HEIDI AND LEE'S FORTIETH WEDDING
ANNIVERSARY
APRIL 2005
A SERIES OF ALBUM PAGES
No question about this being an anniversary to remember!
Having spent a recent weekend with the entire family in Oak Park and Chicago to celebrate Olivia Lonergan's baptism, another extended weekend with Jon and Julia in Champaign / Urbana and still a third (at least in part) with Evan and Sarah while they were in town for the Cleveland Regional NCAA Men's Basketball tournament series in mid-March, we were pleased just to have Alissa, Sean, Colin and Olivia with us for a week prior to our "big day."
Ted drove in from Chicago that Friday; and we all spent Saturday (partially) at the Western Reserve Historical Society's Peanuts exhibit before heading out to Benihana for an hibachi-style Japanese celebratory dinner that evening. We'd already received several colorful cards and flowers, had opened a gift or two and had talked with everyone by phone. Quite content with how things were working out (and anticipating a Family Gathering set for early June), little did we know much more was afoot -- and had been for months beforehand!
Returning from dinner, Alissa mentioned we needed to stop by Judy and Doug Stewart's Lansmere home -- Judy had a gift waiting for us. Everyone piled out of the car and headed up to the front door (partly hoping we might garner an invitation for some of the Lonergans, at least, to spend the night -- the electricity had been off due to a slushy early Spring storm since mid-afternoon and would remain off, as it turned out, until Sunday evening). Once inside we found a crowd awaiting us, including Evan and Sarah, Jon and Julia, Julia's parents, Heidi's sister and twenty-five or so other friends and neighbors! Surprise!
Over delicious pastries and a Corbo's cake (the best in the city), we delighted in everyone's company, marveled at how well the planning had kept us so completely in the dark, watched raptly a DVD "review" of our married life done up as a set of four music videos and felt inordinately blessed. Besides the DVD, we received an album of selected photographs and a small spiral notebook in which guests (and others unable to attend) had inscribed their thoughts and best wishes. The album pages below were constructed to fit in that small notebook from the digital photographs Ted took over the course of the evening and on Sunday morning when we re-gathered at the Stewart's for brunch. (And, yes, ALL the Lonergans stayed the night!)
