[shhhh its a surprise]

I decided a few months ago that I wanted to try and pull off a BIG surprise 30th birthday party for Mike and I can happily say I pulled it off today!  It was ultra challenging trying to keep it under wraps from Mike and there were so many times I wanted to just tell him what was going on so he could help me!  Haha but thanks to lots of family help and a few new gray hairs I did it :).

The invite took a few weeks because every time I worked on it Mike (unbeknown to him) was making this really difficult for me!  After the first couple days of working on it he decided to buy a new desktop computer and in the process of changing everything over I couldn't locate the old scanned pics and had to smoothly have him help me find them.  Then a few days later I was working on it again and Mike randomly logged onto my computer from his work (its nice when I need help but NOT when I am working on a surprise!) and so I quickly closed all tabs and thought for sure he had caught me!  Finally after finding and choosing the pics I realized we only had Photoshop installed on the desktop so every day I worked on it I would have to email it to myself, then delete all the history and the the next day reopen and save it and start again.  Then I repeated that process for a week or so until I finally could figure out Photoshop enough to create the invites.  Not to bad for my first attempt at Photoshop without Mike's help!

The invite:

To try and cover my tracks a bit I convinced Mike that I was helping my sister throw a cast party and so if he ran across anything he would hopefully not think much of it.  I convinced my Mom to come into town this week so I could finish up all the details (thanks again mom!  I literally couldn't have done it without you!) and we were able to get everything put together.  We headed to the venue first thing this morning to set everything up and get things ready!

Our little helper Emmie

It turned out even cuter than I had hoped for!

I tried to incorporate lots of small details that were Mike's favorites and makes things fun for everyone who came and knows Mike's favorites things.  So naturally I made a Hostess Ding Dong tower ;)

I had been working with a cake decorator for over a month designing Mikes cake and I was a little anxious because the closer we got to the party she stopped responding all together to me.  Long story short the designer canceled on me last Sunday night (GRRRRR) but thanks to google and a few nice cake designers and few referrals later I found Carrie Ann from Cake Dame.  She was simply amazing and the cake turned out absolutely perfect!

We were a little frantic trying to get everything set up but Amanda and I were able to get everything up in time and it looked so cute!

Ready to party!

I also worked really hard and made a picture video for Mike (thanks Stacy for letting me borrow your laptop so I didn't get caught!) and all of our guest loved seeing all the fun picture as we waited for Mike to arrive.  I used songs that had very special meaning to Mike and I am so happy with how it turned out!

I told Mike to pick me up at 3:15 (guests were supposed to arrive no later than 3pm) and for the first time in Mike's life he was EARLY!  What in the world!  Haha!  Luckily Grant and Carrie (with 3 kids in tow) ducked in the bushes before he noticed them.  When Mike called to say he was here I told him to come in and help me with Emmie.  Will had fallen asleep in the car so he hurried in and the second he saw my face he could tell I was guilty of something ;).  So I rushed him through the door before I had to really say much!

He was shocked!

Yay I did it!!

We had such a fun mix of people show up including family, friends, coworkers, even some old childhood friends.  It was so much fun to have everyone there celebrating with us!  The cake was definitely a crowd favorite!

I love this guy!!

Harper and Whitni (and hey there Amanda!)

Ryan, Heather, Ashley, Clark and Baby Tyce

Dustin and Dave

Madsen's

Mark, The Birthday Boy, and Seth

(note all of them with Mexican Coke and a Ding Dong!)

Remi, Alisha, SherRon, Brent, Stacy, Heather

There's that handsome Will!

Mike really was surprised and had no clue!  I kept asking him if he knew and finally he said if he HAD known he definitely would have at least showered ;)

Gammy Bev and Emmie

I sure do love these two!

The party turned out so cute and I hope it made things special for Mike's 30th birthday.  I had such a great time hosting and spending time with everyone who was able to make it to the party.  Mike is truly loved and it was so fun to have such a mix of people there showing him their support.  Thanks to everyone who helped and was able to attend.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKEY!!!