The off-kilter family photos – mom’s 60th birthday.

The weekend of June 12th I took off on a weekend trip to Massachusetts for my mom’s 60th birthday. She had no idea we were throwing her a party and she had no idea that I was flying home to see her. My sisters and I sent both our parents away to the Cape for the night, I flew in on the red eye, we painted the living room (her gift) and planned a garden themed party for her.

It was perfect – she had no idea until she walked in the door the next day and everyone yelled – surprise! The garden theme was carried on from the invitations to the buffet tables. We covered the main table in moss and actually “planted” little plants in the moss so it looked like they were growing out of the table. It was very cool!

I have a very large family (read over 100 people) and some of my aunts, uncles  & cousins were able to make it over for the small, informal birthday surprise. I took a lot of pictures and when I reviewed them I noticed how off-kilter most of them are. I don’t really know any other way to describe them really, except well maybe, bad. They are all just a little off, and I personally find them quite hysterical and I’m sure other family members reading this will laugh too. My mother will want to kill me but after 15 years of taking photos she hates, I can’t see why I should stop now – right mom? 😉 None of these photos are posed and, with the exception of the one below, they all seem to be taken at the wrong time. The are the off-kiltered family photos, a result of too much gin. It was a really fun night!

Mikey, Meredith & Auntie Charlene starting off the gin party.

Mom, Aunty Charlene & Grandma sharing a secret. I have no idea what Alex is doing.

Yes Tabitha, limes are very sour.

I don’t know why my mother is carrying this light around outside but my father isn’t following it.

Once again too much gin leads to bad decisions. My Aunt Charlene decided it might be a good idea to take the wheelbarrow out of her SUV to wheel someone a couple doors down to my Auntie Bette & Uncle Chris’ house. The picture below is not particularly exciting unless you enlarge it to see the look of complete shock on my mother’s face. My father seems entertained by the wheelbarrow idea but my mom appears to be in total disbelief and the look on her face just cracks me up.

My mother’s look of disbelief.

My mother convinced everyone that this was a bad idea so no one ended up in the wheelbarrow, which was probably a good thing.

The next day I took some random pictures around home.

Strange family portrait – My mom, sister Bridgette & my dad. Missing is my sister Kate.

My brother in law then found an old Kodak camera which we jimmy rigged to take some TTV type photos.

My Dad:

My mom trying to figure out what kind of contraption I was using to take pictures. I can almost hear her getting angry at me from 3500 miles away the momentshe sees this is posted on the web. I really like this picture of her though.

My Auntie Toni says hello.