Happy Birthday, Mum! Are you ready for your surprise?

It was my Mum's 60th birthday back in July, and we finally got together on the weekend to celebrate. There are so many of us (9 children) and we're all so busy that we couldn't get together sooner than that.

It's always nice just to get together with family...

and see my Mum and Dad again...

and my youngest nephew who is seven weeks old....

but we wanted to do something extra special for her. So we told her to bring along these comfortable shoes because...

SURPRISE MUM... you're going to be climbing this.

One of Brisbane's landmarks, the Story Bridge. It was Veronika's idea and you've always been a bit of a daredevil, Mum.

You were pretty excited but you should have seen your face when we told you that you were going to be sharing the experience with Dad. Ecstatic! (And you thought you would have to do it all by yourself with a bunch of strangers.)

It's time to go....a short walk up to the headquarters.

Mary and I made sure we got some footage.

You yelled down that it was "awesome"!

Dad was getting all smoochy. The other climbers will either think it was cute or go home and complain that they had to climb with "a gross old couple who acted like they were teenagers again". I think it was cute.

This is the view down the river from the footpath on the bridge.

While you were climbing, the cousins just played...and played. Wait, is that the sound of "Greensleeves" I hear? Yay, an icecream van. I haven't seen one in ages.

A choc top and a sprinkle icecream please. Yum!

A big storm was coming and they weren't letting any more climbers go up by the time that you came back, so that was lucky that you got your turn. We couldn't stay for a BBQ at the park so we all went back to Bec and Mike's place where we shared sausages, salad, wine and conversation. Perfect! So you had a balloon ride at 50, a bridge climb at 60, what's next for 70?

I hope that you had a great day. I love you, Mum!