In case you didn’t know… I’ll let you in on a secret… Today is Grady‘s Birthday. In fact, since he’s not a woman I can reveal his age… He’s 60.
In the weeks leading up to today, Dan thought it would be a good idea to throw Grady a surprise party. Deb said that he didn’t show up to his last one, so we had to make sure he came around for this one. How do you do that? You schedule a fake class for him to teach. You also schedule it on a day that is not his birthday… that way he doesn’t suspect a thing.
So the plans were made for a CPROX class on Monday evening at 6:30pm.
The next task at hand is how to get Grady out of the shop so people can arrive and decorations and party food can be assembled. Thank goodness for the age of cell phones!
Jared devised a plan to have Grady come tow his truck to a mechanic. That allowed the rest of us to make the shop party ready. When Grady left then Justin showed up with part of the food while Deb was making the rest here at the shop.
Shaye Weston
Jared kept Karen posted on their transit status so that the rest of us could make plans based off Grady‘s driving. They even got the mechanic involved in buying us a little time here at the shop.
People started arriving around 6:15pm. Now one question that was stated is Grady will see all the vehicles outside. We said, yes, but maybe we all needed our CPROX updated. It could happen.
When Grady walked in, Danielle lead everyone in a corus of Happy Birthday. I’m pretty sure he didn’t know what hit him. So then Deb told him he needed to go back and see the classroom area. He said he needed to pee first. So we put Drake on guard to the back door to make sure he didn’t try to escape. All was good, he didn’t.
Grady Weston & the Grim Reaper (Steve Sweet)
Once Grady had seen his decorations, Lee was so excited about their candles that we had to go outside with a torch to light the “60 candles” and let Grady blow them out. And whoever thought Dan, Lee, A blow torch and candles was a good idea………
Lee Lake with the blow torch, Dan La Due (trustingly) holding the candles.
Of course as you saw on the video, Mark was there with back up in case it was needed. Grady was successful though!
Next we gathered back in the shop and Grady was put on the spot. He got to sit front and center while opening his cards and gifts. Gifts included but not limited to: Geritol, Caster Oil, funny cards, Ensure, and he may or may not have gotten a flag speedo thong. I cannot confirm nor deny. Thanks John Patrick.
Okay so the story behind this present… This was Mark and Jared’s doing. This is Grady‘s Pony Bottle. As most pony bottles start out, it was yellow. As the paint started to wear off, Grady spray painted it orange. When that paint started wearing off, Mark decided that it needed to be painted. He was planning on buying some car paint to paint it. Then Jared suggested taking it to Tracy Danner and having him paint it Chiefs Red with the holder painted Chiefs yellow. Then Chris Parrish made the decals for the tank.
And one last thing to point out… After Grady blew out the candles, they lit them back and let them burn. I guess there was a wax river flowing.
Happy Birthday Grady!