Mom's birthday party - 90!!

We had a fabulous birthday party for my mom at a lovely restaurant in Bedminster, New Jersey. We had a private room for 30 of us. I ordered some cute candy bars with mom's picture on them as a little surprise for everyone. She loved them.
Here my twin nieces look at grandma's candles. (Yes, that lady in the pink jacket is my 90 year old mom! )
Laurie (my brother's girlfriend) was kind enough to be the photographer for our group picture. It includes family and special guests.

This is my mom, my siblings and their spouses. My sister Marlane is in the red jacket, her husband Brian is behind her. My "baby" brother Jeffrey is directly behind my mom with his wife Ann. Next to Jeffrey is Wally and next to Wally is Debbie, my brother Cordell's wife. Next to Debbie is my oldest brother, John. (I assume you can figure out who my mom is and who I am. )
This picture is called "sisters" - there are 4 groups of sisters in this picture. The girls in front at Jeffrey's twin daughters. The girls next to me are Marlane's daughters.

This is the "head" table - my mom with her close friends, Lee & Sara, along with Lee's son Bobby and my sister Marlane and her husband Brian.

These are the children who willingly helped read trivia facts about life in 1917 for their grandma /great grandma. Front row, left to right, Courtney (great grand-daughter), Stephanie, Jackie, Alison (grand-daughters). Back row, left to right, Kyle & Justin (great-grand-sons) and Ben (grand-son.) Too bad we couldn't have added Timothy, Luke, Hannah, Josiah, Brooklyn and Preston and Michael Yingling to the list of great-grandchildren in this picture! (and the rest of her grandchildren as well - Jill, Robyn, Stacey, John, Adam & Daniel)

Left to right: Ben, Debbie, Ann-Margret, Laurie and John.

Sara, John, Jackie, Alison, Stephanie & Jeffrey

Justin, Robyn, Courtney, Jill, Brian and Kyle (in front)

We had a wonderful party, lovely food and a fun program. I composed a pretty funny song about my mom sung to the tune of Jingle Bells. Everyone sang the chorus with gusto... think "90 years, 90 years, 90 years ago" instead of Jingle Bells and you get the gist of it. We also had a trivia contest about mom/grandma/great-grandma/sister and only one person got them all correct - Marlane, the person who remembers every detail. Way to go, sis.

Seventeen in the city.......

Imagine going into New York City on the Saturday following Thanksgiving with 16 other people - and enjoying the entire experience! That's what we did and there were no lost children, no crabby adults and no cold hands or feet! We took the train into the city from New Jersey - starting out from three different stations and happily all being on the same train at the same time (as we had hoped) and arriving together into Penn Station. First stop was a subway ride to the famous Museum of Natural History. Here is the group shot at the start of the day.

I caught up with Courtney, Jackie and Alison near the dinosaur exhibits. I had once taken Courtney's mom and Jackie's dad to this museum when they were about 10 years old (and I was single and didn't think twice about going into Manhattan.)

John had one request - authentic New York style pizza. It was as good as I remember!

Debbie, Ben and Justin enjoyed it too.

The ice skating rink at Rockefeller center was packed with people. We had considered ice skating but the line was very long so no one went skating from our group. The tree was up but not going to be lit for a few more days. Too bad!

John may have wanted pizza but Courtney wanted only one thing too - a visit to the American Girl store. It was crowded with tons of little girls and their mommies - oh wow, it's a good thing I only had sons. Oh wait, I have grand-daughters now. Yippee! (yes, I did buy something there.)

The girls posed for pictures by the mounted police - who were posing for pictures as well. (Though I think they were on duty and just looking relaxed.)

Wally and I once had a very romantic date at The Rainbow Room in the NBC building. (It was a very fine restaurant but is no longer operating.) We had to have John take this picture of us.

I have to explain this picture. I took it to show those stars, which are all over the side of Saks Fifth Avenue building. (There are more then just in this picture.) Aren't they amazing? Then every once in a while music would play and the various stars would go on and off to the music. (The crowd of people are all facing the ice skating rink at Rockefeller center. )

The day ended with an elevator ride up to the top of the Empire State building where it was cold and clear. The sight was amazing. (John had a terrific picture on his blog at http://www.jsberge.blogspot.com/ ) It was a wonderful day, thanks especially to Ann-Margret and Jeffrey for being our "tour guides."

Farm Day

A trip home to New Jersey is just not complete without a day at my brother's farm. He is so great about hitching up Sam and Barney (the draft horses) and taking us all on wagon rides. Here you can see my brother John along with Debbie & Ben and John & Sara.

I thought Sam and Barney were handsome enough to have their own picture!

Wally got the opportunity to ride Maverick, Laurie's beautiful horse. We are really getting bitten by the "horse" bug lately....

Thanksgiving in Pennsylvania

Well here we are, back home and ready to blog our vacation. We had a grand time, gone over 2 weeks, and I have lots of wonderful pictures but I will select a few to capture the highlights. First I will cover our lovely Thanksgiving at my sister & brother-in-law's home in Pennsylvania. I think there were 24 of us - from age 90 to age 7. I thought this first picture sort of captured the sense of people visiting ... and waiting for the okay to start heading towards the turkey...

Ah, finally, after all those good smells, we can start to load up our plates!

That little lady there is my mom - does she look 90 to you? She is one perky mom.

This table looks like an exclusive men's table to me... I think because it was in the room near the tv and the football games!

This would be the dining room crowd. (This was where I was sitting too.)

I guess this is an all-girls table, huh? We sure had a good time!

Thanks, Marlane, for a delicious dinner and day!

Heading East

The above photograph is my mom and me - 60 years ago. I was about 7 months old (I'm guessing here) and my mom was 30. We are now about to celebrate my mom's 90th birthday (and, as you know, I just turned 60.) This blog will be quiet for a while as we will be enjoying family time in New Jersey - Thanksgiving and my mom's birthday celebration. I'm sure I'll have lot of pictures to post when we get back!
Happy early Birthday, Mom! I hope I have the energy at 90 that you have!

My baby is 27!

27 years ago today our third son was born, weighing in at 9 lbs 3 oz. He was 22 1/2 inches long too! As you can imagine, I was more then ready to give birth!
Here is the hospital photo of the older brothers, John & Adam, meeting Daniel. Adam was mostly interested in that funny mask he was supposed to wear over his mouth. Do they do that anymore?? How about that skinny leg of Daniel's slipping out of his gown. I think it is still quite slender.
Ah, those sweet boys all dressed up for church and for Daniel's baptism day. Adam looks so innocent. Right.
Springtime on the farm and a happy, handsome baby.
Oh yes, this picture shows the close bond between Adam and Daniel. Hmm... It actually ended up that way, though there were times I wondered.......

Happy Birthday, Daniel. Dad & I are so proud of you!

Here is the grown son with his lovely wife. Soon to be parents of 3....

Birthday rider

For my 60th birthday (which is today) Wally gave me a package of riding lessons (he knew I was interested in doing that.) So yesterday I had my first lesson. Here I am meeting Pistol, the calm horse that will be the one on which I will learn.
One of the first things I learned is how to properly groom a horse. You must get all the dust and debris off the horse before placing the pad and saddle on him so there is nothing irritating him under the saddle. I didn't know that, did you?
My instructor Liz is really good - she is teaching me about the proper way to hold the reins.
Here I am doing an exercise to learn proper balance and posture on the horse.
At the end of the lesson I got to brush Pistol down again. I look forward to my next lesson! It's good to know there is always more to learn as we get older!

Happy Halloween!

Look who came to trick or treat! "Beauty and the Beast!"
I would say that is the cutest "Beast" and such a pretty "Beauty!"

Birthday celebration

Here I am at the end of the great party. Thanks to Denise for the pictures. There are more over at Andrea & Adam's blog www.bergebunch.blogspot.com
Wally bought fabulous N.Y. strip steaks and John grilled them perfectly for our guests.
Are these boys every not silly in pictures? At least we have great smiles!
These three lovely girls have found a way into my heart. I love my daughter-in-laws.
Our three sons...

The A team

What a nice weekend - we had the "A" team here - that would be Adam and Andrea's team of 4! Here is the youngest team member...
Grandma and the A team. 4, 2, 1 and 2 months...

And did I mention that John & Sara came to town this weekend too? Hm... should I be suspicious that both out-of-town sons arrived in town the week before my 60th birthday?

Yes! I should have been suspicious because they were part of a lovely surprise party. We had a great time together but I don't have any pictures in my camera since I didn't bring my camera to my party since I didn't realize for sure I was going to a party. I just wasn't sure what was going on..... All three sons and their wives and Wally and lots of great friends delighted me with their attendance. Wally planned a great feast too. Good job, Wally!

Grandma's Helpers!

How lucky am I?? Timothy, Luke, Hannah, Josiah and their parents came to visit. The boys don't need toys to keep them busy, they can help grandma clean all those little panes in the french doors! Such fun, squirting the windex and wiping the drips!
Luke can multi-task. Paper towel in one hand and a transformer toy in the other!! (They really love getting to play with their Dad and Uncles old transformers. )
Of course, Miss Hannah needed to help too. Isn't she getting big??
Grandma is finally getting smarter. All the pretty, breakable items found themselves a new ... higher... place....
And of course, Josiah is enjoying being cuddled by Grandma. (and Grandma is enjoying cuddling him!!)