Happy 75th Grandma!

 This summer, a plan began to hatch to throw Zelma a surprise 75th birthday party.  We planned a dinner and enlisted the help of her sister, Joanie, to help us get pictures so that we could make a slide show for her.  Elvis also came to wish her a happy birthday.

 How we were ever able to keep it a surprise is a mystery since everyone was in on the secret- except her.  Shane Petersen let us park cars at his place.  The ruse to get her there was that we were having a little birthday party for Dixon.  Once everyone was there, Randy and Dixon walked over and got her.

 The lights were out when she came through the garage door.  We yelled, "Surprise", and boy was she ever!  After dinner we took her down stairs where Elvis sang a birthday song and performed a dance as only Elvis can.

 It was pretty funny!  The best part was having Joanie, Bill and Monte come.  Early in October Shelly, Patti and I paid Monte a personal visit and begged him to come.  We were so persuasive that he didn't dare not show up!

Joanie and Bill

 The highlight of the night was a DVD put together through hours of work.  Marci collected pictures for Joanie and from other family members and she and Susan scanned them all into the computer.  Then Shaylyn spent many hours downloading the photos, arranging them perfectly and setting music to each slide.  The finale was video messages almost from every member of the family.  It was a touching tribute to a woman that we all love so much.  Zelma has been a wonderful mother and grandmother to us all.

The night ended with a pinata.  Never had one before.  It was fun, but dangerous!