The Rest of the Weekend

I've already given you the rundown of Butch's actual birthday. But, basically it was a birthday weekend.

Saturday morning started with a trip to the Maker's Mark Distillery. It's 2 hours and 45 minutes away. Butch didn't realize that it was on Eastern time when he booked the tour at 10 a.m. He tried to change it, but couldn't get through to MM via email or phone (never returned either message). He wasn't happy about that, so they were forced to go early.

They left the house at 5:30 a.m. They arrived and got their nameteags.

And of course...

...the tour included a tasting...

...and you get to dip your own bottle(s).

Looks like MM knows what they are doing!

They had a really fun time, but the kicker was that the air conditioning was out on the Enclave. They said it was so hot in the car--the temperature outside was well over 90--that they had to keep the windows down--which meant they were whipped with the highway wind!! When they got home, they joined us in the pool.

That evening, I had rented the private dining room at the club. Since our family now numbers 14, we are forced to rent private rooms at restaurants along with their hefty price tags. The dining room at Richland is perfect for us. And the food is always amazing!

We surprised Butch again with our"favorites" gifts. Every gift--the birthday gifts and then the favorites were so very thoughtful. 

We almost had a little snafu when we were discussing who might have gotten him nuts. He LOVES nuts and has just about exactly 12 every night--a small handful. Everybody thought someone else got him nuts. In fact, I was the one who asked the family if anyone was getting nuts. One of the girls responded that I shouldn't because surely one of the "kids" would. The day before, we discovered that no one had. Luckily, Jordan came through with them!

I might not remember everything, but here goes. He got golf socks, golf balls, hiking something (can't remember exactly what it was), fishing lures, nuts, a huge box of Tobelrones, Dollar Store cookies that he has raved about, alcohol (can't remember which)--and more that I can't remember. There really weren't any duplicates. Honestly, I didn't even think of all the ideas they came up with. He was really surprised.

After dinner, the "young 'uns" went back to Morgan and Ollie's place for the evening. The rest of us went back to the house and played a new game---Blank Slate.  It wouldn't be our family if there wasn't a little gambling involved. Each person put in a dollar for each of the 4 games. We had a first place winner (side note: Sandy came in first 3 times!) and a second place winner. It was a fun game for 8 people. We figured out how we could make it work the whole family. 

Sunday we ended with a family pool day and Corky's BBQ. This was when we had our book club discussion (this time we chose Later by Stephen King) and Butch's final surprise. That's when each person told their favorite dad/grandpa story. It was so much fun hearing what everyone loved about him. 

One last shot of my pretty girls!

Then it was over. As everything, it went by way too fast. 

Well, wait! There was one more thing. While we were all cleaning up in the kitchen, our three girls made an announcement. They said that they had something planned in honor of our 50th anniversary---coming up in August. They wanted to discuss the date with us. In my mind, I thought, "oh my gosh! We're pretty darn busy---trying to ramp up the travelling." But, earlier, they had slyly discovered that we didn't have anything planned for Labor Day. They said that we were to reserve Labor Day weekend, starting from Friday through Monday and wouldn't know anything until we needed to. Hmmm, no telling what they have up their sleeve! One thing's for sure, I know it will be fun!!