Happy 100th Birthday, Grandma Phoebe!

August 6, 2011

For the grand occasion of my Grandma Phoebe’s 100th birthday, the entire Jung family met up in Indianapolis. There was a large banquet hall rented out, and friends from all over flew in to town to pay their respects, and to help celebrate the big day.

Prior to the party starting up, we got the family together to do some group portraits. My sister had the excellent idea of getting a photographer to do a large family shot (and to also do some individual family photos). It was a little bit of a hectic morning, trying to get all this done while the place was getting set up around us.

My grandma Phoebe (on the right), posing with her sister Yee Po.

L to R it’s Ellen, Dan and David, trying to set up the projector. Jenny had gotten everything working earlier in the morning, but for some reason things got buggy about an hour before the doors were to open.

L to R it’s Jahnu and Andrew, playing video games.

A view of the large room. A few folks are posing with my grandma.

Mia, along with her friend “Uni.”

Cousins Allison and David. They were both pretty camera shy, but were nice enough to put up with my obnoxious attempts to photograph them. One of my favorite moments was when they were getting their photos taken with Grandma, and I yelled out to David: Get a haircut, hippie!

Me and Liz, with Grandma Phoebe.

My sister with Jasmine, and on the right my cousin Jenny with Mia. And to the far left, that would be my wife… photobombing the image.

Grandma Phoebe with my cousin Andrew.

As folks trickled in, there were large tables set up nearby. Some folks brought gifts, a lot brought cards. There were also several photo albums set up, which I didn’t get a chance to look through. In hindsight, I would have loved to have spent a little more time just flipping through old images of the family (but got swept up in the event itself).

Folks, starting to show up and began filling up all the tables. In the background, you can see a still from the slideshow my cousin Jenny created.

Jenny did an awesome job and created an absolutely fantastic addition to the event. She incorporated a TON of old family photographs, and the time it must have taken her is just staggering. It’s a great mixture of present day family, of all the cousins when we were kids… and of all the uncles and aunts, when they were just married. It spans over multiple generations, and some of the early photos just take my breath away.

L to R it’s Haley, Courtney, my Auntie Dawn, Ellen and David… all rapt and watching the images from the slideshow.

Andrew, taking Mia for a dip…

Somewhere along the way, the kids figured out they could do shadow puppets with the projector.

Jasmine and Mia, posing with my grandma before blowing out the birthday candles. Uni showed up to help, too.

Lots of folks were taking pictures, the whole time.

Another table with some cards and gifts.

A shot of the banquet room – this place was really pretty huge.

Andrew, also figuring out that you can play with the projector…

After the big party was over, everyone took a break for a few hours and met back at the hotel for dinner. We had a small room to ourselves, and got a slightly more intimate meal with a smaller group of family and friends.

My grandma Phoebe, looking so much younger her 100 years.

Stacey and Jenny, sharing a laugh.

As we were getting our food, I saw Mia with her plate. I got her to make a few faces by pressing her nose up against the glass.

The Jung family – L to R it’s Becky, Vicky, Corky and my dad… posing with Grandma and her sister.

Grandma Phoebe with her sister, Yee Po.

My cousin Jenny found this angle/image, and I stepped in behind her to capture it as well.

Jasmine, unsure of what Jahnu and Andrew are doing.

Mia had set up a small little area on the floor, near her table. Looks like she was holding court, with ponies and cats in attendance.

I had a fun time getting down on the ground with the kids. Here’s what happened when I asked them to make some silly faces.

Nearby, I hung out with Dan for a long time and talked about a lot of different topics. We discussed guns a great deal (he owns several and knows a lot about them). We also discussed memory and Joshua Foer’s book. Fascinating stuff, and reminded me I need to track down a copy.

I hung out with David and Allison a while (again, they were kind enough to put up with my photographing them). We discussed video games – what we were playing, what we were looking forward to. Always fun geeking out with them about games.

The great-grandkids were surprisingly quiet for most of the evening. When I venture back to their corner, I figured out why – they were all watching Toy Story on an iPhone.

Liz and I with Grandma Phoebe, towards the end of the night. It was closing in on 11:30 PM, but my grandma didn’t look the least bit tired. I’m thinking she could have gone on for a few more hours, easily.