The Big 49!

Buddie’s birthday lasted for days. The planning for it, for weeks.

He had his inaugural kayak outing with Fi a couple weeks ago.

Then, we had friends over for an outdoor birthday dinner. Buds chose Desano’s Pizza as his preferred birthday meal, so each family had their own food, and we sat outside with fans blowing on each family, away from everyone else.

We played the family edition of Cards Against Humanity and cackled over that, and savored cannolis for the birthday “cake.”

The big surprise had been in the works for many weeks.

Jenny told me of the wonderful surprise for her dad’s 70th birthday.

As soon as I saw that, I knew we had a keeper.

With friends Tabitha and Meghna’s help (They work with Buds at Juice.), I got the names and addresses of all Buddie’s co-workers that he meets with at 9 a.m. on Monday mornings.

On Buddie’s birthday morning, he was lolling around, obviously having a tough time settling into work. The kids and I were trying to play it cool, but I began to worry that he was going to skip his regular meeting!

Then, when he finally said, “Okay, I better get on for this stand-up,” he couldn’t find his co-workers. No one seemed to be in the their regular virtual meeting room.

That brilliant Meghna!

She sent him a message about having to start a new meeting room, and so, totally clueless about what was going to greet him, he logged into the meeting room to be greeted by 9 pictures of himself, with four more of us standing behind him.

He laughed until he cried. I think it’s the first time we were truly able to surprise him, and it was a huge hit.

Here are the faces we used:

The final treat for his birthday was his self-selected gift of a German engineered vacuum. He happily puttered around sucking up whatever he wanted.

Happy birthday, Dearest Buds. Who knows what we’ll think of to surprise you on your 79th birthday?