Grandma's Surprise Party - October 20, 2001


SURPRISE!!! Grandma walks into Smitty's and finds the whole crew!


I think those are real tears there!





Here is Greg trying to pin her corsage on her.


Still trying...


And it worked! Here come the tears again :)


Here is a picture of Greg and the lovely balloons tied to the back of Grandma's chair.


Here is one end of the table. Angelica gets to sit at the head of the table.


Here is more of the table. Alan and Barney were taking pictures at breakfast, so you may never see their end of the table.


Presents time!! The opening gift is a lovely blue and orange passport case from Rosy.


Next comes a nice leather-bound journal, also from Rosy. Grandma begins to wonder if we are kicking her out of the country.


Cards, cards, and more cards. Grandma even reads them!


Now she is opening Dave and Suzanne's gift (I think). And the gift is...


A beautiful jewel bracelet. You can kind of see it in this picture.


Here is the green change purse that I made for her (with Alan's help, of course). In a minute she will open it and find some Irish money. Now she is really getting suspicious.


Here is Katie's gift. All the way from abroad (there was a joke about that in there somewhere). There were lots of other fun presents, but our photographers got bored of taking present pictures. You'll just have to imagine the rest of them.


Wow, that's a big crew! We talked the waitress into taking a group picture, then made her do it 3 times (hehe...).


This is a great picture!


The opening of the presents was interrupted briefly by some friends of Grandma's who happened to be at Smitty's. Introductions were made all around, but I forgot names (as I tend to do). Sorry ladies!





And the grand finale present... a big check to add to the "Trip to Ireland" fund. Grandma was pretty shocked. Here was the first reaction...


And here was the next.


After breakfast we hung out in the parking lot for a few minutes trying to get organized. While the grownups did that, I took a picture of David and Angelica. Isn't she a darling in Alan's sunglasses :)


Back at Grandma's house we all hung out on the back porch for awhile. It was a great day for being outside!





Here is lovely Rosy. I'm the proud photographer of this one and I happen to think it looks pretty cool. (Cool looking subject aside)


Mom and Alan


B-DOGG: A self portrait


Somehow Rosy got ahold of the camera. These next three pictures are what she calls "Art".








Here she is again, looking very proud of her "Art".


The birthday girl herself.


Mom, Alan, and Greg


Mom and Alan again. Mom doesn't like getting her picture taken, so we had to get lots of her.


Here is a lovely picture of Carl. Doesn't the beard make him look distinguished.?


After awhile we decided to go into Northport for awhile. We went to a deli and got some food, then took it to the playground by the water to eat. Here is an aerial shot of the Collier family (plus Alan, minus Joyce). Joyce -- we all forgot to get pickles! We need you home to remember such important things for us!


There's the water and the boats.


Me and Barney. Nice pants Barney!!!


Back at Grandma's we had a great dinner that Carolyn had catered. And, for desert, ice cream cake. With lots of trick candles!


Grandma tries to blow out the candles... but as we all know from years of cakes with Grandma, trick candles don't go out!





This picture was supposed to be of Alan and Angelica, but it turned out to be of the light. Nice light! :)


Here's Alan and Angelica.


As the evening wound down we all just hung out, watched TV, played Scrabble, etc. Since none of that is photo-worthy, and Angelica often is, here's Angelica!


She doesn't seem to like Barney's visor much. Guess she isn't a homey-girl just yet.


The next morning we decided to get a family shot (or two) in the parking lot for Joyce. Rosy wasn't around either 'cause she went home the night before. Said something about relaxing or something. Silly girl.