Steph turns the big 3-0 Tuesday. I was relieved to see on Queer Eye that the 30's are the new 20's. Whew!
Anyway, I decided about a month or so ago that she was getting a surprise birthday party. The plan was that I'd take her out to dinner and we'd come home to her finding all kinds of peeps at our house.
As it turned out, Steph decided she wanted Thai food in Cleveland Heights, which is about 45 minutes from us. I had only budgeted about 30 minutes of a drive each way, so that wasn't good. Nicole would show up around 6:30 while guests would show around 7. I smoothly got us out of the house around 5:30, because I complained I didn't want to wait for a table by going later. Good thing we got there when we did.
Then 7 rolls around, and I realize we're not getting out as fast as I expected. I go to the crapper, acting all uncomfortable from eating a lot (the farting was, however, for real), and ducked out to the "restroom" to call Nicole. I briefed her and we left about 20 minutes later.
We pulled into the driveway at around 8:10. Steph went to the curb to get the mail and I went inside. She noticed the curtains were pulled totally shut, which is not how they were when we left (because Cosmo was sitting in the window at the time). This tipped her off. When she got in, she noticed the kitchen table stuff was all on the floor, so she just stopped in the downstairs room. Nicole walked out of the darkness and said something like, "Surprise, or whatever," and everyone else got up, laughed, and that was that!
I feel a little guilty because, while I initiated the whole thing, it was Nicole that did most of the work contacting people and such. Only three of the people I invited showed up (though we expect that Freeze only shows to 50% of the parties he's invited to). Nicole coordinated food and the invite of her school friends, and keyed into the house while we were out. She gets "mad props" for kicking ass (and looking cute, as usual).
It wasn't the crazy blow out I envisioned, but I think it was just about right for my darling little introvert. She gets easily overloaded on people.
Happy birthday, baby! I love you!
Happy b-day!
I planned a surprise party for my wife once. It was brilliant, I must say. I bought two gift certificates for facials and gave them to her best friend. That friend often got such perks from her job, so I had the friend call my wife the night before and invite her for a "free" facial. In that 2 hours, I got 25 people jammed into my house, cooked a lasagna, picked up the cake, made sure everyone was parked around the block, etc. She never suspected a single thing. w00t.