A big birthday

This was a "milestone" birthday for Papa Bear. So we gave him "big" gifts.

Frankly, he's hard to shop for, so we've been planning on this birthday gift for about a year. Remember you can click on the pictures to enlarge them and see them better.

We gave him a "football". That means that we gave him what we wanted.

My family explained it to this way when I was growing up; a little boy asked his dad what he should get his mom for her birthday. Dad told him to think of what he would like, and to get her that. So the little boy bought his mom her very own football.

All in all, giving footballs is somewhat of a family tradition. Still, we try to get gifts we think people will appreciate too.

We started with something "safe" - the gift from my parents. He does indeed like the Red Sox. What a great gift!



Then he opened up Patience's gift - new drill bits (little did he know).

I think he actually liked and appreciated that one. He said "I needed these!" (again, little did he know.... we needed a size bit we didn't have for our little birthday football).



Next he opened Vivace's gift. This child was having trouble sitting still, he was so excited.

You can see the puzzled look on Papa Bear's face. Why is my cooler all wrapped up? And when he opened it and found a bunch of empty milk jugs, the mystery thickened.

And the kids were eating it up.



When he got the next gift (6 metal "spiles" - aka spouts or taps) from Andante, he had no idea what they were. The kids were all but howling at this point. They knew he had no idea what he was holding.













Andante was in heaven.















These taps were wrapped in a cool Patriots T-shirt. At least Papa Bear knew what that was (a little reprieve from wonder and confusion).









Finally, he opened Constance's gift - a cleverly packaged sprinkler for the yard (merely an extra, like the t-shirt) and a book entitled Backyard Sugarin'. His look says it all. "So that's what you're up to....."


I gave him a bucket w/some new, empty syrup bottles so we had something pretty to put the finished product in to give the grandparents if all goes well (which it may or may not - we'll see). I also gave him new frames for his photographs, especially of the kids.

A few classic reactions from him include

• I sure hope you know what you're doing.
• Are you sure we have the right trees?
• How much is it going to cost to boil this down?
• Don't give this away if it's going to kill anyone (I reassured him we'd only give away to family LOL I guess I promised not to kill the neighbors, only family. The knowing kids reassured me that this stuff gets boiled to eternity and beyond so there's no risk of any germs surviving to kill anyone; they're right. We'll explain that to him at some point.).
• Have fun! (as in "This is your project, not mine.")
• We'll talk... (as in "Have your fun this year, but we'll talk about whether or not you'll do it again after we know what it's going to cost us."

I love my husband, and I think he appreciated us having our fun, at least to some degree. Pictures of our project to come in the next few weeks. In the meantime, happy birthday to my beloved - and thanks for letting us have so much fun buying you this football!