A Big Surprise 

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Pat turns 40 this year. I’ve been thinking all year that I needed to do something big. I even thought about planning a big party with two other friends whose husbands also turn 40 this year, but that never happened. Well, last Sunday I realized that his birthday was going to be while we were on vacation and we were leaving soon, so if I was going to do something, it was going to be last weekend. Then Pat asked me at dinner if I was going to pull off the coffin cake and black balloons while we were on vacation. He then started talking about the party they threw for his dad’s 40th when he was 8, so I knew I had to do something.

I spent all of last week working on this party. With the boys being so little, I couldn’t pull off more than one store a day without someone (realistically Josy...) losing it. I spent each day cleaning one little part of the house, since I couldn’t just attack it all at once. An extra bonus is that all the little piles of clutter are now dealt with... Anyway, on Friday Gabe spent the day with one of his friends, freeing up Bella and I to focus on picking up the cake, balloons and last minute groceries.

All summer long, Pat has been working 10s at work, rather than 8s. Since I’m not working, he figures that he should take every overtime opportunity he has. This means that he’s usually off at 5:30. This is perfect for planning a surprise party. However, Wednesday he mentioned that he might go back to 8s. Um, that does not work. Then at noon on Friday he texted me to say that he was getting off at 3:30 instead. That was definitely not going to work. So I suggested that he take Bella swimming for some daddy-daughter bonding. The swim started at 4, which was perfect. I packed his swim stuff and Bella met him on the porch so they wouldn’t be late, and also so he wouldn’t come in the house and see my large pile of groceries. Perfect!

I got the house decorated (with Gabe’s help with balloons when he came home) and the food put together just as our friends started showing up. The timing worked out perfectly and Pat was completely shocked when he walked in. We also managed to completely confuse Gabe who yelled surprise, but then kept asking what the surprise was.

We had a great evening of friends, fun and food. Yes, it was chaos (7 adults and 13 kids ranging in age from Bella to Josy), but the kids mostly stayed in the back room playing and we adults actually got to have rational conversations. It was great!

It was a great way to celebrate my dear husband.



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