Grandma's surprise birthday party

My Mom had a birthday this month. Coraline (my little sister who now lives in Germany) decided to surprise her with a visit. Her friend Nicky was coming from Utah to spend fall break with her in Germany, but she was in the loop. She'd barely landed in Frankfurt that they were renting a car and driving 8 hours to Revel!

Maman nearly had a heart attack when she saw both of them at the door!

We had planned a nice dinner with curried shrimp, smoked salmon, green beans, pommes noisettes, cheese platter and a Trianon cake.

Dinner was followed with a balloon sword fight enjoyed by the older ones as much as the younger.

And since a surprise can hide another one, on Saturday morning Rachel and Emmanuelle (2 of my other sisters) showed up at the house while my Mom was out shopping with Nicky and Coraline. When she came home she was greeted by a happy crowd on the balcony. 

Sweet Mommy was all emotional about it.

And again we bursted our stomachs with a magnificent Thousand Layer cake...

It was a really fun week-end celebrating the best Mom in the world. The best gift of the week-end was receiving news from Mago, our sister in law in Illinois. She had had breast cancer surgery 3 weeks before and the results of her MRI showed no remaining cancer cells. For sure that deserves another grand party!