The Richest Man on Earth

Turning 60 is kind of a big milestone in my life so I decided to stretch my birthday out over several weeks. For starters, I went on vacation to Kauai with my wife and stayed in a beautiful rental home. While there I played 60 holes of golf in one day with a close friend who was also turning 60. When I got back I played in a family sponsored golf tournament and enjoyed a party afterwards at my Father-in-law’s house with most of our family members. And then this weekend my wife and I hosted a party at our beach house for another small but close group of friends.

Our beach house is very small but since we are right on the sand, having a party outside is usually really fun (as long as the weather is good). We spent several days getting ready for the party, buying and installing two large rotating umbrellas on the beach, cleaning all the beach furniture, painting the front gate, planting new trees and flowers, fixing numerous problems inside and outside the house, multiple trips to Costco for the food, prepping all the food, etc. etc. It was a ton of work for both my wife and I, but we love hosting a party and we love our friends, so it was definitely a labor of love.

However, we knew the weather was going to be questionable on Saturday. But we had put in so much work we didn’t want to cancel the party, especially since most of the people had already committed to coming. The party was scheduled for 1:00-6:00pm and sure enough the clouds came in at 1:00 and the rain began at 2:00 and it pretty much rained the whole rest of the day. To top things off, the traffic on the 5 freeway on Saturday was absolutely miserable causing a headache for most of our guests.

So picture about 30 people huddled together under a tiny overhang, trying to stay dry but failing. It was cold, wet and windy and it wasn’t going to let up. At one point I looked around at this crazy group of people surrounding me and thought to myself… I am so blessed to have these people as my friends! They drove for hours in terrible traffic to stand out in the rain and eat wet food and yet they were still smiling and laughing. I guess the only thing that didn’t get ruined was their awesome attitudes and I also guess friendship must mean a lot to every single one of them. I don’t have a fancy car and I don’t have a big house and I don’t have a ton of money, but on one rainy Saturday afternoon last week…I considered myself the richest man on earth!

Just a small portion of the many people I am blessed to call my friends!

You can always tell when people are good friends because they are
having  way more fun than it makes sense for them to be having.
~ Anonymous