The Real Surprise Party

Yesterday we finally pulled off Kelly's REAL surpise party for his 40th birthday. The party with the Young Men this past Wednesday was a "decoy" so he wouldn't suspect I was up to something else. I invited my extended family (Kelly's is sprinkled all over the U.S. and Okinowa) and various friends from our ward; the party was in our backyard. We had a great turnout and Kelly was really surprised! I played up the "old man" theme--one of his cakes had a rocking chair and cane on it, and said "Happy Birthday, Old Timer." On the bottom of his invitations I put "Come comfort the old guy and eat some of his cake." I made a poster of photos from him growing up through his mission, had a guessing game on how well people know him, and had slips of paper for people to write suggestions for his Bucket List. Prizes were Tums and Phillip's Milk of Magnesia. I was going to get Preparation H but decided the milk of magnesia was crude enough.

Brittany was my decoy--she pretended she needed a Dad talk and drive. I got a little worried because when she asked him he was settled into the recliner for some R&R and didn't want to go anywhere, but I needn't have worried--she threw a fake "fit" and then I chimed in with, "If your daughter needs to go for a drive and needs to talk, just take her." This was one case where her ability to blow the roof off the house with her lungs came in handy!

It was tricky getting this to actually happen; originally I wanted it for Wednesday but it wouldn't work because of Young Men's. Orchestrating for yesterday was tricky, too, with the whole Homecoming thing going on--Shane had my van the whole time. Thank goodness for my sister in law Tami who picked up the Costco cake (that is one great deal, btw) and for my mother taking me to Wal-Mart later to pick up the Old Timer cake and the other stuff. I left the paper products at my mother's house so she left the party to get them and my sis Katrina set all that up and made sure there was an ice cream scoop with the ice cream. :) My brain seems to only focus on one thing at a time!

People who came:

My sis Katrina, Nils and kids
My mother
My SIL Tonya and 5 of her kids--Stockton, Hope, Haylee, Harmony and Oakley
My bro Greg, his finance Amy and my soon to be nephew, John
Tony, Cara & Kaylee Kretschmer
Eric & Tamara Ardmore & kids
Tom & Donna Smith
Leonard & Delsa Laxton
Ricky & Nancy Ferrin
Tom & Doris Duffany
Eli & Barbie Clemens & kids
Greg & Miriam Peterson

My brothers Kevin and Fred, Kevin's son KJ (they both belong to Tonya), and Fred's wife Tami and kids Freddie and Nathan came late because they had standards night. They arrived as everyone else was leaving (Tonya had already left with the rest of their kids), and there was just enough cake and ice cream left. I had one lone piece of cake left after that and so Kelly got another piece. :)

Kelly's favorite Bucket List suggestion was from Delsa--cruise to Alaska, ride a camel and something else I can't remember. Brittany's suggeston was that he bungee jump off of a plane, then cut the cord and parachute the rest of the way! She almost won for best one, but he really wants to go to Alaska (with me, of course). There were some fun ones!