60 Memories for 60 Years

Last Friday my Pops celebrated his 60th birthday! I knew that I wanted to do something really special for my Pop's big birthday. I found this really great idea on Pinterest. 

The idea was simple. Ask 60 people to share a memory they have with my Dad. In the end he would have 60 memories for 60 years. A nice reminder of how loved and appreciated he is. 

Simple to explain, was not so simple to execute. My sisters were on board and with their help we put together a list of over 80 people. Then it was time to contact people. 

I decided that the easiest way would be the old fashion snail mail. I made up a letter explaining what we were doing. I included a piece of stationery as well as a self-addressed stamp envelope. I did my best to make it as easy as possible for people to participate. All those letters were sent out in May. Then a reminder postcard was mailed out in June with a deadline of July 15th. 

We had decided to give Pops his gift while on vacation at Bass Lake. Which meant that I had to have the book done before we left for vacation. With 2 weeks from the deadline I had only received half of the memories we needed. I lucked out because we had a family party that my parents were going to be late to so I hit up as many people as I could and gathered a ton of great memories. I also had my sisters emailing, calling and facebooking anyone else. (We had a shared google document that kept track of who returned a memory!) 

During this time I loved getting the mail everyday. I was getting memories from high school friends of my Dad, old bandmates, his co-workers, and lots of family. 

Of course on the last possible day the last memory I was waiting for got to me (Thanks Kelly!) and I was able to put the book together. I wanted this book to last so I laminated each page. It made the book big and heavy but well preserved! 

Here is what we ended up with. 

A big THANK YOU to everyone who sent us something!

We appreciate you taking the time to put down on paper a memory for our Dad. 

Yes it was a lot of work. 

Yes it was a lot of organization. 

And yes it was totally worth it.........

Happy 60th Pops.