Brett's 30th Birthday

It's a full month later, but I do need to document Brett's 30th Birthday, as much as he would like to forget that he's 30.

It all began in January, when I made a terrible decision: to throw Brett a surprise birthday party.  The idea was that if I didn't throw him a party without his knowledge, the day would go by un-celebrated - because he would want to pretend it wasn't happening.

So I created a secret Facebook page, and even then I worried that it wasn't secret enough - if Brett sniffs something suspicious he will find out what's going on.  So then I tried not to talk about it after that - it was Fight Club.

Then Brett started suggesting, "Hey for my birthday weekend, we should fly into California and visit my parents.  I haven't visited Rohnert Park in a while."

Go ahead and give me an excuse to give him that would convince him this was a bad idea.  Because I had nothing.  I nodded and tried not to give myself away.  Then I sent Cindy an email that explained my predicament and I asked his parents to lie to him.  I'm a good role model.

So instead she decided to come visit for the party too!  What a fun surprise!  Except...how do you keep that a secret from Brett?  Well...you can't, because he came up to me and said he was going to look into flights for his birthday weekend into California.  So I deviated and said, "Oh, didn't I tell you?  Your Mom is coming here for Conference weekend."  He was confused but he bought it.

Then more good news came, Chad called and said they were coming into town too!  How do you keep that a secret?  You can't - so I told him they were coming for Conference Weekend too. He was happy and I had the surprise party to think about.  I knew that I would need to purchase the party supplies close to his birthday because we both like to check our bank account regularly and if "Zurcher's Party Supplies" doesn't give a girl away, I don't know what will.

Brett's birthday weekend came and everyone came into town, and we planned to go have Family birthday fun before the party too because the Surprise Party was set for the day after his birthday.  Except I made the mistake of not planning much of a "Birthday Party" because my mind was set on Saturday being the big birthday bash.  Everyone went to dinner at Pei Wei and then we went to Airborne - which is a trampoline place mainly for kids, but we thought that the kids would have a lot of fun there.  It was a lot of fun, even though Brett, Chad, Katie and I were the only adults bouncing.  We regretted it too...adult bodies don't enjoy bouncing the way young bodies do.  Also - adult bodies protest for days after.  Then after we went back to our place to have cake and celebrate some more.  Then came my second mistake - I planned on making shortcakes from scratch and didn't budget my time for baking.  I should have made them ahead of time, even if the recipe looked simple enough.  It took way too long and by the time they were ready, everyone was ready for bed.  After strawberry shortcakes were served, everyone took off to go sleep and Brett asked me, "Uh...were you going to give me any gifts?"  Yep, I'm a horrible wife.  I looked at him and said, "Well...yeah, I wasn't sure if you wanted them right now..."  Bad liar.  He looked like he had been forgotten and that people didn't seem to care that much.  Which was completely my fault. I gave him his birthday presents and he went to bed disappointed in his birthday.  What a fail!

The next day Brett decided to go shooting at Get Some with Chad, he wanted to do it first thing.  We tried to convince him to do it later because that was the plan to get him out of the house so I could set up the party - but once Brett sets his mind to something - well good luck to you.  I told him that he should call me after and I'd meet up with everyone at the hotel.  This gave me two hours to get ready and get to the party supply store.  I got ready as fast as I could and went to head out when Brett called and said that they were done in one hour instead of two.  Great...but I decided to go to Zurcher's anyway.  I called Katie to see what they were doing, just to make sure nobody would be waiting on me for anything and she said they were shopping and I had more than enough time.  Perfect!  I headed over to Jordan Landing...and Zurcher's was gone!  A big sign that said "Tilly's Coming Soon," which was bad news because that was the party supply store!  I had to come up with something else.  Had I just stopped to look around a little, I would have seen that Zurcher's had changed locations and was still at Jordan Landing, but I had to get back before Brett started getting suspicious.  I text Katie that the party supply store was closed and I didn't know what to do!  I met up with the girls and tried to think.  I had a distinct party idea of guns and western themes but unless we went to Midvale to the other Zurcher's that wasn't going to happen.

We decided to head to the closest Hobby Lobby and go with a new theme.  In the mean time Brett decided he wanted to go to City Creek Mall so we lied and told him we were still shopping and that we'd meet them up there. We ran into Hobby Lobby and I grabbed Boise colors and football stuff.  Thankfully it went faster that expected and we headed to City Creek.

We got up to City Creek right as the first session of Conference was getting out.  We somehow found a fantastic parking spot, but the guys were told that all parking was taken and they'd have to park at the Gateway and ride Trax up.  We fought through the crowds of conference go-ers that were taking a lunch break too and saved a table while we waited for the guys, who walked the entire way!  When they found us, they were exhausted and starving!  And the lines were 50+ people deep in the food court!  So we found the shortest line, which was Mikonos Greek Food, and Brett thought he hated greek food (he liked it though).  Nothing was going as planned!!

We walked around City Creek and there were so many people!!  Never go to City Creek during Conference Weekend!  Finally after a few hours we decided to head back in separate cars.  Our car tried to decide how I was going to get everything set up.  So we came up with the plan that I was feeling sick and I was going to go home and lay down for a while but we'd all meet up later.  I sent Brett a text and he seemed to buy it.  So I RAN once we got back and headed to the grocery store for the party snacks, I walked out and realized all the party supplies were still at the hotel, in the trunk, so I headed back to the hotel.  Luckily Katie said that the guys took a detour at Gateway and did more shopping, they were headed back but they had just left Salt Lake.  I got to the hotel, moved the party supplies while Katie said was on the phone with Chad.  She told me I had to leave because they just got off the exit.  I took the back way home and once I got there I started blowing up balloons as fast as I could.  I blew up probably 20 overall.

I started on the garlands when Brett called - I was lightheaded and out of breath which I thought would give me away but Brett didn't suspect anything.  He was sweet and asked if he needed to bring me anything.  And while I kept setting up, kept sending check-up texts to me.  I got the place ready in much less time than I thought it would take!  I got to sit for about 5 minutes to regain equilibrium!  I started getting the snack food ready and at 6:55 I started worrying if people were going to show up... at 7:00 exactly, Brett's friends Nick and Josh showed up thankfully!  Then soon after, Shane, Riley and Sawyer came too.  I was relieved.

While I was setting up, everyone else had gone to Chuck-E-Cheese, where Brett was a birthday boy and got sung to and everything.  Katie let me know at 7:15 that they were headed our way.  We all congregated in the man cave so when he walked in he would get rushed.  When the front door opened we heard Brett say, "What the..." and when a tall muscular man with a shaved head came in first they rushed him, and realized it was Chad.  But Brett was still shocked all the same.  He wasn't very pleased with me, he honestly thought I was sick.  Oh well.  I set up the table in boise state stuff - the picture is kind of blurry:

When Brett realized that the football pinata was actually full of candy and not just decoration he decided it was time to destroy it.  Except a huge wind storm had picked up outside and there was no way we were going out there.  And it would rip the chandelier out of the ceiling if he hit it where it was.

So what does a man do in this situation?

He punches it:

Even though it looks like a small amount of candy came out - it actually went everywhere.  We're still finding pieces under the furniture.

After the punching of the pinata, Brett and the rest of the men folk congregated in the man cave to watch the internet TV which had been an early birthday present and that's where they stayed once they found ESPN.  The rest of the girls chatted out on the couch and eventually the party was over.  I think Brett forgave me, eventually, but I honestly got him - he didn't suspect a thing.  And I promised to never throw him another surprise party.

Overall I think he had a pretty good birthday...despite the lies and confusion.