Happy Birthday

To one fantastic man - my Dad!!

I wonder if his parents were thinking of this when they named him: His initials (M.A.Y.) spell May (clearly), and he was born on May Day. It's a day just for him! And this past Saturday was definitely a day just for him. Although he still seems the same to me as he did in that picture above, we were celebrating his 60th birthday, and we did it with an all day surprise birthday bash. Deemed "The Mark Griswold 60th Birthday Vacation" (due to the similarities between Clark Griswold and my dad), we started the day with breakfast at our friends' house. Here he was surprised and greeted by a small group of good friends from church and myself, an extra-special surprise guest (if I do say so myself). I don't think there is a picture that captures the moment he first saw me, but his eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped. It was pretty exciting, and a few not-so-dry (but not too teary) eyes resulted.

Next we enjoyed our delicious breakfast which consisted of two egg casseroles, a caramel-covered pastry item, sliced oranges, banana-spice muffins (designed to look like eggs, which were adorable!), fruit & yogurt parfaits, orange juice and coffee. The egg-like muffins, which I already mentioned, were especially cute. Each one had a descriptor of my dad that somehow related to an egg, to which he commented, "So there's an egg theme here, right?!" Ever the funny one, he got a laugh out of everyone.

My personal favorite...

The man of the hour (but really the whole day!).

The guest list

After enjoying the scrumptious food, we unveiled the days events by presenting Dad with the invitation to his surprise party. He got quite a laugh out of it too.

The remaining events: at 1pm - a bike ride into Chatham for drinks and lunch at Fat Willy's, a local bar & grill (unfortunately I don't have the picture from this leg of our trip yet). At 6pm - a potluck dinner and party at our house. Let me tell you, I don't think I have ever seen that many people in our house or on our deck at one time. I wish I had a picture of our kitchen island covered in various dishes of food. It was incredible how much food there was, but oh so tasty! All in all, it was a fantastic party with many family and friends, and a great excuse to come home. We even got to relive Dad's 60 years with a brief recap and an accompanying story from each decade.

*Quick side note: Initially Dad was upset there weren't 60 candles on his cake, but then he couldn't even blow out 6. Somehow he missed the last candle on his cake and had to try again; hence the funny face in this picture.


Here's to a...
sunny-side-up kind of guy
eggsemplary dad
eggstraordinary friend
eggstremely funny guy
eggspert vacation planner
eggscitable husband
eggsceptional guy
eggsplorer
with eggsquisite taste
who eggs-hibits frugality
and eggceeds expectations
(are you getting the egg theme?)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I LOVE YOU, DAD!
You're not a bad egg.