Aaron Turns 30

This month there was an exciting event that happened in the McDaniel household. Aaron turned 30! He really did a good job rubbing it in when I turned 30 so, of course, I felt as though I should return the favor. :)

About a month before his birthday, I decided that I wanted to throw him a surprise party. Now, those of you who know me, know I'm not very good at lying so I knew I was going to have to do my best to "lay low". I also knew that I needed to have "other plans" I could talk about with him so things didn't seem suspicious. The plan I came up with was to tell him we were going to meet my parents at Rudy's BBQ (one of his favorite places to eat) and then when we left tell him I needed to go run an errand. This would allow us to go some place while my parents drove out to our house.

Of course the first step in all of this was getting invitations sent out. My sister-in-law, Melissa, owns a Cricket and I decided to go over to her house to carve out some "30's" that I would include on his invitation. While I was there, she helped me brainstorm and create some truly awesome invitations. I was going to post some pics, but can't seem to find my copy of the invite! Once I do, I'll update and include the photo. :)

I mailed them out about a month prior to the party and put RSVP so I'd have some idea of how many might be able to attend. I also gave an invitation to someone he works with and asked that person to share the news with all of Aaron's co-workers because I was hopeful some of them might be able to attend as well.

With the invitations done, the next thing was to start thinking about the party itself. I knew that I didn't want anything fancy, I'm really not a fancy person, but did want it to be nice. Aaron loves cheesecake, and because I don't bake - especially cheesecakes, I was able to purchase some mini-cheesecake bites (and boy were they yummy!) to serve as Aaron's "birthday cake". My original thought had been to pipe letters on some of the individual servings to spell out Happy Birthday, although the day of the party, it wasn't able to happen because the bites were so small. Oh well! They were still yummy! :) I was also able to find a couple of other bite size things to serve including cheese and crackers and some tortilla wraps. For the drinks, instead of doing a punch, I decided to get some bottled water, cokes, and beer to serve. This seemed much easier for Melissa (who graciously agreed to be in charge of setting things up while we were at lunch) to have to deal with. I also went to several shops around town and bought some decorations having to do with being 30.

Now that all the planning was done, all that was left to do was wait for the weekend and have a party! In the meantime, I began getting some phone calls from people letting me know they were coming. One in particular came on evening when I was in the shower (had been cleaning most of the day). Aaron came in the bathroom and I asked who had been calling. Neither one of us recognized the number and me, being very curious, told him to listen to the voice mail they left. Yes - at this point I should have thought better of it, but at that point was not thinking about the party. It was his aunt leaving a message saying "Just wanted to let you know we're coming, there will be three of us." She didn't say what they were coming to or anything like that. Aaron, of course, asks what she is talking about. I quickly change the subject (remember - not good at lying) and we move on about our business.

About two days later I'm looking at our bank records online and I come across two charges to Wal-Mart from a few days prior. They happened on the exact same day and I couldn't remember exactly what I had bought there. I started going on and on (with Aaron listening) about what I had bought and I just couldn't imagine having gone to Wal-Mart twice and what I had bought. Suddenly it dawns on me, one of the purchases was for his birthday present (I got him a PSP game he'd be wanting along with the new Metallica Guitar Hero game). DUH! I said "oh yeah" and tried to drop it. Of course, at that point, Aaron's curiosity is peeked and he begins to inquire about what I bought. I said something to the effect that he should stop asking because he's got a birthday coming up. At this point he says, "Well, I already know about the party."

At this point I break down and spill the beans. I don't give away a lot of details, but I start going on and on about how I'm just so bad at lying, etc. He then goes on to say that he wasn't sure, but after I confirmed it, he then found out. In essence, if I had just lied at that point and played dumb, he may not have been the wiser, but me - just couldn't keep it inside I guess. I told him, though, that he had to play along because we were all working so hard to surprise him!

For several days after that he began practicing what he was going to say when he walked in so he'd be surprised. It was quite funny actually. As the day began to near I found out his mom and step-dad were going to be able to make it so I invited them to stay at our home (our first overnight guests) because I had finally gotten the house put together. My goal was to have it finished by his party so I worked really hard getting the house ready. It was agreed that his mom and step-dad would stay with us and they told him they were coming down because they had some shopping they needed to do. We had a nice visit with his family the night before (his sister and her family came over later in the evening) even though his sister and brother-in-law slaughtered us in a game of Hand and Foot (card game - lots of fun!).

The plan was to get up on Sunday morning, have breakfast with Aaron's mom and step-dad, then we'd head off to Rudy's. I had invited Jo and Ken, but Jo had not been feeling well so she decided she was going to tell Aaron that they had decided to go ahead and head back home. Right before we left for Rudy's, his mom and step-day were saying "good bye" and she went ahead and gave him his gift. He opened in and said his good byes even saying something about them not being there for the party that he knew about, but wasn't supposed to know about. This is the first his mom knew that he had some inkling, but she just played along so well. What was so funny about the entire thing (and so perfect) is that Aaron seriously thought his mom and step-dad had decided to leave!! It was just perfect. Though I was not able to surprise him with the actual party, his mom was able to throw him a curve ball!!

We ate our lunch and headed back towards the house. There were quite a few people in attendance including most of his family and a few friends. The party was short and sweet (about 2 hours), but just long enough for people to razz him a little about being 30. His sister's gift was the best of all! She bought 30 dum-dum suckers, attached them to this paper decoration (created with her cricket). She then created a sign that said "30 sucks" (agian using the cricket) and displayed it in a rolling tool bag. It was perfect. She also created him a card that was priceless.

Even though, in the end, he knew about the party, it was a success. He enjoyed himself and everyone came out to support him on his special day.

Now, hopefully he won't remember my 40th... :)