Surprise!

My entire month of November and December were focused on a SURPRISE 40th Anniversary party for my wonderful parents. (In fact, I feel like I missed out on enjoying the holiday season, but in the end it was all worth it!) When I initially mentioned the idea of a party to my brother, I wasn't envisioning such a task. I thought we would throw something simple together. Then the more we started planning and thinking, it turned into a bigger event. There are so many important people in my parents life, and we didn't want to leave anybody out, so we ended up reserving my church to hold all the people. Plus, I wanted to put together a digital scrapbook of all their years together and create a DVD for everyone to watch.

It was so hard to keep it a secret from my parents! They were staying at my house the whole week before the big party. We told so many lies and ditched them so many times during the week, I'm surprised they were even still around for the party! One night everyone went to the movie, but we told them we didn't want to find a baby-sitter. We told them we were having some friends over to hang-out. (Really, we were working frantically on a DVD while they were away). We did the same thing a couple of nights later. We told them we were going to play games with TJ and Rachel, when really we were finishing up the DVD. (Actually, I can't even say WE--more like TJ and Rachel...Talk about awesome friends! They worked all night long and all the next day and the end product was amazing! Thank you guys!)

To top it all of...Chad and I got my parents ski tickets for Christmas. We thought this would be the perfect way to get them out of the house and out of the way for an entire day.....We told them they should go on their anniversary (which was Saturday). As the week went by they kept hesitating about going skiing on Saturday. Finally, Friday night they were like, "It's too cold to go skiing. I think we'll come back to Utah another time and use these passes." YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. This was my only way to get them out of my house for the entire day so I could get the shopping done, haul the Christmas trees out of my house, and pull of an anniversary party. Luckily Kye intervened and took them for most of the day.

I must say...the party was an absolute success. But it was only a success because of all the helping hands that went into it. I have the most amazing aunts who were part of my party planning scheme from the beginning--they had fabulous ideas for food and helped me organize, delegate and decorate. My amazing friends (I love you girls to death) were there helping me cut up fruit and prepare all the food for the party. (Plus, they had to listen to me every morning on the way to the gym talk about the party preparation). Super rad cousins (thanks Jill) who came early and helped set up and then took my camera from me and made sure there were lots of pictures to remember the evening by. Uncles and other family members were there till the end cleaning up the mess and helping us get out of there! And of course Kye and Kelly--they put together the best song in the world and Kelly accompanied us on the yukelalee (however you spell that darn instrument)! They were the ones who found all the last-minute items we needed and made the party run smooth. And, I must say....it never would've come together had it not been for Chad. He is the best husband and does things without being asked. (Plus, he puts up with me!)

We had over 100 people come to surprise my parents...and boy was it a surprise! They had no idea and truly were shocked! It was so fun to see so many family and friends from all over the state (and out of state) come to support my parents on this special day.

I love you Mom and Dad!