Summer ‘09 in Photos 3/87 “Surprise”

I have had a secret brewing for the past week, better yet, the kids new the secret and kept it a secret for the past week also. We did it!
Here is little history about the secret.
In one of our Wednesday nights small group Bible study, a question came up I think I remember it being asked like this. “What do you remember most about childhood Birthdays?” Brenda, answered that she remembers inviting friends from school and no one ever showed up to the parties. I have to also mention that the small group consists of several younger families. We have the kiddos in common are around the same age and get along well with each other.
as Brenda’s Birthday is coming up on June 13th, the leader of the group, Jason, started an email campaign to initiate a surprise Birthday party for her. We initially set up for today and it was going to be here at our house right after church. After a day of trying to figure out how I was going to keep it a surprise and have it here, Harry and Karen so generously opened up their household for the party. Jason took charge and gave each family something to bring, making it easy for my to keep it on the low down.
On the way home from Church, I made up a bogus story about needing to go to Harry and Karen’s house to check out his new back up generator he installed. She bought it, but it was a challenge. Usually, right after Church we are both pretty hungry, and are whipping up something to eat for lunch. She mentioned that we should eat before we go, but I insisted that if we just had something to hold us over, it would give us a reason to have to leave. She bought that, also. As we pulled up to their house, she says what the heck? Why are all of these cars here? I stated, maybe they have some family over. She was completely surprised. We succeeded to surprise my beautiful wife for her Birthday.
I don’t think everyone in the small group reads my blog, but they should….Anyways, I will use this platform to thank everyone that came.

• Jason & Angie – Thanks for heading this up and bringing the hot dogs and burgers.
• Aaron & Crystal – Crystal, thanks for baking the great cake and cupcakes, and Aaron, thanks for decorating them. They were delicious!
• Paul & JoAnna – Thanks for bringing the ice cream, chips and coordinating the card and gift card.
• Harry & Karen – Thanks so much for opening your home for the party, Harry for cooking the hots and burgers, Karen for making the macaroni salad, (it was good)
• All the kids for getting along for the day. 11 kids and no major problems.
• Dave and Annemarie – we missed you. Sorry you could not make it.

So here is picture 3 of 87:

For those of you paying attention, I know in my last post I revoked swimming privileges for the girls, the revocation was from the pool we belong to. Another challenging in parenting……sigh.