Mom turned 90 on February 25th and we had a huge dinner party for 45 people on Saturday night, the 28th. Jerralynn and I made the food, and mom spent days prior to the event organizing furniture so all of the people could sit throughout the house if they wanted to.

Jerralynn made chicken drumsticks in teriyaki sauce, meatballs, spinach salad and a potato casserole. I made an asparagus salad and the salmon, and I’d bought buns and the cake from Costco. It looked nice, but tasted like a Costco cake would taste, IE, meh.

Stu Wells gave a lovely speech and we drank a toast to dear mom. Then I said I had a few words to say, and had written out a little speech. Basically I explained how I got Jean Chretien to send a beautiful note for mom’s birthday. I said I knew mom expected some type of surprise, and I had to come up with one.

About a week before her birthday I thought I’d better figure out how to get right to the top for a congratulatory letter. I recalled my old French Canadian boyfriend Gaby had told me his niece was a lawyer who worked in the same firm as Mr. Chretien. I e mailed him and said can you get her to ask Mr. Chretien to send a letter?

He forwarded her reply, which said she no longer worked there, but here is the office number. This was on the weekend, so I mulled that over, wondering what to do. But by Monday I thought what an they do, shoot me for asking, and dialled the number.

Mr. Chretien’s nice executive assistant answered, and said a whole bunch of words in French, none of which I could understand. I was expecting, “Hallo ici le bureau de Monsieur Chretien.” You know, grade 6 French taught at Osoyoos Elementary School.

I didn’t know what to do, so went for the Rube Alert, and replied, “Hallo! Hallo! I’m phoning from BC.” Denise Labelle instantly switched to English, listened to my stammered request, and was very kind. She said, “Well bien sur, Mr. Chretien will do that for you!” She gathered the contact info, and said a letter would be sent by Fed Ex.

She also sent me the letter by e mail, which was a good thing, as she’d given Fed Ex my address incorrectly, so it didn’t arrive on time. But now I have the signed copy all ready to hand over to mom when she visits later today. She’s driving Jerry Jr to the airport as he’s on his way back to Manhattan.

Besides Freddie and me, there were three grandchildren and three great grandchildren in attendance. Jerry took a group photo so I hope to have that soon to post on Facebook. The youngest person was one and the oldest was 90.

Louie also attended the party, and everyone just loved him so much. He adores little girls so he spent quite a bit of time with Journey and River, and they enjoyed playing with him. Sadly I left his stuffed donkey behind, and he’s been searching the house for it. Let’s just say he has a “special relationship” with the donkey and leave it at that.

So now with mom’s party done I can concentrate on Party #2, Luke and Jan’s reception.