Dan's 30th Birthday!

(Bur first...) 

Father's Day!  We love our daddy-o!  Shortly after we took this picture, McKenna said, "Post it on Facebook."  Apparently that's important to her. :)

I've pretty much been planning (at least in my head), a surprise 30th birthday party for Dan for the past 3-4 years.  I knew that would be his "golden" birthday.  You know?  He'd turn 30 on the 30th (of June).  Three weeks prior to the big day, I sent out Facebook invites for the surprise party and also asked people to write a birthday wish, favorite memory, what they love about Dan, or advice for growing old to put in a special birthday book.  This was so fun for me to read about how much other people love and admire my wonderful husband and to read lots of funny memories about him as well.   

The week leading up to the party was VERY difficult for me.  It felt so unnatural and wrong for me to keep things a secret from Dan.  I usually tell him every little detail of my day so I had to either make things up, or leave things out.  SO not easy for me to do!  The day we went to the decoration store and began decorating at Dan's parent's house (the party location), McKenna just about spilled the beans.  I tried to play it off with a, "what is she talking about?" kind of thing.  So, the next day when I had to finish decorating, I knew Kenna needed to be somewhere else so she'd have something else to talk to daddy about when he got home from work.  Dan's sister was nice enough to let McKenna play at her house with cousin Whitney while Ben and I made the final finishing touches on the party set-up.  

Saturday morning, Dan's birthday, I did my usual morning run, hung a little banner on our fireplace, made a eggs and cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and Dan got to work with his cousin's husband installing a new bathroom fan for our master bath.  Then we did presents and just kind of hung out.  

Dan took McKenna out on a daddy daughter lunch date while I took Ben grocery shopping.  

We had plans to go to dinner that evening with his parents and then see the movie Avengers.  The problem was, Dan was having a difficult time choosing a restaurant to go to which made it hard to get reservations to make sure we'd be back in time for the designated surprise time.  He ended up choosing Cheesecake Factory with doesn't even take reservations.  Thankfully, his parents insisted we get there EARLY so we could eat at a decent hour.  I pretty much had "nervous tummy" all day and couldn't stop checking my phone during dinner to make sure we were ok on time (Dan thankfully didn't notice).  We ended up actually finishing dinner a little earlier than we needed too, so we had some down time to walk around City Creek.  My stomach was turning and turning waiting for the phone call from Dan's little brother giving us the reason for going home.  He called to tell his parents there was a pretty significant "leak" in their house and they needed to come home and check things out.  The drive home to the party was probably the worst part.  I could not relax!  I had told everyone to park at the church that is just down the road from the house so he wouldn't even suspect anything was up.  I was very pleased to see almost an entire row in the church parking lot full of cars!  

Here are some pictures of the some of the guests waiting for us to arrive.  The "Find my Friends" app on Dan's parent's iphones was fun for everyone to "follow" us home.  

We first walked in and saw Adam (who had made the "leak" phone call), and as he was leading us in to show us the "water damage" we heard this little guy let out a little yelp from the other room...

Dan stopped and was was very confused as to whose baby was there and crying.  He was only two steps away from the doorway and seeing everyone, so I just had to push him a little farther so everyone could yell, 

SURPRISE!!  Thanks, S-I-L Lara, for capturing this priceless moment!

FINALLY, my stomach could calm down!  It worked!  Everything worked!  He was so surprised!  

The little kids loved it so much, many of them asked if we could surprise him again. :) 

Love the JWinegar photo bomb.

The cake!

The treat spread! Thanks for everyone who helped bring all the desserts! 

Some of the guests

I was thinking once we got to the party that Dan would realize we would have to go see Avengers another time.  However, it just kind of worked out that no one could stay very long, so the party kind of cleared out just in time for us to still make the movie!  A BIG thanks to my sister for babysitting for us so we could have such a fun date night with a surprise party inserted in the middle!  

I love you, Dan!  Sorry I can't make every birthday as special as this even though you certainly deserve it.  I'm so glad you were born so I could marry you and be your other half!