On my mom's 60th birthday

This month my mom turned 60. She was visiting here and we had an extra special birthday celebration. I hear there was awesome celebrating back home too. To start out our celebrating here, Blake, Bonnie, and I cooked dinner. Bonnie helped by being the entertainment while everything was cooking. On the menu: bacon wrapped turkey meatloaf with fennel, angel hair pasta with mizythra cheese and browned butter sauce, roasted broccoli, tossed salad, and lemon meringue pie. We made everything from scratch (except the pasta) from the pie crust to the bread crumbs in the meatloaf. I don't mind saying, it was pretty delicious.

These are not the first pictures we've ever taken featuring me, my mother, and a lemon meringue pie. They're probably not the last either.

Next was the presentation of the gift. Six weeks or so before the birthday celebration I covertly contacted friends and family members asking them to send a written memory of my mom. The idea was to collect one memory for each of 60 envelopes representing the years of my mom's life so far. The response was overwhelming. I got way more than 60, probably closer to 90. They just kept rolling in. (Mom, I've got another stack for you that came in since you were here.) Here's what my living room floor looked like the night before the celebration:

Blake used his awesome calligraphy skills to hand-number each envelope. They were beautiful.

My mom was a little confused as to what kind of a gift comes in a stack of envelopes and why we were so insistent about documenting the presentation. (I told all those who participated to watch for a blog post about it so they could see her reaction and participate vicariously in the surprise.)

She was overwhelmed. She didn't make it through the first card (not even to the numbered envelopes yet) explaining what the project was about before she started to get choked up. I think it was very meaningful to her that so many people would participate in this. I had siblings, nieces, nephews, coworkers, childhood friends, neighbors, cousins, former students represented.

In typical our-family fashion, there were a few moments of seriousness and lots and lots of laughs.

Happy Birthday Mama! I love you!

(And a big thanks to everyone who supported this effort and who helped keep the secret.)