Surprise!!

After coming home from Georgia, I had to quickly get my brain focused on party mode. My father in-law had recently turned 70, and we were throwing him a surprise birthday! Over a month ago we had sent out the invitations and were now closely approaching the date of the party, when my grandpa passed away. Fortunately, there are two other siblings who were helping with the planning, so when I came back there was very little for me to do. We rented out my father in-law's church (which is brand new), and had much of the food catered. I had only to assemble the photo board, print out some trivia about Bob, and get him to the church on time (that of course was the tricky part)! We had called him earlier that week to ask him if he'd like to go out to dinner. Fortunately, he said he had no plans, so we were all a go for 6:30 pm. He had asked the other two siblings if they'd like to join us for dinner, but they made up excuses for not coming. Of course I didn't think we were off the hook quite yet, because Bob is notoriously early. Sure enough, he arrived at our house an hour early. My clever hubby thought he might show up early though, so he hopped in the shower as soon as he entered our house. I told Bob that the hubs was outside all day, and needed a quick shower (of course he made sure to take a long hot shower). You'd think that everything would go smoothly after that, but if any of you have a 3 year old, you know that they can never keep a secret. We had coached Kyra about not talking about the party or anything birthday wise. We even did a little role playing and pretended to be "grandpa." We asked her what she was going to say to grandpa, in which she said "nothing." Okay, we were as ready as were going to be. Wouldn't you know, as soon as he came in the door, she asked, "Grandpa, is it your birthday?" I tried to look nonchalant, and took her into the bathroom while I did my makeup as to avoid any other mishaps. Kyra, however was not happy that she couldn't be in the living room with Grandpa, and said she wouldn't mess up again. I decided not to chance it.

So, we all were ready to go, and hopped in the car when we told Bob, Kyra wanted to take him somewhere special and he and his wife had to be blindfolded. I wasn't sure if he would go for this, but with the coaxing of his wife (who was not going to keep the blindfold on), he agreed. My hubby took lots of wrong turns as to confuse him to where we were going. We had just about baffled him by the time we arrived at the church, when Kyra blurted: "Grandpa, this is your church!" Ahh, yes....the secret was foiled again. The best we could do was continue to play along. The hubs guided him in, took off the blindfold, and everyone yelled "surprise"!

It was a great party with the room full of people that were dear to him (close to 50). And oh, so much food. We had to give so many "doggy bags," just to get the food to a manageable level. I guess, better too much, than too little though. All in all, he may have not been completely surprised, but I think he was overwhelmed with how many people had come. It was a good time had by all. I'm sure he would agree.