Happy Birthday

Tom celebrated his birthday on Friday.  It was twinged with a bit of sadness as his Mom is in the hospital back in Colorado, experiencing some unforeseen difficulties with her health.

Mary and Peter schemed to make him smile, and I think they succeeded.  Peter has been Tom's right hand man with building and home repairs.  Sometimes we think our kids don't listen, but they do.  Peter knows that there are two small tools that Tom, unknowingly, has mentioned he needs to replace quite often.

One of them is his tape measure.  The one he currently uses was a Father's Day gift from our 22 year old when she about 8.  So on Friday, among other errands, we stopped by the local big orange box store and after much consideration, Mary and Peter selected and split the cost of their gift.

When they got home they retrieved the old tape measure from the workbench.  On the outside they labeled it a "BIG BUBBA" ... attached it to the new gift's packaging, wrapped and placed it on Tom's dinner plate.  After opening a really funny birthday card his Mom and Dad sent a while ago, Tom opened the kids' gift.  He chuckled pretty hard, and reminisced about where Kate bought that one.

Mary pulled the real gift out from under the table, and gave it to Tom.  His grin was wonderful to see when he pulled his new tape measure out of the bag.  Naturally, he tested his FAT MAX immediately to see if it really did stay rigid for 11'.  Passed the test.

Mission accomplished!  Happy Birthday Tommy ... and thank you Ray and Cathy for a wonderful husband, and father to our children.