Celebrating 70

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

So, yeah, I missed the Joshua study again last week.

We were out of town; My Sweet Babboo's parents were celebrating 70 years of marriage.

The entire family came in...with the exception of the spouses of the only two married grandchildren, who couldn't get off work.  So all four kids, their spouses, and all 10 grandchildren.  Between us, we represented Indiana (the ol' stompin' grounds), Alabama, California, Florida and Pennsylvania.

It was pretty low-key, as far as celebrations go.  We took the folks out for dinner on Saturday (their anniversary was actually the 27th, but we couldn't make Wednesday work for a gathering) and basically hung out for the weekend.

Oh, and we sang at church.

I think I've mentioned the musicality of my inlaw family;  My FIL was a barbershop singer back in the day; both My Sweet Babboo's brothers are barbershoppers and I even think his sister sang with a Sweet Adeline chorus a bit.  The folks, their kids and their kids-in-law all sing in a church choir or barbershop chorus.

Two of the grandkids sing regularly and a third is a musical theater participant.  The others are, um, not particularly pursuing vocal music at the time.

But we have a tradition that began with the folks' 40th anniversary celebration...the entire family sang the special music at church on the celebration weekend.  We did it again for the 50th...the 60th...and now the 70th anniversary, adding the grandkids as they got old enough to participate.

Thanks to the advances in technology, here is the performance from the 9 AM service at St Paul United Methodist Church in Elkhart, Indiana on Sunday, July 1st.  All 20 of us are singing, although some of the grandkids might be doing so rather quietly. 

And, as it seems the video file is too big to upload to  Blogger, here's the facebook link.

It is an amazing blessing to get to celebrate them.