Cathie's Suprise Birthday Party

I can't believe I actually pulled it off! I (along with a ton of help from Bob and Ann Rays) put on a suprise party for Cathie to celebrate her 35th birthday. I'd wanted to do this for a long time, and got things going about 5 or 6 weeks ago. Bob and Ann let us use their beautiful house, which has a huge pool and party cabana, helped by the fact that Bob really knows how to throw a big party. Bob also looks just like the infamous Deteroit Piston, Chauncy Billups, as seen below.

Cathie and I talk about everything, so there must have been about 400 times where I almost mentioned that I'd gotten an e-mail, phone call, etc related to the party over the past month. I even waited until the day of the party to let Nate and Madeline in on the secret. Cathie and I had a date setup for her birthday to go out to P.F. Changs with a 7:45 reservation. Right before we left, Bob called me and told me about some tickets he'd scored for me. I explained to Cathie that she and I had front row seats to the Green Day concert on Tuesday as part of her birthday present, so we needed to stop by Bob's to pick them up, which happened to be right on the way. We stopped in, went to the back, and that's when everyone let loose with the big "Suprise!" Cathie had no clue what was going on. I explained to her that it was a suprise party and her response was "For who?". I reminded her that her birthday had been Thursday and explained that it was for her. Jen and Lori ran up and gave her a big hug and presented her with the first part of their gift to her. On the invite, I gave people the option of either wearing something Hawiian or a T-shirt with a picture of Cathie on it. Two of Cathie's closest friends, Jen and Lori, chose the latter.

Jen and Lori got Cathie a whole "old lady" gift set, complete with a purple hat (part of the whole purple hat society thing that many women of Cathie's old age are a part of), huge granny underwear, a nice mumu, dentures cleaners and depends, each with a little note attached to it explaining how it would help her through her old age. The hat made it's rounds throughout the evening, making it on just about everyone. The party started out with three distinct groups of people: Church people, Neighbors and Family. It didn't take long for the groups to mingle and have a great time. The party went most of the night, with us leaving around 2A.M.



You can view some of the pictures here.