Jean Bryant hosted today's adventure which originally was scheduled to be lunch at the new Ikea Home Furnishings store in their Swedish/American cafe, and then look around or shop at their gigantic new location near Portland Airport.  Because of the horrendous crowds, we changed our lunch location to the nearby Shilo Inn Restaurant. 

 

Several of us arrived early so we could decorate to make it festive for Joy's surprise 80th birthday lunch.  Unbeknownst to us, there was a private room with seating for 12 already set up.  We were thrilled and immediately began to decorate the room with balloons, fabulous chocolate cake, birthday napkins with the number 80, assorted "over-the-hill" trinkets including black beads for everyone to wear, with Joy's black beads saying, "I'm old.  Let's party."

 

Everyone brought cards so that Joy would have lots of cards to open.  Jean and Fran brought her a book entitled, "Why Crones Whine," and we played our kazoos or sang Happy Birthday to Joy.

 

We had a fabulous server, Justin, who made sure we all had fun.  He went out of his way to show Joy a special time, including periodically giving her shoulder massages.  Justin told us that his mother was a red hatter, and we're hoping that she will visit our website and view these pictures.  Maybe her favorite will be the pictures with Justin wearing a red hat.   

 

After lunch, we drove over to the Ikea store, but the parking lots were so crowded that many of us decided to try again another time. 

 

A good time was had by all.