Yesterday, April 22, was my mom’s (Aka Gracie) 93rd birthday. As readers of this blog know, we have a history of trying to pull off wild events to help her celebrate.
For her 70th birthday, we arranged for her to drive a tractor.
For her 80th, a friend got her in to a hockey arena so she could drive a zamboni! A few days after that she jetted off to Beijing (where I was living) with some friends and we partied there for a week.
Then she did that again for her 85th!
On her 90th birthday we put out a call for 90 birthday cards and a friend took her for a ride in a big rig! That year we also drove her to Bend, Oregon (where she grew) up for a reunion with her nieces.
With the Covid crisis in full swing this year, we were hard pressed to figure out what to do. A friend of mine who is way more creative than I am suggested we do a “birthday parade.” Put Gracie in a chair at the end of the driveway for an hour and invite her friends to drive by and wish her happy birthday.
That’s what we did, and to say it was a success would be an understatement!
On one of the most gorgeous days we’ve had all spring, 53 cars (and 1 bike), conveying well over 100 people came by to help her celebrate. As you can imagine, a good time was had by all!
One thing I never imagined seeing, though, was 2 teenagers playing the xylophone on the back of a pickup!
And a few more photos, courtesy of my sister:
Thanks to everyone who came out! We’ve already started to think about next year’s 94th! (She wants to go back to China.) Suggestions are welcome.
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What a great way to celebrate a great lady. We were there with our loving thoughts.
I’ll go to Changchun with you next year!:)
Wouldn’t that be fun!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my dear auntie grace, and THANK YOU cousins for the wonderful plans you made for her!! and thank you, God, for making it a beautiful, sunny day and moving so many friends to roll by with love and greetings!! loved the boys on the xylophone! wish we weren’t so far away form you all. what a joy to know that one day we WILL all be together with gma and gpa and everyone else looking down on us !!!! miss you guys so much!
Wish you could have been here. It was fun.
Very festive and great fun!
Indeed. She said it was the best birthday party ever!
This is absolutely AWESOME!!!!! Give her our love and tell her we are sorry to have missed it.
It was a blast. Wish you could have been there.
Dear Grace,
What an amazing BD celebration!,,, so creative and so fun., lovely to see pictures of you and hear a short snippet of your voice!,,.when your grandsons played!
With love and thanks to God for your life, and memories of Pakistan
Margie Taylor ‘ Mills
Joann here. I’ll pass along the comment to Gracie. Those weren’t her actual grandsons; they were two boys that my sister took care of when they were little ones. She’s known far and wide around here as GRANDMA GRACE.