For the past few months there has been many a night of planning and organizing in our house and a few others too. Busy planning a surprise 50th Birthday for my Mother in-law, Shannon. This was one of the hardest surprise birthday parties to try to arrange, you see, Shannon knows everybodys routines and how they don't stray from them. So when Andy said he didn't want to race, Cody said he had to work, Jenn wasn't able to go to Edmonton to race and all of a sudden Melissa had to go to work on Saturday she had to have known that something was up.
Getting her out of the house was another chore. How often does Shannon get a call from Val to go out and get her hair done and have some lunch? Well lets say it doens't happen often she did finally agree to go but it was a lot later than we had hoped to get started setting up!
Lots of people helped get all the things lined up during the day, coming out to Bearspaw to help set up tents, chairs, pull the pork, cut the buns, set up the tiki bar, pick up and set up the Maragrita mixer, put up decorations and limbo bar, water Shannons flowers and Valet all the guests cars outta sight so it could still be a surprise.
The biggest tip off to her was when Andy called and said he was getting hungry and was wondering when she was coming home...that NEVER happens, he would work on the cars until midnight without coming in to eat if it were up to him! She came home wondering what was up but had no idea that all her family and friends would be there with a Luau set up in the back yard!
We had a delicious feast consisting of pulled pork, Huli Huli chicken, a few different salads and a spinach salad inside a watermelon, lots of fruit and a few different desserts including one cake(well actually 3) made by none other than my awesome wife.
So was she surprised you ask?
I still think she was! One of my favorite things was when she said "Is that Ben and Donna here, you said you were racing!"
Happy 50th Shannon from all of us, hope you had a great time!
Here's a few photos from the night. Enjoy.
