The morning of our fiftieth wedding anniversary a week ago, I posted a blog entry called Fiftieth. We had planned to celebrate this anniversary in a big way, with a fancy restaurant meal, and perhaps a European trip. With these plans quashed by the COVID-19 pandemic, I was not in a good mood. A reader referred to my blog posting as rather "dark".

But despite the limits placed on us by the pandemic, my mood was lifted as the actual day of the anniversary progressed. In the end, it turned out to be a good day after all. It seems you can have a touching anniversary celebration in Somerville, Massachusetts, as well as in France or Italy.

Our younger daughter Sara and her husband Sam invited us to visit them that morning (maintaining "social distancing" as usual), to partake of some secret treat, not to be revealed before our visit. We met on the lawn outside of Sara and Sam's condo.

We were greeting by our granddaughter Darwin, who offered us a plate of specially-baked 50th anniversary gingerbread cookies, as you can see to the left.

The special treat turned out to be Margie's favorite, crème brulée, prepared by Sara and Sam:

With a firm sugar crust that you cracked with your spoon, and topped with fresh raspberries, it was delicious. As you can see below, they prepared separate servings for each socially-distant group in attendance: Sara, Sam, and Simon; Elissa, Ryan, and Darwin; and Margie and me. Below, see Sam beginning to serve our treat. Sara has gotten quite adept at timing events such as this to take place between Simon's feedings and naps. On July 1, three days after this event, Simon turned three months old.

Here are Elissa, Ryan, and Darwin on their blanket:

I was already in a much better mood than the previous day, when I had written my original Fiftieth blog entry. But it turned out that the pièce de résistance was yet to come - note the ribbon-wrapped box in the picture above, on the seat to the right of Ryan. We were presented with an anniversary gift from our daughters and their families that had been over a month in the making. This book:

It turned out that email messages had gone out to our family and friends asking them to contribute memories and photos towards this project, and an amazing 79 people had responded (I counted couples as two). That counts a page by Simon, although at 3 months, he must have needed considerable help from Sara and Sam. So many photos were sent in that Elissa and Sara needed to select which ones to put in the book. It's crammed with great memories, and lots of congratulations, good wishes, and love. We were given a thumb drive containing full-size versions of all the images, so we can even see the pictures that didn't make it into the book

And nobody let us in on the secret in advance! 79 people managed to not let a word about this project slip out. That included Simon, but he can't talk yet, so it was easy for him. We were completely surprised by this incredible gift!

Below you can see Margie and me browsing through the book just after opening it:

When I wrote my original Fiftieth blog entry in the days before our anniversary, I was feeling depressed about having to celebrate our anniversary in pandemic isolation. Reading through this book after driving home (through a pounding rainstorm), Margie and I felt rich in the love of family and friends.

We want to thank everyone who put in the effort to contribute to this incredible project. And our thanks especially to Elissa and Sara, and Ryan and Sam, who put so much work into curating the book while they had a lot of other things going on.

Since I opened this blog entry with a picture of Darwin, I'll let Simon close it, by reproducing an image taken from his page in the book:

In the end, we had a great anniversary celebration, even in the midst of a worldwide pandemic.