Happy Birthday Poppy!

If you were wondering about the half day in the last post, it's because we needed to get back north in time for Poppy's birthday surprise. Matt and Laurie were flying in from Texas to surprise Poppy, so we all showed up at for lunch Friday at the Pizza Factory. (Poppy was under the impression that he was having lunch with some colleagues from work, so he was quite surprised--and pleased--to find his entire family assembled instead.) Here's a picture of the assembled crew:


Saturday's big event was family pictures. (In retrospect, this is a little funny to me because, while it was Poppy's birthday, the pictures were clearly for Bubby. Poppy wasn't nearly as excited about the pictures.) Among other things, the pictures showed me that I need to have a little more faith in Bubby's powers of persuasion: Bubby had planned on an outdoor shoot but the weather was most definitely not cooperating. It was cold and lowering all day, and then, about half an hour before pictures, it started to rain. I (and I don't think I was the only one who thought this) was convinced that we'd have to fall back on plan B and take the pictures at the studio, but Bubby was determined. She had prayed for good weather and she was going to get it. So, skeptical but willing to go along, the rest of us drove to the outdoor site in the rain. It was still raining when the photographer showed up. He agreed to wait fifteen minutes for the rain to clear, so we all sat in our cars and tried to keep our carefully groomed and coifed kids entertained.

And wouldn't you know it, not ten minutes after we agreed to wait, the rain did in fact stop and the sun came out. I'm not sure this would have worked for anyone other than Bubby, but she clearly has some mad skills the rest of us don't have. (Or maybe she just has more faith.) So we got some nice outdoor shots after all.

Here's Evelyn, after the shoot, in all the glory of her costume (we all wore SUU wear for the occasion.)