Beautiful Party Memories

The morning after the party, I went out to put everything away. The scene was eerily serine and at the same time echoed all the shared friendship of just hours ago. 

 A festive ribbon waved toward the new dock.

After many years, the pond once again had a dock to enjoy.

I spent some of the morning staining the dock to preserve it.

 Bored dogs.

 What a beautiful reminder of our wonderful friends.

Vertical Dave

"a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature" ~ Emerson
Another birthday bash for "still vertical" Dave.

This year I incorporated building a dock for the pond as a party activity.

I had salvaged boards and floats from an old dock at the Yacht Club to re-purpose as a dock on our pond.

Plan A was to use the tractor to move the deck into place but with so many dock-crew, they just did a lift and carry until...

 the floats broke loose.

No problem, a quick scrounge for slats and washers and it was good to go.

The fast moving crew scattered the fishermen as they flew past.

The dock was slid into the water...

flipped...

and with a mighty heave, splashed into place.

Then the dock was decked.

"What do you know Salty? It actually floats even with several guys working on it" ~ Rex (in red shirt)

While the dock crew labored away everyone else enjoyed other party activities like: fishing;

gleaning bushels of produce and fruit from my garden (and yea!taking most of it home);

boating;

swimming off the completed dock;

photo-ops on the dock; (Joelle and my niece with my soon-to-be great niece)

and relaxing with friends; (my great niece Sarah and great nephew Foster)

 
Dave and his brother John

my niece Natalie, sister Linda, Trask and me
Dave's sister Susan, Dave and brother John
There was ample yummy food and drink with Chinooks to make sure plates were not left unattended.

and of course the cake for the birthday boy.

We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family. This party started as a small work-party with birthday cake and took on a life of it's own. So many people wanted to be a part of the event. Next year Dave's birthday is going to be hard to top this one.