"SURPRISE!!!"

Okay, okay.... as much as it pains me, tomorrow I will be.....uuggghhh.....29! And, as much as I'm really not looking forward to being 365 days away from 30 (tear), my wonderful husband actually found a way to make it enjoyable!

Our plan for last weekend was to go to our Upward b-ball practice Saturday morning, then spend the rest of the day hanging out, watching the UK basketball game, and walking around the mall shopping for my b-day gifts :).

The day went pretty much that way. We finished up practice, came home to let the girls out and change, and headed to the Red Robin for a yummy burger and to watch the game. At about half time, we walked around the mall and did some shopping. Then, we headed to Joanne Fabric's (that should have tipped me off, but I thought Wes was just going along with what I wanted to do since it was my b-day weekend). After some time browsing the hundreds of fabric options, we headed back to Shelbyville. I phoned my sister because her and her boyfriend had talked about coming to visit us that evening. (Little did I know, they were already at our house....) Once in Shelbyville, we stopped off at Wal-mart. At this point, it was about 6:00 pm. On the way home, Wes asked if I wanted to drive around a little bit, which is not unusual, we do that from time to time. We visited a couple subdivisions where we had looked at various houses when we house hunting, then headed home.

Before we got to our subdivision, Wes asked a somewhat unusual question: "Do you trust me?" While I was somewhat caught off guard by the question, I no reason to be suspicious, so I said, "Yeah, why?" He responded, "I'm going to ask you to do something and you just have to do it and trust me." I gave him a skeptical look and cautiously asked, "What?" He handed me his UK headband he wears around his ears when its cold and said, "Put this over your eyes and don't ask any questions." Of course I said "WHY?" Wes, being that he had obviously thought all this out, responded, "Because I ordered you a birthday gift and I think it might have gotten delivered while we were gone. I don't want you to see it when we pull in." Now, if I had any other hints that day or the weeks leading up to this, I might have suspected something was going on, but Wes and the rest of my family and friends did a good job keeping everything on the DL (down low), so I had no reason not to believe him. Plus, he is known to order gifts online and that really wasn't a stretch. So, I put on the blindfold just as we pulled into our subdivision. Once we reached our house, Wes said, "Yup, it got delivered, don't peek!"

He preceded to guide me out of the car and up the sidewalk to the front door, blindfolded. We reached the door, and right before he opened the door, he said, "You're going to be so mad at me!" and opened the door. I said, "Why?" as he pulled off my blindfold, then it all became clear as I heard, "SURPRISE!!!!" and looked around to see lots of friends and family!
This picture captured my reaction (Thanks, Penny!) As you can see, I had no idea or I would have dressed up a little! :)

I still don't know how he pulled off planning something like this without me catching on to him! My family helped too. They arrived to our house a couple hours after we left and decorated and prepared some snacks. Then everyone came and waited on us to arrive. The weirdest thing was know that all those people were there, at my house, without me home. I was like, "How long have you all been here??!" It was weird! But, it was great. I don't think I've ever been so surprised! If I had known all those people were going to be at my house, I would have been stressing about cleaning and planning and cooking and everything. It was nice to just have everything done for me and to just enjoy the company of great friends and family. I feel so blessed to have people in my life who care about me enough to do something like that for me. I am especially blessed to have a wonderful husband who loves me as much as he does! He said he was stressing the whole day! :) I also have my baby sister Holli to thank since, from what I've heard, it was her idea.

So, while I am in no way looking forward to turning 29 tomorrow, it is nice to know that in my old age, I have friends and family who love me! MUAH!