65 Years Young

This is my dad, David Malin Wilding. Born July 7, 1944 in Brooklyn, NY. We had a blast honoring him on his 65th birthday this year. We threw an all out surprise party with a New York theme. (Sorry the first picture is so messed up, but he was really surprised)

My Sister-in-law, Amber (who is a genius party planner) came through for us again and made it really special. Each table was a different borough of New York. There was also the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, and Grand Central Station. To make it the complete New York experience, we played a little Frank Sinatra in the background.


The food was amazing too...New York strip steaks, incredible salads and although the appletinis were virgin :), they were delicious! Dessert? New York cheesecake of course.


One of my favorite decorations was all of the pictures of my dad throughout his life. We hung them everywhere.
My dad is the one directly right of the guy in the suit.


This is one of my all time favorites of my dad and all us kids.


My dad has been wanting a work bench for his garage, so Greg and Amber (my bro and his wife) made this awesome miniature version and we put a Home Depot gift card from all the kids in the mini toolbox.

It was such a great night and the best part was when my mom and all us kids got to stand up and pay tribute to my dad. My mom wrote a sweet little poem about their life together that had us all laughing. The kids each got to stand up and express to my dad what he means to us. Among the list of qualities we all talked about (extremely hard worker, great cook, great father and grandfather, ridiculously intelligent, etc.) two themes ran throughout every single one of our speeches: his love of fishing and how meticulous he is about EVERYTHING. We all have wonderful memories of our dad taking us fishing and we continue to make new ones. My dad immersed me in the fishing tradition when I was pretty young and I thank him for that because I'm not so sure Shane would have married me otherwise :). If any of you have ever been fly fishing, you know it can be frustrating at times, especially when you are learning. I talked about what patience my dad has to possess to be willing to take a kid fishing. I hooked him on several occasions and basically pierced his ear once (don't worry, the hook was small and he hardly bled:). As far as being meticulous, my dad is an engineer and he doesn't necessarily leave that title at work. Everything he does is very precise. My brother Greg joked that when you ask my dad a question about how to do something, you better be prepared with your T-square and protractor for the answer. Well put. It's not so much annoying as it is endearing and we always know that everything my dad does will be well thought out and well done. I really don't think my dad realizes how incredible he truly is, so it was fun to be able to bombard him with it :).

I love you dad! Hope you had as much fun as we did!