happy 80th grandma!

(l to r) timmy, sally, bob, susan, daniel, grandma, mark, patty, chris payne, kathy, & mona

a few weekends back the entire becker family converged on the quaint town of steelville, mo. to help grandma celebrate her 80th birthday. it was quite a celebration. as we all slowly trickled into town, first stopping at grandma's apartment (she now lives in town and sally and sarah live at the cabin) we went to the local hangout-the spare rib inn-for a good ol' country breakfast with the locals!

we were surrounded by hunters as it was the youth turkey hunt weekend...notice chris and bradley were not in the picture...they had already been in for breakfast and back in the woods huntin'! after breakfast we headed to the hall to decorate and we had a little concern that there was not enough food, seeing as how word got out about the party and even a park ranger ...long story... from st. james,mo. invited himself and family to come. it ended up we had plenty of food! lainie helping herself to the famous pickles!

the party was great! almost everyone from the family made it..all 8 of my grandma's children were there to celebrate her big day....can you believe she is 80? we were so glad to see molly and brian and spend time with them because we don't get to see them that often anymore. we were also very excited to see timmy (my uncle) two of his boys-matt and ryan. mykids were so excited to spend time with them-you would've thought that they were rockstars! tristan was ready with his camera-he couldn't wait to meet ryan...whenever people try to figure out who tristan looks like they always say he resembles ryan...this has intrigued tristan and he just couldn't stop talking about him all week prior to the big meeting!...he kept asking me how he would know who ryan was and i told him "if he kinda looks like you-its probably him". there is a little more resemblance to ryan's pictures when he was younger. tristan and ryancould they be any luckier marrying into the becker family?

(l to R) sally, kathy, me, molly, chris payne, patty and taylor

great-grandchildren!
4 generations!

patty and i matt and bradley

we ended off a great day with a big becker slumber party back at the cabin! no they are not in a cage- they are on the bridge upstairs in the cabin. they ran back and forth all night and threw things down on us from it! it was so fun to be with all of the family!