Great Birthday Weekend for Great Grandma

We had a great surprise birthday weekend for MLO's Great Grandma.

The whole family (my mom's three sisters and their spouses and kids) all meet at a wild reserve (called Safari West) and we surprised Great Grandma. You see, she travels around the world a lot and does all sort of adventurous things, but the one thing she decided she would never get to do (but wanted to) was an African Safari because her old bones couldn't take all the bouncing.

Well, this was her African Safari, when we announced it to her, she started crying.

We got a three hour Safari. MLO loved every minute of it because the animals really did come right up to the jeep. An ostrich actually came up to her and she got a little scared because it was interested in biting shinny objects. Hubby distracted it with a water bottle and then she got to watch it.

There were all sorts of animals and MLO's favorites were the zebras. When we went into the gift shop at the end of the weekend, she collected all the zebra items and handed them to me.

We also got to sleep on the reserve because they had cabins and tents there. We slept next to a bunch of lemurs that were very talkative during the night (but once we were asleep, we slept right through them).

Last surprise was after dinner on Saturday night (also on the reserve); every member of the family got up and did something that was a tribute to Great Grandma.

My mom and I did a presentation on her career in performing or behind the scenes work. Hubby played one of her favorite songs on his flute. My sister and two of my female cousins were the finale with a re-written Supremes song talking about Great Grandma. Needless to say we had a lot of grateful tears during the night.

MLO did a surprise performance when after it was all over she started dancing away to the background music. Everyone joined in and she was in the center of the circle with people dancing around her. It was great and we were all laughing as we went off to bed.

Overall a fabulous weekend and great success!!!