Grandma Hilda's 70th Birthday Bash

Last Saturday we celebrated Grandma Hilda's 70th birthday with a catered turkey dinner that was held in the church building. I was privileged to be asked to plan the afternoon and evening with this event being my first solo event. Considering everything, it went relatively well. It was quite the learning experience and now I know lots of things to keep in mind for future events. 

Being a late-in-life blended family the grandkids played an icebreaker game which had them looking for 70 pennies that were hidden in the hall. By the end of the evening they had found 66 of the 70... 

Here we are counting them 

The food getting laid out. 

There were several photo books put out. 

Sharing a meal

I stuck some colouring pages in this back corner to give the kids an opportunity to colour pictures for Grandma.

Another game for the kids. This one involved bringing thanksgiving dinner themed canned food over to a food donation bin without using their hands or feet. 

The youngests were allowed to kick the cans, but this too proved to be quite difficult but they made it work.

Matthew helping test the lighting for a family picture

And after way too many head swaps we ended up with this. It's honestly the best I can present. But hey, when you have 33 people all together for a picture it's impossible to have perfection, right? 

Then divided up into six or so teams or a wide variety of talents and ages and played some Minute To Win It games. Unfortunately the camera was still on a high brightness setting from when the family pictures were taken, and so these are kinda over exposed, and out of focus. But it's the thought that counts, right? 

The whole evening was apple themed and so the games were apple themed as well. 

Here a group is trying to match 30 different translations of the word 'apple' with the correct 30 languages.

This station involved coming up with as many 4+ letter words that begin with A.

Here teams were asked to stack as many apples on top of each other as possible.

For this, a team member had to stack 30 cups in pyramid fashion and balance an apple on top. 

For this one, a team member had to fill the green bucket and then bring red balloons (apples) across to a square using only their feet. Many groups got very creative with this one and would carry the person with the bucket on their foot across to the square.

Yay, the camera is sorta working again! Just in time for social hour!

There was also a little bit of an organized program that included a trivia game about apples, a bit of family entertainment and speeches and some signing.