The weekend started with me, my parents and my cousin who is my age arrive in Oak Ridge on Friday night. Ging Ging knew my cousin, Turner, was arriving for the weekend, however she had no premonition I was coming. So we spent Friday hanging out at the house with her, talking about what was going on in my life in California, what Corey’s been up to, etc. Turner didn’t get in until 10 p.m., so he stayed over at the hotel everyone was rooming.
Saturday, my mom and I woke up to do some “shopping”, which was actually meeting up with my other two cousins, Cory and Colby, with their families, as well as my younger brother Will. I finally got to meet my cousin Cory’s wife Amy and their son Cole (who looks just like Cory!). It was also great to spend more quality time with the rest of the family. It was almost like a reunion.
The next item was to pick up the decorations and cake for the party. We used purple and yellow colors, two of my grandmother’s favorites, for the balloons and cake, and bought Whitman samplers for the guests. My grandfather used to get her a Whitman sampler every year for her birthday.
My mom was convinced she knew how to get to the venue, Elks Lodge. Leaving the store, we had both my brothers trailing us. We started off. Realizing we actually didn't know where we were going, we had to call my dad. . .three times.
Finally arriving at the Elks Lodge to start setting up, we realized there was a teen concert that night in the private room next to ours. This disguised the fact that the otherwise dead-on-a-Saturday-night venue was packed for Ging Ging’s party.
As the right time came around, 6:30 p.m., we waited anxiously for Ging Ging and my parents to arrive. Since she knew I was already in town and meeting them for dinner, I ushered her inside. Responding to her comment about how packed the Elks was, I said, "Oh, they have this teen concert going on."
"That makes more sense for the cars," she replied.
My parents and I smiled.
Ging Ging opened the door to the room and saw all her friends and family and was ecstatically stunned. Immediately the tears came, which for my grandmother is not a frequent thing. My dad went over to give her a hug and the party started!
There was a table set up at the front for everyone to write notes to Ging Ging for her birthday. The pictures taken, coupled with the notes, will be put into a photo album for her as the finale to her present.
It was a great weekend.
