along to me.  

It was mom's responsibility to make the cupcakes for the party on Saturday, so we spent Friday morning frosting cupcakes.  We frosted 84 cupcakes--why we didn't make 90, I'm not sure.  It seems fitting, but we had the number 84, which is 7 dozen, in our heads and didn't stray from that.  Anyway, we spent about 3 hours making frosting, coming up with designs for the cupcakes and then, ultimately frosting 84 cupcakes.  I must say I don't want to frost any cupcakes for a very long time and I don't want any butter cream icing either.  It was a time consuming project, but turned out so good in the end.  Our cupcakes were fabulous!  We celebrated by going to lunch at the Olive Garden and doing a little shopping.  It was a good day.

Saturday was the party which was held in the church building in Weston, ID.  All of my aunts and uncles and most of  my cousins and their kids were able to attend.  It was really great to see all of my mom's family.  They are always really fun to get together with and we always eat a lot and laugh a lot while we are together.  After lunch, we had a nice program for my grandma where each family had prepared something to preform for her.  It was really fun to see what the different families came up with as a tribute to Grandma.  I sang and played a song on the piano called "Always" by Patsy Cline which was one of her favorite songs.  All in all, it was a great day that ended with a family picture of everyone in our family that was there.  I can't wait to see the picture of this wonderful family that is her posterity.  After the party, we took some flowers to my Grandpa Tomasi's grave.  I don't think I've been to his grave since he passed away and it was nice to visit it. 

On Sunday, we went to church and then spent part of our day visiting the graves of a lot of my dad's family members that have passed away.  We were able to visit my Grandma and Grandpa House's grave and a lot of their brothers and sisters.  We went to several different cemeteries and it was fun to listen to my dad talk about his family and the memories he has of them.  We went by BYU Idaho so that my mom and dad could show me the campus and the building where they went to church while they had their callings at BYU Idaho.  It's really beautiful and so cool to have the Rexburg temple right there next to campus.  

On Monday, before I left, we went to visit Paul's grave and leave some flowers there.  I haven't spent memorial day decorating graves for a long time and it was really nice to do that while I was in Idaho.  I felt a special spirit as I was able to honor those people and remember all they have been in my life.  It was a really great trip.

One of the boxes of our fabulous cupcakes that we decorated.  

My Aunt Sheryl's birthday is the same day as Grandma's, so my dad decorated these cupcakes for her.  The words are spelled out in sprinkles that he painstakingly placed on the cupcakes with tweezers. ;-) 


They look so good on the cupcake tower!

Just a picture of some of the decorations and the buffet table for the party.



I thought these picture collages of all the grand kids and great grand kids were really cute.

We put up a big world map and marked where all the missionaries in our family served their missions.

Grandma blowing our her candles.  I thought this cake was really pretty...especially with all the fresh berries.  It was yummy!

My mom's sister Judy and her family always come up with the most hilarious skits and whatnot.  This is grandma watching their skit and laughing her head off just like the rest of us were.  

These two ladies have been my grandma's friends for most all the time that she has been married and raised her kids.  I just think they are so cute.



The Rexburg, ID temple


3 comments:

Natalie said...

Thanks for that post! I wish I could have been there, but loved hearing about it.

Jen Childers said...

What a fun weekend. That cake is amazing! Your cupcakes looked good, too. Your Grandma Thomas sounds like a remarkable woman!

donna said...

great weekend.. LOOKS like you all had a fun time..