I love having friends.
I love celebrating birthdays with friends.
I love surprising friends.
I especially like getting back at friends that surprised me the year before.
So, my amazing, sweet, fun, kind, and good-humored friend, Brenda, had it coming to her!! The poor thing ended up with 3 celebrations just so we could cover our tracks.
The plan: Anticipate that she is going to suspect a surprise if we don't plan something. Tell her that her crazy baseball schedule makes it impossible to plan a surprise. (this is true, but we still used it as an excuse).
The party she knew about: All we did was give her the date and time. She did not know guest list, address or details. (This didn't last long because we discovered that her mom, Karen, is too honest and talkative, especially when nervous about keeping a secret :-D). See pictures and details below.
The "surprise" plan and party: Karen invited Brenda over for a family dinner to celebrate her birthday - the Monday before her birthday. If Brenda suspected anything (which she did -- see above comment about Karen), we hopefully threw her off track because instead of jumping out from behind furniture, we all showed up after she was there.
The fact that this actually worked was a small miracle due to....baseball makeup games. Thankfully, a huge rain storm came and knocked out the power for awhile. The Robbins, Shellenbergers, Dicks, Henrys, Magees, Huberts, Bradleys and Szymczaks provided the perfect amount of electricity for an evening to remember.
Here some of us are outside of Karen's house. Don't we look sneaky?
This photo was snapped with my phone camera with no electricity. Those are some seriously BRIGHT candles....must be because there is 40 of them!
The other party: Like I said before, all we told Brenda was the date and time. A couple of us slipped and let her know it was at Teresa's. But besides that, she was surprised what we had planned.
Teresa and I decorated in black, of course. The bouquet of flowers on table was a fun idea I had to remind Brenda of all of our great memories together. Written on the leaves were 40 different memories of times we have shared and things we have done together. I had a blast reminiscing and I think she got a chuckle or two out of some things she had forgotten!
Teresa always makes present time a laughing occasion.
Brenda wasn't the only one laughing as she opened her presents.
After a wonderful Mexican Fiesta, we ate cupcakes.....
...and played Bunco.
We had 4 tables of 4 ladies each --- talk about a lot of laughter and talking! Dee definitely out-bunco'd the rest of us.
Karen must have been changing the rules....something she likes to do in the middle of a card game.
The "unplanned birthday event": Brenda's birthday fell on a Friday and the original plan was to be out of town for a baseball game....but, like the baseball plans previously, they CHANGED!! All of a sudden she was in town on Friday night and had no plans, so Pete and Brenda and Phil and I took advantage of a Friday night double date to Botechellis.
It has been a busy season of birthdays. Another great friend of mine, Erin, gave several of us an excuse to have a birthday breakfast at Eggintons. And yes, Erin even ate her cake at 7:00 a.m.
And another surprise.....for the youngest birthday of them all - Kayla Horne. Her birthday fell on Wednesday which is the day we usually walk from 5:45 - 6:30 a.m.. While we were walking, her husband, family and friends snuck in and got breakfast ready. The only bummer was that Teresa, who planned the whole thing, woke up sick and couldn't be here for the surprise.
I made an excuse to get Kayla to come inside after our walk. Out jumped some familiar faces. She was definitely surprised!
Another 40th birthday surprise in June -- our friend Deb Magee. Teresa planned the party and even though Deb tried tracking down her husband to report a bicycle/vehicle collision, it was still a surprise!! Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me so this picture is from Brenda's party.
Happy Birthday EVERYONE! What a fun couple months of celebrating we have had.
Teresa always makes present time a laughing occasion.
Brenda wasn't the only one laughing as she opened her presents.After a wonderful Mexican Fiesta, we ate cupcakes........and played Bunco.We had 4 tables of 4 ladies each --- talk about a lot of laughter and talking! Dee definitely out-bunco'd the rest of us.
Karen must have been changing the rules....something she likes to do in the middle of a card game.
The "unplanned birthday event": Brenda's birthday fell on a Friday and the original plan was to be out of town for a baseball game....but, like the baseball plans previously, they CHANGED!! All of a sudden she was in town on Friday night and had no plans, so Pete and Brenda and Phil and I took advantage of a Friday night double date to Botechellis.
Happy Birthday x 3 Brenda!!!
It has been a busy season of birthdays. Another great friend of mine, Erin, gave several of us an excuse to have a birthday breakfast at Eggintons. And yes, Erin even ate her cake at 7:00 a.m.
And another surprise.....for the youngest birthday of them all - Kayla Horne. Her birthday fell on Wednesday which is the day we usually walk from 5:45 - 6:30 a.m.. While we were walking, her husband, family and friends snuck in and got breakfast ready. The only bummer was that Teresa, who planned the whole thing, woke up sick and couldn't be here for the surprise.
I made an excuse to get Kayla to come inside after our walk. Out jumped some familiar faces. She was definitely surprised!
Another 40th birthday surprise in June -- our friend Deb Magee. Teresa planned the party and even though Deb tried tracking down her husband to report a bicycle/vehicle collision, it was still a surprise!! Unfortunately I did not have my camera with me so this picture is from Brenda's party.
Happy Birthday EVERYONE! What a fun couple months of celebrating we have had.
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