Sunday, September 24, 2017

Surprise 90th birthday celebration


Mitch picked us up at 3:00pm and took us for a personal tour of Oak Park, the area where he grew up. We drove past his his childhood home and down the street to Frank Lloyd Wright's home and studio. It is a beautiful part of Chicago with many examples of Frank Lloyd Wright's stunning architecture. Mitch pointed out particular buildings and their histories. 

After this personal tour we drove to Fred and Toby's apartment for the first part of her 90th birthday surprises! She was truly surprised when we walked in! It was the first meeting for John and Fred, Mitch's adoptive father. We spent a couple of hours visiting, looking at photos and we even managed to fit in a game of scrabble...one of Toby's favourite pastimes. 



Time passed quickly and it was soon time to walk over to the Italian restaurant where family members were waiting to surprise Toby again! It was a great surprise! She was embraced with hugs, stories were shared and we were introduced to everyone! It was very overwhelming for me to finally meet so many family members that I have heard about over the years.






Mitch presented several gifts to Toby with much applause from the group....



...including an autographed copy of Rich Little's (Canadian comedian) book.

The Italian restaurant did a wonderful job of serving several courses of delicious food over the next couple of hours and young family members provided entertainment. Several of the adults also sang songs and played guitar music.



Aaron and his children played Happy Birthday while a beautiful cake was carried into the dining area.
Very kindly, there were less than 90 candles on the cake!

After walking back to the apartment with Fred and Toby we sped back to the downtown area
where Mitch had reserved a table for us at Andy's Jazz Club.



I am sure that the Jazz was exceptional...but...it was that cacophonous jazz 
that assaulted my eardrums and resulted in a roaring headache.
We stayed until almost 1:00 am before retreating to the busy streets of Saturday night in Chicago
where long lineups of gorgeous young people were on parade outside clubs.
There was definitely more skin than fabric on display!!


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