60th Anniversary Celebration

Can you believe that I'm finally getting around to posting about this event? It's only a couple months late . . . sigh.

Okay, so back at the beginning of August, my grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. Sixty years. WOW!

For their 50th and 55th anniversary, our whole family took a small trip together. However, my grandfather (that I call Pappy) is very sick with Alzheimer's Disease. I know he doesn't really look like he's sick in these photos, but he is. And it's so bad that a trip would have been too much for him.

Most of our family on the trip 5 years ago:

This year, instead of a trip, we had a big party. My aunt recruited my sister and I to help with the decorations and a video slideshow. My sis ended up doing our part of the decorations, while I put the slideshow together. I wish I could put it on here, but 1) it's 30 minutes long, and 2) I doubt everyone in my family would love it if I plastered their photos all over the World Wide Web. It seriously took me hours and hours to put together (mainly because I had over 350 photos that I was working with), but I was pretty proud of the finished product.

Here are some of the decorations that my sis made:

This was a hardback book that we all wrote in:

Another project of my sister's . . . the numbers are covered in old photos!

This is a photo of the room where we ate and watched the slideshow. It was super fun!

This was such a cute display - the cards hanging on the branches have quotes from my grandparents written on them. Love!

This table was covered in recent photos of my grandparents:

We had a photographer there to take photos for us. Each individual family had individual photos, then we did larger groups. Brenson was less than cooperative . . .

I like this one better!

So, to break it down for you, my grandparents had 5 children (my mom is #2). We lost my aunt (one of my mom's younger sisters) to Leukemia 3 1/2 years ago. I blogged about it here and here and here. 

All of the family that was able to be at the party:

My grandparents also have 14 grandchildren (I'm number 8). My parents have 4 children (I am number 3). My cousins, siblings, and I are all pretty scattered living in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Colorado, Texas, Georgia, and New Mexico. Despite this, 11 of us were able to be at the party.

{I am in white with a blue skirt. My brothers are are the right side (the two on either side of my cousin Amy wearing teal) wearing red and black. My sister is sitting on the left in the floral black and white shirt.}

We allowed our spouses in this photo and it got out of control, haha!

My grandparents also have 25 great-grandchildren! Brenson is currently the youngest, although there is at least one on the way right now. Trying to get this photo was so funny. At least half of the littles were crying when we first put them all up there, so my cousin started singing and performing trying to get them to look in one general direction and smile. Or, at the very least, not cry. I was SHOCKED when I saw this photo and everyone looks decently happy!

We stayed with my cousin who has a little girl who is about 6 months older than Brianna and a little boy who is about a year older than Brenson. My sis and her fam also stayed there. The littles had so much fun playing! Here are a few photos of the girls when they were still babies.

After photos, we all ate lunch that we had catered in. One moment that I don't want to forget was right before lunch. We all stood in a circle holding hands - while my grandparents stood in the middle - and we prayed together surrounding them in a circle of love. Perfect.

We had several little tables set up for the smaller kids at the party. Brianna thought this was great! And yes, we put a tarp under the kid tables, haha!

Here was one half of the room . . .

. . . and the other half. B-B-Q for lunch = yummy!

We dimmed the lights and watched the slideshow right after lunch. B zonked out on Uncle Jeremy's lap! Sweet baby.

This was the first time that my grandparents had met Brenson. I was so happy to introduce them to my son! I know I will always cherish this photo of them.

Overall, we had a great weekend. It is SO good to spend time with extended family (many of whom we rarely see due to distance). God has certainly poured his blessings upon our family.