So, Thursday saw me up at 5AM (ugh) getting ready to leave for the airport. My brother and I flew to California with his two kids. The kids really were good on the plane — the baby cried a bit but it really wasn’t bad. After landing, getting our luggage (which took FOREVER), and getting the rental car we drove to my parents. My sister, mom, and nephew met us on the road and we drove to my dad’s work. The two oldest grandkids walked around the building and surprised him. It took him a couple minutes for it to sink in, but he was really happy to see us.

We went to lunch where we informed him that my friend from Southern California was coming up Friday night and that on Saturday we were going to the beach to have lunch with my sister and some of her friends. He was excited. We had a great time just hanging out Thursday and Friday.

Friday we got the call from the transplant coordinator that the date was for sure (it was a penciled in thing before). Friday afternoon we had something funny happen — but I’ll post that separately because it deserves it’s own post. LOL

Saturday we got up and got ready for the beach. We packed into two cars and headed over. We couldn’t believe he still had NO clue. When we pulled in we saw a family from church (they were there for the party). They tried to hide from my dad but weren’t successful. He thought it a funny coincidence that they were there. We got everything unloaded — even with 200 hot dog buns and the mounds of food we unloaded he still had no clue. LOL

My dad asked why our friends weren’t joining us for our BBQ. (Didn’t bother him to just invite another family to join our family picnic.) At 2:00 (when the party was supposed to start) they joined us and their daughter gave my dad a birthday card. That confused him, this family are friends but not so close that they’d naturally bring him a birthday card and show up at the beach with us. After reading it he asked my sister “how many people are coming?” My sister smiled and said “about a hundred”. He was very surprised and emotional. The timing for telling him was perfect. He had time for it to sink in before people started arriving and he was able to greet them all and enjoy the party.

The party was awesome. In all we had 120 people there (including the family). My dad was very humbled by the amount of people that drove that far (it’s an hour drive from their house over a windy road) to celebrate his birthday with him. He had some people drive as far as 400 miles to be there with him.

We were all exhausted by the time we got home. Unfortunately I had to be up 6AM the next morning to head back to the airport to fly home. Needless to say, when I got home I fell asleep on the couch at 3. Feeling very rested today. Just having trouble getting caught up on e-mails and getting real work started.

Till later…