SURPRISE!!!

47 people yelled, "SURPRISE!!!" All of my hard work finally paid off.

For 3 weeks I've been planning this surprise 30th birthday party for Terry. He said he had "zero idea" that it was coming. YES!

I really wanted to do something special for this big day but usually my creativity is lacking. I blame my genes. My sister the artist got all of my mom's creative genes (sewing, basket weaving, etc.) and left me with left brain tendencies like my dad. Yeah. But, I had a stroke of genius for this. My original idea was to do something during the first youth group, which is tonight and his actual birthday, September 3rd. But I thought it would be a lot more fun if just friends were there. I had been wanting to blog about how Terry always loses his glasses and I just thought I could combine the blog with a birthday theme - include the blog in his invitation and ask everyone to give him sunglasses. It worked!

There were a few times I wondered if he'd figured it out. For example, one unexplained phone call: I had called a friend to ask her if she knew if a lot of people were going to be out of town for labor day weekend so I could figure out if I could do it then. I originally wanted to do it on last weekend b/c Terry's parents and sister were here. So I left her a message explaining it all (mistake #1) and asking her to call me back (mistake #2). She called back during dinner and Terry answered the phone (!). He handed it to me and after some small talk she asked me what I called about b/c she didn't understand my message. I got up from my chair and walked to the hallway and whispered "I can't talk about it now," hung up and sat down again. Terry just looked at me funny and I didn't say anything. That call haunted me but he forgot all about it.

Then there was the question of where the zip drive was so I could download the invitation I had made on Word for the printer. He didn't figure that out either.

Another? The excuse to go to the store (which I really did need to do) but I also had to go to the post office, printers, and post office again to mail the invites. No idea. ... All the excessive cleaning I was doing - vacuuming, washing windows, dusting walls and ceilings, washing/staining/wet sealing the dirty picnic table, cleaning out porch, etc.

So, yesterday. Terry's parents leave. More vacuuming, sweeping, bathrooms, make cake and puppy chow, get pop and supplies, dinner, oh yeah and take care of kids (!), hang Christmas lights on porch, wash down picnic table, get decorations ready, wash dishes. Gasp.

During dinner Terry told Noah over and over that he would take him on a walk and to the slide after he helped Bruce move a freezer into the house they're renovating (Bruce Clark took the place of Terry's uncle Herb as the diversion). I just said, "Sure, a walk sounds nice" and thought HA, it's working! Bruce picked him up at 645 and was to be back at 730. Noah missed daddy terribly while he was gone (while I was nursing he came over and said "Goodbye," walked to the garage door, opened it and would have left if I hadn't stopped him!). I had Noah help me with the decorations while Evie cried so hard I was surprised she didn't throw up. It was 710 and nobody was here. I just wanted some help w/Evie and I had these scary thoughts that no one would show up. But they started filing in after that. I closed the garage door and put the pup out there to keep him from being stepped on w/30+ people in there.

Terry's lifting friend Kevin was scouting and announced he was coming. Unfortunately Snap was barking and yipping like crazy which I thought this was bound to be suspectful for Terry. It was though he didn't think of a party, just that it was weird. He also wondered why the garage door was shut. I shut it so I could guarantee which door to expect him from. He ended up coming in the side door to the garage b/c he wanted to show Bruce his new motorbike (another blog on that topic later). Terry was just going to stick his head in the house to see if we were still here (thought we went on that walk) when we yelled "SURPRISE." And what did he do? Shut the door. Silly guy.

Terry's favorite cake with a little inspiration - angel food, cream cheese frosting, mini chocolate chips and sprinkles. And yes, those are his most recent pair of broken sunglasses.

This is what the porch looked like this morning - the lights are above the banner. It looked very nice at night.

The "new" picnic table. I used the same stain as what I put on our dining room table and chairs.

The dark haired girl is McKenzi - the one that watches Noah and Evie while I'm at youth group. Noah LOVES her!

The senior pastor Rick is on the right in the dark polo with his arms folded.

The haul: 24 pairs. 4 pairs of girl ones, 2 for Noah, reading glasses, cataract glasses, big glasses, cool glasses, every kind!