The Wonderful Milestone of 50 Years!

What an amazing milestone it is 

to be able to celebrate 50 years of marriage!

In a society, where many marriages end in divorce, OR, many people that get sick and leave their spouses to death, I think it is such a wonderful accomplishment to make it to  

50 years of marriage, especially in great health! 

We had SO much fun planning a 

surprise anniversary celebration for Tracy's parents; 

while they knew that we were doing something FUN for them, they had no idea the magnitude it would be. 

The event was held at the home of Shane and McKenzie with McKenzie, Shelley, Genessa and Ashley working in the kitchen doing SO many things "behind the scenes". 

My sister-in-law Cheryl had fresh floral arrangements made for the centerpieces and corsages, there were white linens for the tables along with colored linen napkins. It was complete with a musical number (by Lisa, Shae, Cheryl and Margaret), slide show done by Travis and Tracy, music from the 60's era, The men grilled up veggie and meat kabobs, there were LOTS of yummy salads and a variety of desserts/rolls, that were made with love by their kids and grand kids.   Candace created a family tree and we all put our thumbprints on the branches for the leaves.  Cheryl made up candle tins as favors for all of us and the evening ended with a family toast around a bon-fire with everyone telling their favorite memories they had of growing up.

It was a perfect and wonderful evening 

and I could tell it meant the world to Clair and Josie.

(It was SO windy, the wind was blowing all of the linens off the table, so we had to move everything into Shane's shop for the celebration).

WOW!  

50 years has treated the two of you great!
Ready to go inside to the SURPRISE PARTY...

I had spent HOURS and hours of time

putting together photos for a Memory Lane Tree to display.

Clair & Josie spent SO much time looking at each photo and commenting on it and the memory that they had of it.  

It was SO awesome seeing them SO happy...
they were full of emotions of all kinds!

Josie's favorite quote is:

"We don't remember the days...

we remember the moments!"

 I savored each and every hour that I spent with Josie while I scanned in photo after photo from their family photo albums. I treasured having heart to heart conversations with Josie while she told me explicit details about the photos and I can honestly say I had four wonderful days of "memory lane" FUN.

I was SO excited to really capture the evening well in photos...

However, before we started eating, Jade had a bad seizure and I was spending most of the time with him, making him comfortable, making sure he didn't try to stand up and fall down and hurt himself.
I was pretty stressed out, worrying about him and  
feeling SO sad that he was missing out on all of the fun. 

 Jade is a PEOPLE person 

and LOVES getting together with family and friends and he had been looking forward to this night all month long. 

He was even ready at 11:00 in the morning and the celebration didn't start until 5:00.

He and I pretty much missed out on the majority of the celebration.  

Thank goodness for the photos I did get and Tracy tried to snap some photos as well, in between, doing the slide show.

Jade and I were at least able to watch Clair and Josie dance for us and enjoy the special bon-fire moment. 

Precious keepsakes from Josie and Clair's wedding day...

announcement, wedding tiara, garter, flower worn on Josie's wedding suit, tie worn by Clair, ring box, necklace and earrings that were a special gift to Josie from Clair on their wedding day,

Here are some of my favorite photos from my

four wonderful days of scanning in photos

with Tracy's mom Josie...

I love these two people so much...

they always bring so much JOY, laughter and FUN to our lives!  

They are just like parents to me and what a 

WONDERFUL 21 years of being married to their son that I have had!

What a blessing it is to be able to be a part such an amazing family...

 I hope that Tracy and I are just as lucky 

and make it to celebrate 50 years of marriage as well. 

Here's to many more wonderful years 

of health, happiness and love!