When you reach the age of 70...

... you too, will get a big party with a super slide show, dear friends and relatives attending from out of town.

That was the case for my Dad this weekend.  We had a 70th Birthday Party, celebrating his love and laughter filled life.  As we mentioned at the party - why wait to celebrate 'til its eulogy time?  Where's the fun in that?

All week long, we scanned in family photos and pulled the ones featuring Dad. Out of the 3000 plus photos scanned, there were only 100 plus of Dad 'cuz he was always the one behind the camera.  He still tries to be the one behind the camera (he even got a water-proof camera for father's day this year), but his hands are a little shakier these days.  So, Nick and I did most of the photo snapping at the party.

The old photos we found of Dad made up for in quality what they lacked in quantity.  As all his contemporaries pointed out, he was a good lookin' son-of-a-gun.

On a related note, we found several of Dad's old girlfriend photos, complete with flirtatious notes on the back!  Fortunately, there were even more photos of Dad and Mom kissing.  Spurred by their example, Kevin and I decided we'd better take some snapshots doing the same - for posterity's sake of course.

Marc slipped those photos into a cool slide show (he and Nick inherited Dad's afinity for techy things), and managed to slip in a few surprise video clips too.  Dad made a great Blues Brother at Girls Camp in the late 80's/early 90's!  He was also excellent as the lead singer for the Terrific Tobler Band. ;-)

I asked extended family, via email, to submit stories of Dad, and we put these into a 30 page booklet.  Yes, that is a picture of Dad on the cover - NOT Nicholas.  Throughout the weekend, we laughed and cried as we read the stories together and thought of more.

At the party, we also displayed some fabulous pictures - some of which I recall being hung on the walls of my grandparents' home.  And some of which I had never seen.  Cool band photo Dad.  And check out those baby curls!

To top the party off, we served Dad's long standing favorite dessert - half a cantaloupe, filled with vanilla ice cream.

The Sunday before the party, Uncle Jack called my Mom out of the blue and said he'd booked his flight and was coming.  That touched me to the core.  Nicholas flew in too, and it was wonderful to have the family together.