Family Fun

My family celebrated my father's 56th birthday yesterday. We shared a delicious lunch of Chicago style roast beef sandwiches and followed it up with an amazing Trinidad cheesecake from Fannie-Mae. I believe everyone had a great time visiting with each other and think my Dad really enjoyed spending time with his wife, sons, daughter-in-law and grandchildren to bring in another year of life.

In between lunch and dessert, my niece and nephew spread out two puzzles on the living room floor. I have never been a big fan, but I decided to sprawl out on the ground and help my nephew start on his 100 piece transformers puzzle while my niece took on a 300 piece scene of Tuscany. It proved to a wonderful activity for a family to do together. We all took turns sharing our own strategies and tried to convince each other which one was best. After many laughs and about an hour of dedicated searching, they were almost complete. It was a race to find the last piece...

However, I had taken a piece from each puzzle and found a way to hide them early in the process. I put one in my nephews pants pocket and the other in my Dad's without them noticing when I did it. As each puzzle approached the end, a nervous frantic search started for what seemed to be a missing piece. I didn't let them search for long... I quickly asked them to check their pockets and waited for the "how did that get there?" look on their face. I jokingly told each of them that they must have known what piece was going to be last and decided to put it in their pockets. At that point, they knew it was me.

I am so grateful for the time my family spent together yesterday. The memories made while working on the puzzle will last forever. We were able to enjoy each other's company and pig out on some tasty food. Sometimes it can be so easy to get caught up with life and forget that some of the simplest things provide the greatest escape... especially when it is done with family. I look forward to never losing sight of that realization and plan to always make the most out of the many future celebrations to come.

Yesterday my family came together for my Dad's birthday. We ate, we played, we sang and we ate again. Loving and lasting memories were made, and it was clear that we are all definitely blessed in life... and that was the gift that brought the biggest smile to my Father's face.