Surprise!

I am so truly blessed! And this past weekend was a testament to that. As most of you know, this weekend was Grandma Chloe's 80th B-Day. The Leininger family all descended on Keith & Deb's place,(Manhattan, IL) who where so wonderful to put up with 49 1/2 of us for over 2 days, to surprise Grandma! Grandma knew her kids were going to be there, but was suprised when the grandkids and great-grandkids kept showing up! What a group! All age groups where present from Grandpa and Grandma to the, soon-to-be, newest Timm! I hadn't seen some of the cousins in quite a few years, so it was a shock to see how much they had grown! I think the last time I was at Keith & Deb's was when I was heading back to MN/IA from North Carolina and I was VERY pregnant with Zach! That was 8 years ago.
I got in around 12:30 on Friday night about 5 minutes before Beth and Nate drove up with Caisha and Jim from the airport. Most everybody was asleep in the house and I was relieved to find out that Caisha and I would be staying in the house instead of vying for couch space in the church youth room! Josh was gracious enought to let me and Caisha stay in his room for the weekend. Thanks Josh!
Saturday afternoon we all gathered in the church gymnasium for lunch and to sing Happy Birthday to Grandma and present her with the quilt that we all contributed a personalized square to. Thank you, Stacy, for putting this all together. It was a beautiful blanket! It was fun to see all the creativity within this family. After lunch we all jumped in the pool to cool off! The heat index had to be over 100 degrees, so the pool was a great relief. We got a great game of water volleyball going where the competition heated up between the parents and kids! What a blast! Then Keith fired up the grill and we had hamburgers (thank you Jack & Lynne!), hotdogs and brats. Of course, throughout the weekend we socialized and caught up on what everybody was doing, with naps and card games intersperesed. Saturday night Nate and Beth headed up a small group of us(Jim, Chris, Tom, Nate, Beth and I) and we went out dancing. Who would have thought that the girls would be waiting for the boys! Beth and I were ready to leave by 9pm but we ended up waiting on Tom and Chris! Finally around 9:30p we headed out. It was a beautiful evening and the place we went to had a great outdoor patio to hang out in. I was amazed to see a bean bag toss tournament going on! When did this become such a popular sport? It must be Illinois!
Sunday, 10am, we all attended Keith's church(For those who do not know, Keith is the pastor). It was a great service. It was very moving when Keith called Larry and his family forward and we all laid our hands on him and prayed for his battle with cancer. You could just feel the energy flowing through all those gathered around. It brought tears to many of our eyes! What a wonderful congregation Keith has. We are all family in Christ. After service we gathered one more time for lunch before people started to filter home. I am so glad to be a part of this family! We may all live many miles apart, but I do not know of any(extended) family that is closer!
I feel like I had a weeks vacation in one short weekend. I guess love and support can refresh the most weary of us! Thank you Grandpa and Grandma for starting this family and being the glue that bind us all together! You are a GREAT example to us all!