Surprise in the making...

I guess I should start out by saying...as soon as we decided to have a surprise party, I became stressed. Haha. I wanted it to be perfect! (Why? I don't know. The humor lies in imperfection.)

So here it goes:

Zach and I nailed down the date we wanted to have this shin-dig...April 24th at 6pm. Good.

I get on the computer to piddle around, and what do I see on Mom's facebook??? She has planned a scrap-booking open house for the SAME DAY! Ugh. Now what? I called Zach immediately and told him to call and invite Mom and Dad to dinner for their Anniversary. (And to tell them it was the ONLY day they could really do it.) Haha. Problem solved....or so I thought.

Mom calls me: "I thought you guys were all doing something together?" What are you talking about Mom? "For our Anniversary. I thought you kids were all doing something together. Zach just called and he and Les are taking us out to dinner on the 24th." Oh. Well, I don't know. I'll call him. Don't worry about it.

Haha.

A couple of days go by and we had begun inviting people. This was an especially difficult task with many hurdles to clear. Three of the biggest hurdles: 1. Dad is the church superintendent. (He reads all announcements and is supposed to know everything going on involving the church.) 2. Mom writes the church newsletter. (She tells Dad what announcements to read and knows everything going on that involves the church.) 3. They both work for the USPS. (Sort mail and wonder what the invitations are for and why didn't they get one?)

We resorted to word of mouth. This meant multiple phone calls trying to make sure everyone got an invite. (And making sure the children in the congregation didn't find out and spill the beans.)

Mom calls: "Will you come home and help me clean for the open house?" Uh. Uh. Sure. (Please don't ask for me to stay, I have too much to do!) "And will you stay and help me write up orders and stuff?" Uh. Sure. (Crap.)

Don't get me wrong. I love scrap-booking events! I just had so much to do!

So I called some dear friends and recruited them to help us out. Priscilla (who plays the piano at church,) Mary White (Mom's best friend,) and Keri (one of my dear friends.) Priscilla helped me figure out who all needed to be called and what we might bring. She provided a very beautiful bouquet out of her garden, punch to go with the cake and a poem for Mom and Dad that she had written. Mary helped by hiding stuff at her house for me to pick up, distracting my Mom (haha) and telling me to calm down. She also got Mom and Dad a picture frame with a sign-able matte and a cute little plate that says "Alvey Est. 1980" over a large A. It is precious. I used them both as decoration for the cake table. Keri picked up the cake for me since I was still at the scrap-booking party when the cake shop closed. She and her husband also let me hide my car at their house and she did some last-minute errand running for me. Thank You ladies! (and Adam)

The afternoon of the party I told Zach and Les that they had the least stressful part. They just had to pick up Mom and Dad and bring them to the restaurant. Me, I got to sit, with everything ready, in an empty restaurant for 40 minutes...wondering if anyone was going to show up! Talk about nerve racking.

Of course everything turned out fine and it was a terrific surprise. We had 53 people in attendance and everyone enjoyed a great dinner and good fellowship. It was a really wonderful celebration of two very special people. Right now those two are on a mini-vacation for the weekend to celebrate their 30th Anniversary. (It's about time they did something special!!!)

I love you Mom and Dad. Thank you for being the wonderful parents you are. They just don't come any better!